When one door closes, another opens – Harita’s real-life story

Here is a timeline of how a good relationship with in-laws turned into one made out of a nightmare….

I have a wonderful husband. But his family, mostly his mother, have done nothing but made my life a living nightmare since 2017.

It’s a long story but please bear with me as I say what’s happened over the last few years… to this day I am confused about why I got treated this way and it has taken away my faith and trust in humans, and definitely explains why I never get emotionally attached to anyone anymore.  It’s better not to get attached than it does to get hurt by the people who should care the most, when they can pretend they’ve done nothing wrong to you, and you end up having to pick up your life and start all over again just for the sake of your own mental health and sanity.

For some background, I’m 35 and my husband is 36. He is a Melbourne born Punjabi. I’m a New Zealand born Gujarati (we are both Hindu). His parents migrated from India a year before Hemant was born. My mum is second generation New Zealand born Gujarati and dad migrated from India in 1984 when he married mum.

This is probably not too important in the story- or maybe it is?  My parents owned a mini supermarket for over 30 years and just recently retired, in 2016.  Hemant’s parents used to own a restaurant until about 13 years ago, then they sold it ( I still don’t know why..) and his mum decided not to go back to work, so she has been retired since she was about 50, and Hemant’s dad works as a chef in 2 different restaurants, working 6 days a week. When we first met, I thought our parents had a lot in common because they both knew was it was like to be self employed and to be born in India but living in the western world.  But to be honest, that’s probably where their similarities ended.  And in the end, the differences were too big.

Retiring too early in life doesn’t do anyone any favours.  It seems to ruin their state of mind when they are home alone a lot and don’t much to do and don’t have many responsibilities – because Hemant, his sister and dad were always at work, but his mum was always at home.  She has lived in Melbourne since the mid 1980’s – they moved not long after getting married, and Hemant was born a few years later, but they have no non-Indian friends, and quite honestly, lives as though they’re still in India.  She has a close group of friends, but no hobbies or interests. Which I always found very odd.  They are financially stable, she’s not that old, her health is ok, she can drive and speak English, but has no hobbies. Any other 50 something year old woman who was healthy and retired would have so many hobbies and be so content with life!  The difference between her and her friends is that they all still work- a lot of them own restaurants, and the others work in post shops, offices etc.  She is the only one on the group who does not work.  I truly believe that working helps people keep their mind ticking and busy, and it also forces you to socialise with people outside of your circle of friends, and you learn how to interact with different ethnicities etc, and it makes you a kinder person when you understand these things.  She also didn’t even do the gardening at their house.  They didn’t have a huge garden, and most people do their own gardens when it is easy maintenance, but even this was done by a gardener.  I just found it so strange that all she liked to do was watch Indian tv, and cook.  She was adamant to cook fresh food, and definitely fresh roti, every single day.  Which I guess is fine if you stay at home and don’t work.  But she just seemed to have no personality at all?  Is that normal?

 

April 2016 to June 2017-

I moved to Melbourne (from New Zealand) in 2014 because I was engaged to someone who lived in Melbourne.  Unfortunately that relationship ended a few months after I moved to Melbourne.  I met Hemant in April 2016 (ironically, through shaadi.com).  His family friend Raman had set up a profile for him and he expressed interest in me – later on I realised it was Raman monitoring the page and he would later show Hemant profiles) and I got to know his family quite quickly into the relationship, I think I had met them all by May.   His family made me feel so happy and I thought I fit right in. They included me in everything they did and always invited me to their house for dinner and to functions the family was invited to. As someone who had moved from NZ to Melbourne a few years earlier, with no family there, I was so happy I found someone with a welcoming family. He also has a sister 2 years younger than me, and I thought she would become the sister I never had, even though we have very different personalities.  I had thought, she is only 2 years younger than me and I had always wished I had a sister or female cousin close to my age, and I finally had it in her.  I had thought I fit right in and I used to dream about me and Shivani becoming sisters and doing lots of things together. Hemant also has a lot of family friends close to our age in Melbourne, and because he didn’t have much extended family in Melbourne, they treated these people like their family.   I felt happy that I finally had people in the family my age. As some more background- my brother is 6 years younger than me and my cousins in NZ are all male and at least 10 years younger than me and the cousins that are anywhere close to my age all live in USA and Canada so I barely know them.  I had always wanted to be part of a family with siblings or cousins close to my age because it was something I never had when I was growing up. This is something I always used to wish for when I was younger because people all around me seemed to have lots of cousins and family and my family was all so much older than me. I thought of his mum as “my Melbourne mum” because my own parents live in New Zealand.  She was much more traditional than my own mum, given that she was from India and mum was from NZ, but had welcomed me into her life, family, and society which I was so grateful for.  Being a part of his family made me feel like Melbourne was home, and like I had family who cared about me in that city.  For these 14 months, I truly felt like I had found my second family and I felt like I belonged.

 

December 2016

Hemant and his mum went to India for a few weeks, Hemant had gone for a close friends wedding, and his mum went to visit family, I think she went to India every 2 or 3 years.  Hemant’s dad and Shivani didn’t go, and they stayed home.  Hemant told me his dad was going to have a procedure for a heart issue in the time they were going to be away, and I wondered why his mum went to India knowing he was going to have this procedure?  It’s not like she was going for a wedding or a function, so shouldn’t she stay here to take care of him when he recovers?  Just seemed very selfish to me.  So I messaged Shivani and told her to let me know if she needed help with anything while they were away.  In that 3 and a half weeks, she only bothered contacting me once.  She messaged me asking if I would be free to come over for dinner the day their dad was having the procedure.  She asked only 2 or 3 days in advance – I honestly hate when people ask to make plans at the last minute.  But because she is Hemant’s sister, I cancelled the plans I already had, and I said yes I will come over, and let me know if theres’ anything you want me to bring.  We actually ended up having a really good conversation about lots of different things, and I felt like I was finally getting to know her after dating Hemant for 8 months.  I told her to message me if she wants to catch up again, and she said she would message me in a few days to plan something- and she never did.  So I just put it down to her being busy, then Hemant and his mum came back a few days before Christmas.

May 2017-

Hemant and Shivani had never been close, and it was something that was always on my mind because I wanted to be close to her.  I remember when Hemant first met my mum, she asked him if he’s close to Shivani, and he said yes.  But over time, and after going to their house many times, I noticed besides living in the same house, they are not close at all.   I thought it was odd because I am close with my brother who is almost 6 years younger than me, who I haven’t lived with since 2014 yet we still make the effort to be close. But these two have less than a 4 year age gap and they barely spoke to each other except when Shivani needed Hemant to do something.  I had thought it was funny that she commented to Hemant about not being invited to my birthday drinks in 2016 (when I had only been dating Hemant for 2 months and had only met her a few times), but since then I had made a lot more of an effort with her as I got to know the family better, but just didn’t get anything in response.  I remember once, I told Hemant we should go out for brunch or coffee with her, and he texted her about it, she read the message and didn’t reply.  We didn’t hear back for at least a week, then literally the day before she asked what the plan was.  We had already made other plans by then and assumed she wasn’t interested.   I had tried many times to chat to her and include her in my life, but if I put it simply- she is a coconut.  Brown on the outside, white on the inside.  And her priorities were always elsewhere.  No interest in my life or getting to know me and I kept feeling like I was the only one making an effort with her.  Even when she would catch up with Vidhi and Sammy and the ladies our age in their family friend circle, she would never invite me.  And she barely talked to me when I was at their house either.  But I kept thinking that’s ok, it’ll take time to become close, as long as I keep making an effort with her, I’m doing the right thing.  After all, it is always expected in Indian culture that the girlfriend/daughter in law etc has to make more effort to fit in to her in laws family rather than them having to make an effort with her, so I couldn’t expect an immediate friendship when she wasn’t even close to her own brother.

