Member of the Week - dreamzkp - Page 9

Oh yes! It is indeed a blessing if in laws can get along and even care for each other.

It's a pity that even today some women think they have an upper hand simply by the virtue of being a boy's mother.Respect should be mutual on humanitarian grounds.

As far as respect or tolerance is concerned,when we talk of equality, to me it is for the parents of the boy and girl.Not the DIL and MIL. In this case atleast I feel that seniority does command more respect.

Also it's very important how the advice is given to a young DIL.This thing about not discussing one's family matters with one's parents is not wrong advice but the woman who gives this advice should lead by example.
Actually any girl who genuinely takes pride in belonging to a family will not degrade her in laws in front of her parents.
Not telling/telling one's mother about one's husband's family by no means indicates distance/closeness.
Actually before any action we must put ourselves in that person's place and then think and act.We will surely be more fair in our judgement.

I am not talking of extreme cases here...it does not mean a girl has to put up with insults,mental torture or any ill treatment and not confide in her parents.She must be mature to evaluate the seriousness of a situation.

Also these discussions don't give us a right to judge anyone,after all we are all expressing from our experiences.
This gives rise to a new topic...Who exactly is a feminist...I mean how does one define a feminist?
Interested anyone? Guys welcome with their views. 😊 II listening???

We could discuss this seperately in another thread,but in this section

Cheers
Akshata

Hey, PM's don't work so well for discussions.
Lets just start a new thread here.
SREE dear where are you??
The one's not interested will not participate and that will leave the section to the discussion lovers 😉
What say??

Well said, Akshata. Let's keep this active. Sree must be held up with something else.

Friends,

Don't wanna miss your wonderful participation. Please be active as always. 😊

So friends,we are finally winding up our last thread on MOW. Dear Kiran,congrats for some great posts and discussions you started.All of us here at the forum wish you the very best and may all your DREAMZ come true.

Sree is a little busy and asked me to do this on her behalf.
But for those who have loved the section not just for Astitva,please look out for the new thread "The Thinkers".

Good luck and Cheers
On behalf of the Adminis.Group
Astitva Section.

I vote for this section of IF to be kept alive -- now for the "ASTITVA" of each one of us.

I would like to thank each one of you again for your participation. Will remember this for life time. 😳

Let's keep "The Thinkers" active as always. Who knows..one of us might come up with a book on relationships as our "Relationships Expert" Abhimanyu Saxena. 😉 See you all there. My best wishes for all of you and your families.

Take care, Keep smiling and don't forget "Be Happy" 😊

Originally posted by: Akshata

Oh yes! It is indeed a blessing if in laws can get along and even care for each other.

It's a pity that even today some women think they have an upper hand simply by the virtue of being a boy's mother.Respect should be mutual on humanitarian grounds.

As far as respect or tolerance is concerned,when we talk of equality, to me it is for the parents of the boy and girl.Not the DIL and MIL. In this case atleast I feel that seniority does command more respect.

Also it's very important how the advice is given to a young DIL.This thing about not discussing one's family matters with one's parents is not wrong advice but the woman who gives this advice should lead by example.
Actually any girl who genuinely takes pride in belonging to a family will not degrade her in laws in front of her parents.
Not telling/telling one's mother about one's husband's family by no means indicates distance/closeness.
Actually before any action we must put ourselves in that person's place and then think and act.We will surely be more fair in our judgement.

I am not talking of extreme cases here...it does not mean a girl has to put up with insults,mental torture or any ill treatment and not confide in her parents.She must be mature to evaluate the seriousness of a situation.

Also these discussions don't give us a right to judge anyone,after all we are all expressing from our experiences.
This gives rise to a new topic...Who exactly is a feminist...I mean how does one define a feminist?
Interested anyone? Guys welcome with their views. 😊 II listening???

We could discuss this seperately in another thread,but in this section

Cheers
Akshata

Akshata I completely agree with you that degrading in-lawas does not indicate clsoeness or otherwise. But what Rama says is that her mom-in-law wants to take the place of her mom and does not want her to disucss anything with her parents - not confide in her parents, etc. To that kind of behaviour I strongly disagree..I am still very very close to my parents and discuss all my problems (not degrading in-laws, general problems) with them.. Even before I got married I told my dad that I can tolerate anything, but NOT insults hurled at my parents, or they being treated in an unequal footing. I threatened my dad and told him that if he acts submissive in front of my in-laws JUST because he is the girl's dad I would not get married, lol! I still believe that one does not become superior just because they happen to give brith to a son. Also, I strongly believe that a girl's relationship with her parents does not change after marriage. Likewise just as a girl should not degrade her in-laws after marriage, the same applies to the boy who should not be degrading his in-laws after marriage with his parents. Just my viewpoints.

I have a lot of experiences (bad ones) - personal or heard from close friends and family members that i can share, but i wont...i treat it all as bygones. However, i totally agree with what Chukkna said. If the husband is supportive, then there is a point in even putting up with this kind of behavior. I can cite more than one example where there was ZERO support from in-laws and even from the husband eventually leading to the death of the marriage.

Here is a quick example - the wife complaints to her in-laws who have forcefully visited them at a completely inconvenient time that "please dont interfere and take sides with your son, when you have no idea what is going on in our lives" and "that if this marriage is to work, he has to be more sensitive to my needs". And their response is "Itna bura lagta hai hamara beta tou chhod ke chali jaao...kaun rok raha hai tumhe?" How can one be expected to forget such a comment??