Shivani rang Hemant when she was at work one day, a few days after Mothers day 2017, begging him to pick her up from the train station after work, so we knew something had happened, because usually their mum picks her up from the station.  We had other plans, but I told Hemant we can cancel them because this seems important.  We picked her up and she was in tears.  It turned out she had a white, Australian boyfriend, and when she tried to tell their mum a few days before Mothers day, she threatened to kick her out of the house and give back every gift Shivani had ever given her, if she didn’t break up with him.  So she was asking us for help because she was scared she would be disowned.  We both felt quite offended because we didn’t even know she had a boyfriend, and to know that she had already told her family friends (she mentioned Vidhi and Sammy liked him when they met him) about him first, and introduced them to him, but she only told us when she needed help, was quite a blow to the face.  Hemant didn’t say much, because I could see how upset he was that she hadn’t cared to tell him until she needed his help.

 

I had always seen how he was the good older brother, but he didn’t get much in return from her and how much this hurt him, that yet again, she was only talking to him when she needed his help.  I told her she can stay at my flat for a few days if she wants to give her parents space, or I can talk to their mum for her.  Since things were good between me and their mum, I thought she might understand where I’m coming from.  I remember Shivani thanking me for understanding so clearly.  At this point, I thought, maybe this is what it takes for us to be close.  I had thought it was odd that the weekend before that- Mother’s day weekend, Shivani and her mum were constantly avoiding each other in the house when I had been over at their house, now I realised why.  However, within a few weeks, things seemed to get better between Shivani and their parents, and I think their mum was accepting her relationship which was nice to see.  Hemant told me a few weeks later that their mum told him “she’s my daughter so I need to be happy for her, or I’ll lose her”.

 

June 2017

Shivani went away for Queens birthday weekend.  She had told her mum she was going on a girls trip.  Hemant and I have Shivani on facebook, and I had seen a photo of her and Tim uploaded to her facebook page that same weekend at Squeky beach, with the caption “our debut” or something similar.  So it was pretty clear she had gone away with Tim.  When she got back from the trip, her mum asked her how the trip was and if they all had fun.  And Shivani was making up some story about the friends she went with.  She doesn’t have her mum on social media, so her mum had no idea she was lying.  I was sitting in the lounge with them while they were having this conversation and I was in shock because I have never had to lie to my parents like this.  I looked at Hemant and Shivani and Shivani looked back at me, as if to say, don’t say anything.  I am friends with my parents and can always tell them the truth.  I wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt if I lied to my parents like this.  But Hemant told me it’s not my place to get involved, and if Shivani wants to lie, just let her, it’s not our issue.  And I thought, she’s probably just lying because their parents are still learning to accept Tim, so it would hurt them if they know she spent the weekend away with him.

 

June 2017

We dated for just over a year before he proposed to me, the day before my birthday in June 2017. When we were dating, Hemant and his family were wonderful to me. No arguments, disagreements, nothing.  I had felt nothing but love from all of them.  Shivani and I weren’t that close, but we did have very different personalities, so I didn’t look into it too much.  Whenever I went to their house, she was usually in her bedroom or not at home, but whenever she was, we were always on friendly terms.  I still felt like the family and their close group had accepted me, and that’s all hat really mattered.

 

The proposal was definitely a spectacular one.  We went on a helicopter ride the day before my 29th birthday and he had my closest friends and his family on St. Kilda beach with a huge hand painted “marry me” sign on the beach.  I was definitely on top of the world and felt like the luckiest lady alive.  His family seemed so happy for us too so I never suspected they didn’t like me.  They all hugged me and we went out for brunch after the proposal.  Hemant’s mum had even gone as far as asking me to come over to her house a few weeks after we got engaged, when she had a kitty party with her friends so she could show all her friends the engagement ring.  Maybe I should’ve realised this was only so she could show off the ring she had bought for me from India?  I don’t think it was about me at all in hindsight.  She was looking for compliments about the expensive ring she had bought (I don’t know how much it cost, but I can guess by looking at it)

I thought his family were really happy for us when we got engaged, but a few months later, Hemant told me he had actually wanted to propose a few months earlier than when he did, during a holiday we took to Queenstown in March 2017.  He told me he had booked the helicopter ride and planned how he wanted to propose before our trip, and he had told my best friend all about it to check it would be what I wanted. But before we left for Queenstown, his mum said he’s not ready to get married and she refused to give him the engagement ring (which was in a safe at a bank that only she has access to), so he had to cancel the proposal plans because he was not given access to the ring.  I started wondering why did she think that we weren’t ready for marriage in March 2017, but all of a sudden she was OK with the idea in June 2017?  She includes me in the family, she is nice to my face, and has never said she has a problem with me to my face, never even argued with me, so why was she being difficult with Hemant behind my back?  He was 30, it’s not like he was young or immature.  So many of his friends were in long term relationships and getting married, as well as so many of his parents friends kids.  It’s not like we were doing anything out of line.  Hemant told me he stood up for himself a few months after she refused to first give the ring to him and told his mum he was ready to get married and forced her to give him the ring before he proposed on my birthday in June 2017.  What I found quite odd was that he had brought the ring with his mum when they went to India in December 2016, so his mum knew since then that he wanted to get married to me.  It’s not like she didn’t know about the ring.  His parents and sister were at the proposal and they seemed happy.  They hugged me, welcomed me into the family, and genuinely seemed happy that we were engaged. So I thought there was no point in bringing up this stuff after Hemant had told me because it was in the past and would be an awkward conversation and I didn’t want to cause arguments.  But this was always in my mind, because I didn’t know why she had her doubts about me?  I’m the same religion as them, I speak Gujarati, have a good family- (I think she had met mum when she had come to Melbourne a few months earlier because I remember us going out for brunch one day, and I’m sure dad had met them too because I remember us all going for brunch at Raman’s café one day), I do a lot of indian things, I’m educated etc etc… if she had a problem with me, why couldn’t she talk to me or my parents about it?

 

August 2017-

Two months after we got engaged, Hemant’s car was broken into from right outside my flat (which was a 5 minute drive from his parents’ house- I lived with a few friends) while we were inside the house, and I got really freaked out. My flat mates used to have a bad habit of not locking the front door and I started getting paranoid that someone would break into our flat. If a burglar was crazy enough to break into Hemant’s car from outside my flat, the same person might just try their luck and walk into my flat if the door is not locked.  We had got home around 11pm and went to bed.  Around 1am my flatmate knocked on my door saying they had just got home and they saw one of Hemant’s car windows had been smashed.  So this had happened within 2 hours when we were inside the house.  The burglar had completely cleared out everything in Hemant’s car, and even to my own bad luck, my entire dance groups costumes for a performance we were supposed to be doing a week after were stolen from the car, as well as a lot of Hemant’s things, as he used his car every day for work so it became like a second wardrobe for him.  He even had keys for some properties he was supposed to be showing tenants the day after in the car (he occasionally worked Saturdays) that were stolen, so he was really panicking after this break in.  Hemant’s parents were the first people we called because we were so shocked.  They came over and just seemed really annoyed that we disrupted their night and kept telling Hemant off for leaving so many valuable things in his car.  He was already regretting all this, so they really didn’t need to make him feel worse than he already did.  We called the police who came quickly after, and after we filled the report, Hemant’s mum said “good now I can go home and back to sleep” and they left.  Not once did she ask if we were ok, or really show any care.  She made it all about herself when we were already feeling really bad.  My 3 flat mates had been friends with each other for a long time and also went away for weekends quite often so I would be home alone a lot, which until this point, I had no issues with. Hemant must have seen this paranoia on my face after the break in because he told me to stay with him and his family for a while until I feel better. At first I resisted because I thought, no, I need to learn to get over this myself, break ins happen all the time.  He persisted so much, and ended up packing a bag for me, so I decided I was only going to stay for a week.   This decision later ended up being probably the worst decision of my life.

 

That Friday and been my last day at a job and I was starting a new job in a suburb that wasn’t very familiar to me on the Monday, and instead of spending the weekend preparing for my new job and getting my car etc ready – because I was planning to drive to work most days, we spent the weekend cleaning up Hemant’s car.  What was really strange, was his parents or Shivani never bothered asking him if he needed help.  We had put the car in the garage at his parents house. The whole time we were cleaning the car, his family were just inside the house but never asked if we needed help.  It’s like it was just expected he had to sort it out himself.  We had to arrange getting the smashed window fixed asap because Hemant used his car for work everyday.  I knew if this had happened to me, my parents would definitely show a lot more care and offer to help.  This whole time, his mum was literally in the lounge just watching tv while we were cleaning up broken class and trying to sort the car out in the garage.

 

I had planned to only stay at their house for a few days, but I was so tired every day after work because the new job was full on and there was a lot to learn.  So I thought I would just go back to my flat that weekend when I had more time.  That weekend, Hemant kept asking me to stay longer because he liked having me at their house, and he thought his family liked it too.  He kept saying, I was pretty much at their house all the time except to sleep anyway, so this wasn’t much different. It turned into 6 weeks because we had a few busy weekends, and I couldn’t be bothered arguing everytime I tried to go back to my flat and he asked me to stay longer, so I just thought oh fine one more week won’t hurt.  His parents and sister knew why I was staying there, but not once did any of them ask me if I was mentally OK after the car break in, having hundreds of dollars of dance costumes stolen, or anything of the sort.  I thought, that’s OK, at least they care about me enough to let me stay at their house.

 

I was finally supposed to go back to my flat after 4-5 weeks but I had come down with a really bad cold during the week and by this point, I had more clothes, toiletries etc at Hemants house than in my flat so it was going to be a headache to take all my things back home when it was raining all weekend as well.  And during the week we were usually too busy with work, gym etc so Hemant told me to stay a few more days and move back when my cold got better.  Hemants mum seemed to care, she was telling me to rest, giving me medicines etc etc.  Then a few days later, I think it was during the weekend I was still quite sick, I was studying in the dining room, and his mum was in her room and she called Hemant upstairs.  I could hear their conversation easily, and she was saying “why is Harita still staying here, she’s been here too long and I don’t want her living here before marriage”.  I was sitting in the dining room thinking, wtf, surely she knows I can hear her?  Their conversation continued, and I could hear Hemant defending me, and truthfully blaming himself since he was the one asking me to stay, but she didn’t seem to believe him?  So eventually I just yelled “I can hear your conversation, instead of talking behind my back why don’t you just talk to me directly?”.  They both come downstairs and she says “I’m uncomfortable with you living in my house before marriage. If you don’t feel safe in your flat, go find another house to live in, not here. You’ve been here for over 5 weeks and that makes me very uncomfortable.  What will my friends and family say if they find out you are living here before marriage?  I am not ok with that.  I need to prepare for your rokka, and I can’t prepare when you are in the house”.  I don’t even know what was to prepare?  Our rokka was going to be just our 2 families, there was nothing to organise!  I tried explaining my side to her and she kept saying “I’m hindu, I don’t believe in living together before marriage”.  How offensive.  I’m also Hindu- did she forget?  I told her, I’m not living there.  I’m still paying rent for my flat, and I sleep in their spare bedroom.  I haven’t moved in.  And I told her it was Hemant who kept asking me to stay, and her response was “stop blaming Hemant for your mistakes”.  What the…  he even said “no mum, that’s true.  Harita didn’t want to stay here but I kept telling her to stay here longer”.  She just kept trying to blame me.  So I just said “that’s fine, I’ll go back home right now, I know where I’m not wanted”.  Then she got frustrated, and got up and left the house.  She didn’t say anything and got into her car and drove off.  Hemant and I were left wondering what to do.  I told him I should just pack my things and go back home before she got home, I didn’t want to make things worse.  He said no, it’s late and it’s raining, don’t  be silly.  We can talk to her when she comes back and you can go back home later in the week.  She came home half an hour later, and seemed to have cooled down.  I said “I’m sorry we were arguing,  Next time if you have a problem with me, can you talk to me directly instead of talking to Hemant about it because I would rather sort problems out before they become big” and she said yes ok, I will.  Honestly, this had been our first argument in the 16 months I had been dating Hemant.  So I thought that’s ok, we will improve from here.

 

Shivani and their dad weren’t at home when this argument had happened, so Hemant texted Shivani and told her what happened.  He told her the way their mum spoke to me was not right and how she blamed me for something that was his mistake.  He asked her to talk to their mum because she listened to Shivani a lot more than she listened to him.  The next evening, Hemant and I were watching  TV upstairs, and Shivani and their mum were downstairs.  A little while later, Shivani left the house, and their mum came upstairs and says “You’re not my daughter and you never will be, so don’t expect me to treat you like one” and goes into her bedroom and shuts the door. To say I have never felt so unloved is an understatement.  I couldn’t believe how quickly she had turned 180 degrees on me as if I was no one to her.  She was clearly embarrassed that Hemant told Shivani what had happened the day before.  She was probably hoping it would just stay between us and Shivani and their dad would never find out.  So now she’s letting her anger out on me.  Note, I had been sleeping in their guest bedroom this whole time, at work and out of the house most of the time, and still paying rent for my flat. Plus I was only staying at his house because he kept asking me to and saying his family were fine with it!  It wasn’t my choice to stay there for so long. They were only 4 people living in a 5 bedroom house, it’s not like I was in anyone’s way, considering I worked full time and was out of the house most the time.  Also, how would friends and family find out I’m staying there unless she tells them?  Whenever visitors come over, they only come downstairs, I was sleeping in the upstairs guest bedroom so none of my things were downstairs.  And usually, I would be at their house until 9pm so visitors were used to seeing me at their house.  When we were just dating, Hemant’s mum always used to say she wanted me to live in the house after marriage because they had such a big house and his sister would eventually move out when she gets married etc.  It was ironic to see how quickly it all changed.  I had known things were too good to be true up to this point, and now this was reality.

What made all this hurt even more, was that my friend, had recently got engaged to Hemants friend.  She had moved to Melbourne for the relationship and she had no family in Melbourne.  She moved in June 2017, the weekend they got engaged, and she was supposed to go flatting, but him and and his parents told her to just move in with them, because they were already engaged anyway, so what was the point in living separately when she would move in when they get married anyway?  It just seemed like a polar opposite to me, and it hurt so much that she was being treated with so much love from her in in laws, the same time mine were abusing and harrassing me.  Her in laws were showing her so much love and including her in the house and family, where my in laws were pushing me away even though I had been with Hemant for a year and half by now, and knew all the people close to them in Melbourne..  I can’t explain how sad it made me to realise his mum would never treat me like a daughter.  Her society and friends were much more important to her than my feelings or the way she was treating me.  I even mentioned this to Hemant’s mum because she knew this friend, and she just said “I don’t care how other families live, this is my family and my house and this is against my values”.  I got really upset and told Hemant we should just call the engagement off if his mum was going to talk to me like this.  I took my engagement ring off and gave it back to him and told him I’m going back to my flat.  He then yelled out to his mum and said “mum look at what you’ve done now” and he was crying. She then says “stop crying like a kid, be a man” and kept asking me “what’s your problem now” so I told her how she had made me feel and how it had hurt me.  My now, Hemant’s dad and Shivani had come home, and they were both telling him off for making this into a big deal.  No one told the mum off though?  When it was actually her making this into a big deal, not us.  Eventually I said, it’s late and we have work tomorrow, I need to sleep and can we just finish this discussion another day.