Another quick example - the girl for some reason has a miscarriage and instead of empathizing with her, the in-laws say something like "tumne zaroor kuchh aisa kiya hoga jiski vajah se bacha gir gaya...koi nahin, abhi tou tum chhoti ho...ekaade mahine mein phir se try kar lena!!!!!!!"

I am not saying that all in-laws are like this...but I have heard a similar sentiment expressed by more than one girl leading me to think that in conservative Indian households, this apathy is more commonly observed! I feel that as long as the in-laws dont understand and accept that this girl in their son's life is the person he is going to spend the rest of his life with (even after they pass away) - they can never make life easy for their DILs. Anyways, this discussion is one of those, where i cannot be impartial in giving my opinions so i am going to stop here...but i really do think that the discussion and everyone's views are very good!

Originally posted by: chukkna

Hi Akshata,

I think when I said that I am not 100% submissive and I believe in equal rights, people are getting me wrong here. Let me give you examples of what I mean by equaly rights:

If your Son-in-law come and stay with you in vacations for a month and so on. then you should let your son also stay at his IL's place for some time. What is wrong if the girl expects this much? She just wishes him to know her family people in a better way. When she has given up everything for their family, what fear do they have?

By equal rights I mean, if you love your son so much, you should keep you DIL also happy, cos you are talking to your dearest son's life, which in turn will make their own son happy?

Wont you expect people to praise you for your talent, be it art, music or would you expect them to compare you to someone in their family and prove how good they are compared to you?

All I am saying is that DIL is also a human being and has emotions. In general, IL's shd realise that someone is coming from a distinct family and should be given all the love and respect. See everyone is at home, only DIL comes to a new home. If we have a guest, dont we make them comfortable. If your IL's come to your place, don't you make sure that they feel at home and give them all respect and love? There is no need to compare with your parents and spoil the mood and relationship.

Who is more experienced MIL or DIL? Who is more mature: MIL or DIL? When you phone your MIL from here to India and she asks you what did you cook for dinner and you would say that you were tired so just made dal and roti, for a change, what do you expect to hear? Do you want to hear "Oh, thats fine, once in a while" OR " What are you guys eating? You shpould eat curries everyday". When you say "We bought dinner from a near joint" . Do you expect to hear "You are very lavisg and spending all your money like this"???

Well... we can just go on and on. Though the relation will get better with time, but do you think the bitterness of the begining will ever get over. Why do you have to start a relationship on these norms when you know that the new inclusion in family will be there forever, when you know that you have given your son's responsibility to this new person?

Would you call only the one, who suceeded to win their IL's heart a winner? Would you call a person a loser, if she failed to make a space in her IL's place? Who is at fault? There can be 1000 questions.

These are the problems that are faced by many Indian DILs, even in this age and this could be because of lack of education. I am sure in an educated world, moving forward these would be resolved.

I won my IL's hearts. People do give our example in their family of a good MIL-DIL.

But the fact is, yes I did face these issues and I do have bitter experiences.

Hi Rama,

I am sorry if I have hurt your feelings while giving my views.Honestly,my comments were not just in reply to your posts.Also I feel you may have missed some other posts of mine.

And most importantly I have not judged you by your views or your relationship with your MIL.It is obvious that you have had to work very hard to have a good relationship with your MIL.

You are absolutely right about equal rights.If you read my earlier post that's exactly what I said.The same rules of loyalty and respect apply to both families. I was talking of being more respectful to the MIL ,because frankly that is what is expected of younger people in our culture.Even when our parents are wrong we are expected to show our disagreement in a respectful manner. I think when there are outbursts we normally go and apologise for our behaviour not for the stand we may have taken. But unfortunately we can't do this with our in laws.

It takes years to build a good relationship but just one moment to ruin it.

I think the basis of our discussion was that we have to work towards building a good relationship.Very few,perhaps 1% are great right from the beginning.

And haven't you done just that inspite of facing some mean behaviour?I NEVER meant to make any personal remarks. I am sorry if I sounded like that.

And as far a winner/loser is concerned,the person who tried really hard is the winner,no matter what the outcome is.Because the person who has been strongheaded and refused to be reasonable is losing out on a good family member.A mean person will always be mean.

Just because I share a loving relationship does not mean I do not see others' or understand their problems with their in laws.

But believe me it did not come on a platter. I have definitely been patient,but yes I am lucky to have good in laws because people have to be good to recognise another person's goodness and appreciate it.

I have seen very nice girls being treated shabbily and I have seen some wonderful parents being treated badly.So,it all depends which side of the fence one is.

But one thing is for sure,a reasonable and genuinely good MIL and husband/in laws will definitely try to make the new girl feel at home,because like you said it's the bride who leaves her family of say, atleast 20 yrs or more. The boy,if he is living with his parents has to make very few adjustments.In fact he gets one more person to fuss over him.

The important thing is that if we have managed to change a situation/relationship for the better, we should try to forget the bitter past.I know it's not easy and it's not even advice to anyone,just the way I think to keep my peace of mind.

It's not easy but it is a fact that we cannot be in control of others' actions but we can be responsible for our feelings.

This is not directed to anyone in particular,but it's a mail I received from someone.Made a lot of sense to me.

Not just Rama,if I have offended anyone,please accept my apology.

Akshata

Way to go Rama 👏.I really wish you success in your endeavour to bring about a cordial relationship.You already are a winner.Not many care these days,specially when the MIL has been nasty to one's parents.
I'm so glad we cleared the air.Quite relieved to hear that. 🤗
And you know what? We have to keep that 1% distance to maintain a good relationship.NO ONE can replace one's mother.
Cheers,
Akshata