This heated discussion (I would rather call it that instead of an argument) was all 2 weeks before our rokka (Indian engagement ceremony), which my parents were coming from New Zealand for. I ended up going back to my flat the day after this discussion because I was so uncomfortable with how she spoke to me and how unloved I felt in that moment.  She was in her room upstairs when I left so I just said “bye aunty’ really loudly before leaving.  Later on, Hemant told me she told him “Harita is so rude, she didn’t even say thankyou to me for letting her stay here for so long”.  How did she still not realise how hurtful her actions had been?  I wasn’t exactly in the state of mind to say thankyou to someone who had yelled at me and told me I’m not her daughter the day before.  I To this day, I cannot describe how her words made me feel as if I didn’t exist and my feelings didn’t matter.   In a year in half, that was the first time I realised she isn’t my mum and never will be.  On top of that, to see how my father and sister in law, or anyone in Hemant’s family, never reached out to me to see if I was ok, was like a stab to the heart, when I knew I had been there for Shivani when she needed our help, and I had always made an effort with their family.  But when the roles were reversed, it’s like they were too busy to care.

September 2017-

I didn’t go to their house for a week or so because I thought space might help the situation.  A week later, Hemant asks me to go over for dinner, and it was a Thursday, so it was Hemant’s dad’s day off work so he was at home.  Hemant’s mum starts telling us she wants to postpone our rokka because “things are not right”. Seriously. My parents had already booked flights and a hotel for 10 days to come for the rokka.  Even though my parents were retired, flights and accomodation are not cheap. I asked her to ring my parents and talk to them, she refused.   I told my parents what was going on, and I cannot count the number of tears I had cried that week.  I had finally thought my life was falling in place, then my mother in law puts her own agenda well above mine and Hemant’s future, and she had to be the centre of attention.

 

As my parents had already booked their trip, and luckily they are retired so no annual leave from work was required, they arrived as planned a week later and we managed to convince his parents to go ahead with the rokka. My father in law sat there like a mute, as if he had no voice.  My mother in law did all the talking and reluctantly said ok, but she also said she had already told all her friends and family it had been cancelled.  She had decided it was cancelled without asking me, Hemant or my family, I just don’t know how someone could do this when she can’t simply be happy for her son?  We went ahead with the rokka, even though it was only immediate family and not a huge event in the first place since we had been engaged for 3 months anyway.   The friends she had originally invited ended up not coming since she had told them it was cancelled, and in the meantime, they made other plans to go to a family friends baby shower. But that was ok, as a rokka is not supposed to be a big function.  It is only supposed to be the 2 immediate families.  For whatever reason, she had hired someone to cook food for the rokka even though we kept insisting it did not need to be a big or formal event, but if that was what made her happy, that’s fine, I wasn’t going to be fussy.  During the whole rokka, she just looked so angry.  At one point the sari she gifted me almost fell off my lap because so many things were on my lap while we were sitting during the rokka and she yelled at me to make sure my sari didn’t fall on the floor.  I can’t explain how sad and upset I was with all this and to see how fast my mother in law was turning her back on us.  Something that should have been a special day for Hemant and I, became all about her and her cold heart.

After the rokka she tells Hemant not to put any photos on social media because she had told her friends and family the rokka was postponed and since it ended up going ahead, she hadn’t got a chance to tell them it did go ahead. I just thought ok whatever that’s fine, I won’t just to keep the peace. A week later some of her friends come over to their house while I was there (I used to go over almost every day) and commented on the big bunch of flowers on the dining table. She says “we gave them to Shivani (Hemant’s sister) for her birthday last week”. All I could think was, What? No! Hemant’s cousin gave them to us for our rokka, why would she lie?! Hemant and I just looked at each other like wtf?! And his mum glares at me to make sure I don’t say anything to these friends of hers. So what do I do? I upload a rokka photo on Facebook because I was so annoyed that she lied in front of my face, especially when she knew I could hear what she was saying to her friends.  Plus, this was a week after our rokka, so she had plenty of time to tell her friends and family it had gone ahead.

 

Funnily enough, one if these friends was Hemants friend, Anuj’s mum, and she knew our rokka had gone ahead anyway because Hemant had told Anuj. I know 2 wrongs don’t make a right, but seriously, she thought she could meddle with my life and lie in front of my face about my own rokka to her friends (the ironic part in all this was that she made sure I was at home the day she invited her friends for a kitty party This really annoyed her, when she saw the photo on Facebook, she yelled at me and told me I have humiliated her because she hadn’t had time to tell people our rokka has gone ahead (even though this was a week after our rokka, and I still don’t know what gave her the right to falsely tell people our rokka was postponed in the first place?) and now everyone knew from my photo that it had gone ahead, because I had most her friends and family on Facebook. but she eventually got over it.  Or so I thought….

 

November 2017-

A few months after the rokka drama, Hemant and I were going to Sri Lanka for one of my friends weddings. He kept putting off telling his parents, because he knew they wouldn’t be happy with him spending money with less than a year to go for our wedding.  I kept asking him to tell them because he lives with them and it’s not like he can lie so better to tell them sooner rather than later since we had booked flights 3 months in advance. His mum also kept asking me if I could go to India in March 2018 to do our wedding shopping, and I kept saying no because I have an exam in April and work will be busy at that time of year etc, when that was only half the reason. The rest of the reason was because I was using up most of my annual leave to go to Sri Lanka in December, so I wouldn’t have enough leave by March to go to India. Plus, my exam was important to me. The other thing she kept saying was to not study that semester because doing my wedding shopping was more important.  I kept saying we could do our shopping in Melbourne since there are so many Indian shops there, but she refused to understand what I was saying.  India was the only option for her.  I couldn’t tell her the Sri Lanka reason since Hemant hadn’t told her we were going! Then 2 weeks before we were going, his dad finds our itinerary somewhere in their house. As you can imagine, they were quite surprised and annoyed. They asked Hemant why we are going and why we never told them, and he said it’s for my friend’s wedding. So then they blamed me for “forcing” their son to waste money on going on a holiday when we should be saving for our own wedding. Then his mum says “now I know why you kept saying no to coming to India with me, going on holiday is more important than your own wedding”. Everytime she said these snide remarks, I just bit my tongue.  I had realised by now that she never had any interest in trying to understand my point of view or anything I said.  It was her way or the highway, as the saying goes.

 

This incident was quite small, but probably worth noting because it all adds up.  Hemant’s family friends son, Harry, had messaged Hemant, Shivani and a few others and said we should all go for dinner and movies one day.  We had decided to have dinner at a night market nearby then go to the movie after that.  We didn’t know Shivani was coming, and we get to Harry’s house, and he says “why didn’t Shivani come with you guys?” we were like oh, we didn’t know she was coming and Harry says “jeez don’t you guys talk to each other in your house” and I just laughed.  Shivani then comes a while later, and we went to the night market.  Then when we got to the cinema, I went to the bathroom, and Shivani must have come in after me.  I was washing my hands and she comes out of the cubicle and was washing her hands too.  I had nothing to say to her so I dried my hands and left to go back to the foyer where everyone else was.  A few days later, Hemant tells me that Shivani thought I was rude for not saying anything to her in the bathroom or that night.  I was like, what.  She also didn’t say anything to me all night. So why is it all on me to say something?

 

December 2017-

When we were in Sri Lanka, my parents had come to Melbourne for my brothers masters graduation.  So during their time in melbourne, they visited Hemant’s parents.  She had a conversation with my parents regarding our wedding planning and she misunderstood something my mum has said about my reception outfit. Note- my mum’s first language is English and she can speak fluent Gujarati, my dad grew up in India so he can speak Hindi, Gujarati and English. My in-laws are from Delhi and their first language is Hindi and English is their second language. So sometimes things get misinterpreted when people talk in English to them. My mother in law was planning to go to India alone the following April for a month to do wedding shopping.  After I had said I wouldn’t go, she went ahead and booked her own flights.  She is retired, and has family in Delhi anyway so I thought it could’ve worked out well.  Hemant’s family have a tradition where they gift the bride’s reception outfit. Obviously, we had no issues with this tradition at all, but my mum had said “talk to Harita about what she likes before buying her outfit to make sure it’s something she likes” because we were having a colour scheme and I’m chubby so I don’t suit all styles. But somehow his mum interpreted that as don’t buy me anything because I won’t like it… I have no idea how she interpreted that. I didn’t actually know about this conversation until we got back from Sri Lanka and Hemant’s mum told me the day after we returned that my mum had really offended her by telling her not to buy me anything for our wedding from India.  I asked my mum about this conversation, and her version was quite different, she said it didn’t seem like Hemant’s mum was offended and she didn’t even realise his mum thought she had said this.  I knew mum would never say anything like that, so I had put it down to a misunderstanding due to language barriers…. my mum had even gone so far as to say that Hemant’s mum was complaining to her that Hemant is immature, not ready for marriage (he was over 30 by now…) and that we didn’t cook enough Indian food while she was away on holiday a few weeks earlier (even though what we cook and eat shouldn’t affect her as she wasn’t even at home during that time? The way I see it, at least we cooked at ate at home!)  As it was, Hemant’s mum had set our wedding date based on the dates her pandit (priest) had given her and she had told us all the rituals she was going to do.  Not once did she ask me or my family what rituals we do as Gujaratis.  Even though we are both Hindu, Punjabi and Gujaratis have a lot of differences.  She never asked me or my parents how we wanted the wedding to be.  It was all about her and what she wanted.  Hemant and I were only given about 7 wedding dates to choose from, and they all fell in August and September, neither of which we had really wanted, because we wanted a wedding closer to summer.  According to his mum, October, November and December were bad luck for wedding days based on our star signs, and 2019 was too long to wait to get married – “you’re both getting older, it’s better to get married sooner rather than later and not to be engaged for too long” was what she had said to us when I suggested waiting until early 2019 so we could get married at the end of Summer, when we were first organising our wedding before all this drama started.  So nothing I wanted for my own wedding really mattered to her.  I had to settle for a date she chose, and do rituals that had nothing to do with Gujarati people.  But my family and I were ok with everything Hemant’s family wanted for the wedding. I’m not blowing my own trumpet, but we are a very easy going family. This added misunderstanding of hers was really out of line. Insulting me is one thing, but insulting my parents to my face is another. I tried to calm her down by saying she might have misunderstood my mum and I could speak to mum to clarify. She said “so you’re taking your mums side and calling me a liar” I kept on saying “no I don’t believe in taking sides but I think you just misunderstood mum because she talks very fast in English” (which is true!). She got so defensive saying “I haven’t misunderstood, how could you say that” and just wouldn’t stop yelling. Hemant had to tell her to shut up because I was crying by this point. It’s like nothing I said was right.  Even being silent wasn’t right. I eventually got up halfway through eating my dinner and said, “I’m going home now I’ll see you later” in the middle of her rant, threw the rest of my uneaten dinner in the rubbish bin and asked Hemant to drive me home. I had realised Hemant’s mum always had these outbursts at me when Hemant’s dad and sister weren’t home.  I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but just an observation I had made. It felt like she did this so they would take her side because they’re not at home to hear the way she yells and talks to us.  Luckily, Hemant has been in the room everytime his mum used to have these outbursts at me and he could hear what we both said for himself first hand.

 

I thought I would give her a week or so to calm down and I also needed some time away from her because I couldn’t comprehend how she had insulted my mum, and in effect, me.  I used to go to their house almost everyday after work for dinner and to just spend time with their family, and not going that week was weird for me but I thought the space would be good for both of us. A week later, the day before Christmas, I was at the shopping mall with Hemant and I bumped into his mum and sister during the one minute that I was on my own and Hemant was on the other side of the shop. In the split second, I walked past his mum and didn’t say hello because I didn’t realise it was her until I had already walked past her.  But, she also didn’t say anything to me. She just walked right past me without acknowledging me at all. She saw Hemant and went straight to him and told him I ignored her. So then he asked me asked me why I ignored her. I was like “what?! She also walked past me as if I was a stranger”. So of course, I started crying, because again I was being blamed for something stupid by her.

 

I know I should’ve said hello as soon as I realised it was her, but I didn’t because I was still annoyed at her about the previous week’s argument, but she could’ve easily said hello to me?? Then we saw them again in another shop so I said “hello how are you” and she responded in such an angry tone of voice, that I just wished I hadn’t said anything at all and his sister just watched as if it was a joke.  It was such a tiny thing but blown so far out of proportion. All of the above happened between June-December 2017. After this shopping mall incident, I just kept thinking I need to make things right and I need to reconcile. They’re going to be my family and I can’t let things get so bad.  I know sometimes I can be stubborn too, but I try to get over my anger because I know family is important.

 

January 2018-

Hemant and I went on holiday to Adelaide for New Years, and on New Year’s Eve, we both rang my parents in New Zealand to wish them happy New Year’s.  Two hours later, Hemant’s parents rang him to wish him Happy new year’s, but not once was the phone given to me to say anything.  Again, here comes another crying episode because over the last 6 months, the amount of times I felt like I didn’t exist to his family were getting too many to count.  I gave it a few days and sent her a WhatsApp message at the beginning of January 2018, I think it was 4^th January, saying happy new year and that I’m sorry for all the disagreements we had over the last few months, and asked if I could meet her one day to talk things out because I want to start things the right way as her daughter in law. She read my message within a few hours, then blocked my number without replying.

 

I kept asking Hemant why his mum blocked my number and blocked me off Facebook, and whenever he asked his mum, she just kept saying she didn’t want me in her life and she was sick of seeing our happy photos together on facebook.  I didn’t understand the last part, because she was still facebook friends with Hemant which means she would still be seeing the photos?

 

A week later, Hemant and I went to see one of his slightly older, married family friends (who is treated like an older daughter by Hemant’s parents – the same one who had set up his shaadi.com profile) to talk about what had happened and to get some advice because that family friend and her husband are also close to Hemant’s parents. It turned out that Hemant’s mum had been telling Vidhi and Raman everything from the time of our first disagreement in August (from her point of view obviously) and had victimised herself. Vidhi did not want to get involved in the conversation, so she sat inside the house while me, Hemant and Raman sat outside and talked.  Raman told me he wasn’t interested in my side of the story because I had humiliated Hemant’s mum enough already and I don’t deserve to be a part of their family.  I very much remember him saying “it’s like you have made Hemant’s mum stand outside naked”, but no consideration at all was given to what me or my parents had been through from her actions. I have no idea what Hemant’s mum told them but it must have been bad if they were not interested in anything I had to say.  And as we all know, if you know someone better or for longer, or if they’re your family, you’re more likely to believe them, especially if they are the elder in the family, rather than me, and outsider to the family that you’ve only known for 2 years.  Despite this, I thanked Raman for his time and for being honest with me.  Even though I didn’t like what he had said to me, I still respected him as Hemants older brother and I thought I was leaving his house on civil terms and perhaps he might still try to talk to Hemant’s parents.

 

A few weeks later- end of January 2018, Hemant’s mum asked him to postpone our wedding by 6 months because “things are not right”. The wedding was set for September 14 2018 (like I said earlier- his mum had set the wedding date based on her pandits advice and she had clearly said to us when we were planning the wedding, to get married sooner rather than later because we are already over 30 years old). But of course, when she has a mood swing, we all need to change our plans to accommodate for her ever changing mood. So basically, Hemant said no we are not postponing since we had already booked the venue a few months earlier after agreeing on the date with his parents. What is postponing going to achieve. We have 8 months between now and our wedding to sit down and talk out our issues, postponing 6 months is pointless. So she asked him to move out of the house. And by ask, I mean, she told him she would call the police if he didn’t move out by end of January because that is the advice Raman gave her. So it turned out that Raman had twisted things more and made things worse after we had gone to him for help and advice.

 

Hemant’s mum’s basis of kicking him out of the house was because he refused to postpone the wedding and/or break up with me.  He freaked out and moved into my flat that I was sharing with 3 other people. He was ready to sign a lease for an apartment and move but I told him not to because his mum was probably just going through a mood swing and would ring him soon enough and ask him to move back home. So for a few months he stayed between my flat and his friend Raghav and Aida’s house.

 

February-March 2018-

One of Hemant’s family friends son’s, Arjit, was getting married in March, and his sister, Anushka, had asked us to be in a dance at their sangeet.  I wanted to say yes, but with all of this drama going on, I didn’t feel like it was right to include myself in a family I’m clearly not part of.  But Hemant told me that they wouldn’t have asked us if they didn’t want us to be in the dance and the wedding isn’t about the people that aren’t talking to us, it’s about the couple getting married, and Hemant had grown up with him and was invited to his stag party so he was a close friend.  So there was a group whatsapp chat set up, and I see Shivani, Raman and Vidhi are in the group, so I told Hemant I really don’t want to have to see them so often when they’re all not talking to me and when Raman told Hemant to break up with me not long ago.  But I sucked it up and went to practices and pretended like nothing bad was happening.  We were still on talking terms with Anushka, Ashima, Ankit and Samridhi so I thought it would be ok.  We had practices every week for a month, and Shivani, Raman and Vidhi never spoke to me during these practices, so I’m pretty sure everyone else figured out something was going on.  But there weren’t any dramas so I guess that was ok.

Hemant had told his parents I would be at all the wedding functions so they would be prepared.  His mum had told him she would be civil with me.  Yet at the sangeet, we approached his mum when we arrived and I said “hello how are you aunty?” and tried to hug her. She brushed me off and said “ugh go away” in front of her friends and family. She hugged Hemant and told him she misses him, again, in front of her friends and family.  The family already knew what was going on, but now her friends starting looking at us oddly because they had thought things were good between me and the family. I told Hemant I wanted to go home after that. I was already an outsider, and the way his mum was making me feel was again, as if I didn’t exist and as if I was trash.  I went outside and tried to order an Uber so I could go home but Hemant took my phone off me so I couldn’t order an Uber home. The night got worse and worse. I was crying outside the hall because he had taken my phone off me and I didn’t want to go back inside and see his mum and sister again because they made me feel so unwanted. Another family friend, Samridhi, got to the sangeet when I was standing outside and she saw me crying so kept asking me what was wrong.  At first I said, nothing, but she kept asking.  I thought she cared, because we had got along until this point.  I told her what had happened, but then before I know it, she goes inside and tells Shivani and the rest of the family that I was outside crying, which of course, just makes things so much worse.

 

As the night went on, Raman was drunk at the sangeet and tried to punch Hemant at one point during the night because of all this drama.  At one point, their family went outside around the back of the hall for a very intense talk, which of course, I was not allowed to be a part of, and the only 3 friends I knew at the sangeet were sitting with me saying everything would be OK and not to be sad.  The night became a mess and of course, it was all my fault.  At the end of the sangeet, I saw Hemant’s mum and Shivani leaving and I said by to them, only to have them stare me up and down and continue walking as if I was no one.  If only I had gone home when I first wanted to, all of this might not have happened.

 

The following week, we saw his family at that same family friend’s wedding. Shivani, Samridhi, Vidhi and Raman all ignored both of us and I could tell the other guests who were at the wedding and had also been at the sangeet looked at us because they remembered the drama of the sangeet. Also by this point, Raman and Vidhi had already deleted me off facebook – so they clearly wanted me out of their lives if they went out of their way to delete me off facebook.  I wore the sari his parents gifted me for our rokka in hope that it would make his mum happy. Again, I said hello to her and she looked me up and down and walked off without saying anything. But she gave Hemant a big hug in front of me, told him she misses him, and walked off.  The next day at the reception, we both didn’t bother acknowledging his family at all. I had been humiliated enough by then.  His parents, Shivani and Samridhi just kept ignoring us.  Even Shivani’s boyfriend was at the reception and he acted like we weren’t there.   I was just glad we did not have to sit at the same table as his family for this function, and we had been placed on a table with other friends of ours which at least made our night a bit more enjoyable.

 

April 2018

Another family friend’s son was getting married, and we didn’t even know we were invited until a few weeks before it.  I knew when the wedding was because one of my friends is Tarangs cousin and she was telling me about it.  I remember telling her I thought it was strange Hemant wasn’t invited but them Hemant and Tarang hadn’t spoken to each other in a while and weren’t very close anymore so we put it down to that.  Tarang had texted Hemant a few weeks before his wedding asking why we hadn’t rsvpd yet, but we hadn’t even seen the invite or knew we were invited. He said he had sent our invite to Hemant’s parents house, or we were included in the same invite.  So because Hemant’s parents weren’t talking to me and Hemant wasn’t staying there, they hadn’t bothered to tell him about it.  If Tarang hadn’t texted Hemant, I don’t think we would’ve even found out we were invited.  We were invited to all the functions, sangeet, wedding and reception, which were all on different days.  Hemant’s mum was in India during this time, so she wasn’t at any of the functions.  Shivani etc didn’t come to the sangeet – maybe because it was a weekday.  Shivani, Ashima, Vidhi were all at the wedding, and they didn’t say anything to me at the baraat, so we just spent the whole time with my friends.  The wedding didn’t have a seating plan, so we just spent the whole time with my friends and their husbands.  The reception was the day after, and luckily the seating arrangement was that we were on the same table as my friends, rather than Hemant’s family and family friends.  I thought that was a bit odd, considering all the other family friends were all on the same table, maybe Tarang knew something was going on so he purposely put us on separate tables? Again, no one talked to me, and I even saw Hemant’s dad at some point, and said hello and he didn’t even look at me.

May 2018-

His mum did ring him and ask him to move back home a few times between February-March. But she also asked him to break up with me. So he told her he’s not moving back unless she accepts me. He actually did all this without me knowing until he told me months later after we had already moved into an apartment together. If I knew, I would have told him to move back home and work things out with his parents and Shivani. By the time he told me, we had ended up leasing an apartment and moving in together. By this time it was May 2018. We started sending out wedding invites, we invited his extended family and parents friends, and obviously word got back to his parents that we invited them. His mum rang my parents and abused them so much. Saying she was against the marriage and that she had told her family not to come from India. She went as far to say that we were taking advantage of them. To this day I have no idea how. We have never asked for anything from his family.  No money, no favours, nothing.  Every time my parents came to Melbourne, they visited Hemant’s parents, and had always tried to be friends with them.  My parents had called his parents a few times from New Zealand during all this to try to talk out the issues, but his parents always yelled and hung up the phone.

August 2018-

I kept on thinking, they will still attend the wedding. They will put their differences aside and they will realise it’s their son and they have to be there for him. His dad even told him he would attend even if no one else from the family did.  As it got closer to the wedding date, the abuse got worse. Six weeks before our wedding, his parents stalked us in the gym carpark and asked me to give them my engagement ring back. Hemant’s mum kept saying she has paid for the ring so she wanted it back. I was ready to give it back because I couldn’t care less about a ring. But Hemant kept saying “no I paid you back for it, mum you’re crazy. Harita don’t give it back”, so again, I was stuck in a situation I didn’t know how to get out of.  I felt so unsafe and just wanted to run away from all this.  His dad kept saying “Hemant how could you do this to us, you’re breaking our family apart”.  This was at 730pm on a Wednesday in a gym car park and people walking in and out of the gym could hear these domestics.  It’s fair to say, this was the most uncomfortable I’ve felt in my life.  Never in my life did I think someone would stalk me in a gym and attack me like this.

 

A few days later, Hemant tells me his mum has recently asked him for my ex fiancés phone number (I was engaged to a guy when I had moved to Melbourne in 2014 but he broke up with me a few months after I moved there for him). Obviously I had deleted his number and have had no contact with him since the breakup. But I still had some of his cousins on Facebook so I messaged my partner’s sister (because his mum had blocked me off Facebook and my number) and I told his sister the names of those cousins. I had nothing to hide so they can go all out and contact whoever they want to find out about my past. What was funny was that I had told my partner I was previously engaged even before we started dating so it was funny that it became an issue for his parents 2 years later. I think his sister told his mum that I sent her names of the cousins she could contact because the next day I had so many missed calls from her. That weekend, she had asked my partner to meet us face to face at their house. I have no idea why, but Hemant didn’t tell me this and he must have told his mum we are not coming. So she rings me at least 20 times that evening. But she calls from a “no caller ID” so technically I didn’t know it was her. I picked up eventually in the evening, she abused me like I have never heard before. “I asked for you both to come over today, why didn’t you?” I said well I didn’t even know you wanted to see us today until now. If I knew, I would have come over”. Then what does she do, accuse me of lying. She was sure her son had told me she wanted to talk to me. I kept saying I had no idea, but she wouldn’t believe me. Then she starts yelling “you broke my family, you have brainwashed my son, you have ruined my mental health, you don’t deserve my son”. 5 minutes of verbal abuse and I couldn’t even get a sentence in. I managed to say “I’m sorry for everything that has happened, what can I do to make it right?” To which she says “nothing, it’s too late, you’ve caused enough damage”. And hangs up. She had called me so many times that day just so she could unleash on me and hang up.

A few days after all this, I was still in so much shock.  I went to the local police station just to get advice on my options.  They asked me if my in laws know where I live and told me to get a restraining order for my own safety.  My in laws knew the suburb we lived in, but we had never told them our address.  And I didn’t get a restraining order because I held out hope that things would improve between us.  We even went to see an Indian fortune teller who told me that his mum would do this no matter who Hemant was with.  I don’t know if I believed him or not because I generally don’t believe it this type of thing.

September 2018-

In the end, we got married as planned. I was already 30 and Hemant was 31, not that age mattered, but I had never got a logical explanation about postponing, and I was sick of putting my own needs aside for her mood swings. We did everything his parents way, even though none of his family attended. His dad rang him 2 days before the wedding saying he is no longer coming. My family travelled from overseas, and his family couldn’t even drive half hour down the road.  Anuj’s dad told us that Hemant’s dad had taken the day off work to attend the wedding, but still didn’t turn up.  It was the saddest day of my life. To this day, I haven’t been able to look at our wedding photos. However, I can always say we did the wedding as his family had wished.  It was their choice not to attend their own son/brothers wedding.  My thought is always that, if you are a parent, you should do everything in your children’s interest rather than make the world revolve around yourself.  His mum wanted everything her way, and still nothing was good enough for her.

October 2018-

A month after our wedding was Diwali. He rang his parents to wish them happy Diwali and asked if we could go over that evening. His mum said he can come, but alone. So he didn’t go.  She knew she was doing this to poke at me.  She knew I have no family in Melbourne yet purposely does this because she thinks treating her own son like this is ok.

 

January/February 2019-

In January, we weren’t invited to Raman and Vidhi’s sons 5th birthday.  We heard through the grapevine (and saw photos on facebook) that it was a pretty big party.  We dropped off a present at their front door, Hemant did not want to knock on the door and give the gift to him in person because he was terrified of Raman after what Raman had done to us by now, so we left it at the front door and drove back home.  A week or so passed, and there was no thank you message, nothing.  Hemant texted Vidhi to ask her if she got the gift, she replied “yes thanks, but it was not required.  Please move on with your life and don’t bother us again”.  For someone that was like an elder sister to Hemant for most his life, she had turned into a complete cold hearted narcissist.  I also never expected her to take Hemants mum’s side like that.  She had seemed to reasonable and she used to be so close to Hemant. I would have thought she of all people would’ve listened to our side and tried to talk some sense into Hemant’s mum rather than adding fuel to the fire.  I figured she was taking Hemant’s mums side because she was playing her own agenda.  Hemant’s mum was like her second mum and had done a lot for her after her own mum had passed away, and I think she knew she couldn’t live without her in her life, whereas, she didn’t need me or Hemant for anything, so it was easier to take Hemant’s mum side for her personal benefit.

 

Hemants family were invited to a close family friend, Ajay’s, wedding in February and they invited Hemant, but not me because Hemant’s mum told Ajay’s parents not to include me. Hemant didn’t want to go, but I told him just to go.  So he went to it, half the guests asked him where I was and he just told them I wasn’t invited.  The truth is better than a lie right? His cousin turned 30 in February 2019 and neither of us were invited to her party. His nephew turned 5, and neither of us were invited to the huge party his cousins they threw for him – this was Raman and Vidhi’s son – they had also gone as far as deleting Hemant off Facebook by this point too. As someone that has no family in Melbourne, you have no idea how isolated and alone I felt. I felt like everyone was playing a joke on me to see how much I can tolerate before I just kill myself or something.  You know the movie Truman show?  That’s how I felt.  I kept on telling Hemant and my family how I was feeling but nothing changed.  I have never come across a family that can abuse someone this much, especially a family living in the western world.  By this point, we had also been told by our landlord that our apartment lease was not going to be renewed when the lease was up in May because she was going to move back into the apartment.  I just did not feel like I had the energy to move to another apartment especially knowing I had no family in Melbourne and was just living in some stupid hope that my in laws would acknowledge my existence.  I was 30 years old, quite honestly, too old to be dealing with this rubbish in my life.  This was the final straw for me.  I used to think of killing myself everyday by this point and I honestly thought no one would miss me if I was gone, at least my emotional suffering would disappear.

I’ve had Crohn’s disease since I was 17 and all this family stress was making me sicker and sicker everyday. He put up such a fight. He was born in Melbourne. How could I ask him to leave his home town etc etc. I never wanted to move back to New Zealand. I had lived here for 26 years and Wellington is a very small city. I wanted to settle in Melbourne. But everything was against me. I told him if his parents and sister talk to me and start making amends, I won’t move. In the end, they didn’t talk to me so I moved. I left the life I spent 5 years building up. Hemant stayed back for 6 weeks and lived with his family, hoping to reconcile things. But nothing worked. During this year we were living in an apartment, Hemant used to go to his parents’ house almost once a week to talk to them, while I was left alone in our apartment because I was not allowed to go with him. I used to spend these few hours every week, sitting on the sofa crying, because I was so sick of feeling so alone in Melbourne.

 

May 2019-

I had given Hemants family until 31 March to talk to me.  They didn’t, so I resigned from work and moved back to New Zealand on 10^th May, when our apartment lease ended.   Hemant moved in with his parents for 6 weeks to try to reconcile with them so he hadn’t booked his flights yet, in hope that they would improve and realise we were not lying when we said we would be moving to New Zealand.

In the 6 weeks that I was in New Zealand and he was in Melbourne, his mum constantly tried to brainwash him.  She told him if he moves, me and my parents will control him and ruin his life.  I’m not sure why she thought this, when she herself hadn’t bothered attending her sons wedding, and her trying to cancel our wedding was quite clearly control and blackmail?  She constantly made it look like we wanted something from her family, I’m not sure what, considering my parents are self made millionaires who retired in their 50s and own  business and multiple investment properties.  We quite honestly don’t want or need anything from his family, except some basic respect.  His parents never visited my parents in New Zealand to see where they live or what type of life they have or how we grew up.  They seemed to think I wanted something materialistic from them, but I have more than I need from my own parents.

Hemant ended up moving to New Zealand in July 2019.  His dad had promised to sell his car for him after he moved, but he never did.  Just one more false promise from him.

 

November 2019-

We went back to Melbourne for a friends wedding and holiday in November and we went to visit his mum at home. We also had a few boxes of belongings stored in their garage that I was going to shift to a friends house.  Quite honestly, I would’ve rather kept those boxes stored at a friends house than at Hemants parents house where his mum could throw my things away at anytime. I was not allowed in the house so I waited in the car for an hour while Hemant visited his mum.  Of course she didn’t care that I was sitting in the car outside, so I sat in a hot car for an hour just waiting and waiting. Hemant had to pack the boxes in the car on his own because I was too scared to go into the garage to help.  His dad had also not sold the car for him, and it was sitting parked in the same place on the street outside their house where Hemant had left it.  I wouldn’t be surprised if no one had bothered starting the engine in the 5 months Hemant had been away either,  So we arranged to sell it when we were in melbourne for these few days, if his dad had any intention to sell it like he had promised, he would’ve already done so before November.

 

March 2020-

Hemant was supposed to go back to Melbourne in March 2020 to attempt family counselling with his mum.  However, due to Covid, he had to cancel his flights.  He attempted counselling over skype with her.  His mum had agreed, as long as I wasn’t in the session.  An appointment was made, Hemant confirmed the time with his mum, and a few days before the session, Hemant messaged his mum to remind her about it.  She read the message and didn’t reply to him.  So he rang her the day before and she said she was too busy to attend the session.  I found this so ironic.  She doesn’t have a job.  Melbourne was under lockdown.  So all she’s doing is staying home, yet she says she is too busy to attend a 1 hour counselling session with her son that she had agreed to.  Because it was less than 24 hours before the session, Hemant still had to pay for it.  This counsellor charges $100 per hour, so you can imagine how disappointed we were.  I told Hemant he has to try again.  My mind just couldn’t comprehend how easily a family can break up, and how little they care.

 

Eventually his mum agreed to attending a session.  Hemant would go to the counsellor’s office in Wellington, and they would skype his mum into the call.  After 2 sessions, the counsellor told us, there was not much point going forward because his mum had decided she never wanted to acknowledge me, and she said his mum just kept going around in circles blaming everything on me during the sessions.  The counsellor basically said that his mum wants no help, so there’s no point trying.  She had clearly told Hemant and the counsellor that her life is good without me and she doesn’t need me.  We should just live our lives happily here and act like his family don’t exist as well.     They clearly don’t care about what they’ve done.  Hemant has not completely cut contact with them, but I don’t think he talks to them much.  I would never tell him to cut contact with them.  I am the one who always tried to make the relationship work, but no relationship ever works when the opposite party is not interested.  His parents care about themselves and society more than they are about their own kids, and his sister couldn’t care less about him.  Their actions have shown this very clearly.

End of 2021

This is nothing to do with abuse, but I want to point out the differences between both our parents. My parents have a few investment properties and one of their tenants was moving out, so the house was going to be vacated by the end of the year.  My parents asked me if we would be interested in buying the house from them, and obviously this would be much less than the market valuation.  This just went to show how much my parents do for us compared to Hemant’s parents.  They could’ve easily found tenants and still get the rental revenue from them, but instead they helped us out with our first home.  Dad even suggested that instead of paying them for the house straight away, we can spend that money renovating the house, then pay off the house later on.

Meanwhile, Hemant’s parents live in a 5 bedroom house and refused to let me live with them before marriage because it’s against their beliefs (while I was still obviously paying rent for the flat I lived in), kept saying I would live with them after marriage, but then all the drama happened, and even kicked him out.  What is the point of slaving your life away to build a 5 bedroom house with all your savings, only to have 3 people live in that house?  They’ve only lived there since about 2003, and Hemant was kicked out in 2018, so that’s 15 years that the 4 of them lived there – they’ve always had 2 spare bedrooms in that time, then after 2018, only 3 people, then eventually Shivani would move out so basically they worked hard to save money for a mansion that only 2 of them will live in?  Where is the common sense in that?    What’s actually really funny is when “things were good” between us, his mum used to say they could renovate the house and add in a second kitchen etc so we have our own space – why even suggest doing things like that when it’s just all talk?  And why would you add a second kitchen into a house that’s only 15 years old, like where exactly would you put that second kitchen, when it’s a 2 storey house?

May 2022

I tried to talk to Hemant’s cousins in India, Diwaker, Nikhil and Nidhi, who are around our age, about what happened all those years ago. Nidhi told me she is not interested and can’t tolerate how much I abused Hemant’s family, and blocked me on facebook. This was not the first time I had tried to talk to Nikhil and Diwaker (who live in Delhi). But over the last few years when I’ve tried to chat to them, their either ignore me or they tell me everything that happened was my fault and I end up in tears over their false accusations.  But this time, one of his cousins, Diwaker, responds to me saying why didn’t we bother going to Melbourne when Hemants dad almost died in a car accident a few months ago?  Huh????  This was the FIRST I heard of any car accident?!  Do I ask Hemant, or do I just act like I still don’t know anything.  THIS was the problem when I lived in melbourne.  Me not being told things by Hemant or his family, then things becoming MY fault and MY problem because of their lack of communication?  I’m not a mind reader, and also it’s not my job to teach the Kashyap family how to communicate, when my own family can communicate perfectly fine with each other.

I ponder of this for a day or two, then I just asked Hemant.  Was his dad in a car accident, and how bad was it?  Why didn’t he tell me??

He says, he didn’t tell me because he knew I would have nothing nice to say about his family. Haha that part is right.  Who would ever have anything nice to say about their abusers?  That would make me crazy if I had anything nice to say about them after everything that family did to us, right?  But of course if his dad was in an accident, I would have cared.  Then he doesn’t say anything else.  So I ask, how bad was it?  When was it?? Why didn’t he go to Melbourne to visit his dad if it was as bad as Diwaker has told me it was?? According to Diwaker, his dad almost DIED in this accident?!

He said it was a few months ago (so I’m assuming maybe February/March..??) car was a write off, the accident was caused by his dad driving through a red light (I still don’t know the details – did he crash into another car, or a pole?? ), and his dad was in a neck brace and had to take a few months off work (because he is a restaurant chef), but he is ok now.  He said he didn’t go to Melbourne because he knew there was no point and he didn’t want to have to stay at his toxic parents house when he knew I was not welcome in that house.  And with the fact the New Zealand only eased on Covid travel restrictions recently, he didn’t want to go through all that hassle when he knew his dad was ok and there are plenty of people in Melbourne who will take care of him.

So if he had already decided ALL of this without me even knowing about the accident, how is it MY fault he didn’t visit his parents?  But if I have learnt one thing with his family, it’s that anything Hemant does or doesn’t do, it is MY fault.  This family is so old fashioned, that everything is the wife’s fault.  What’s funny, or maybe sad?  Is that nothing about this family surprises me anymore.  We moved from melbourne to New Zealand 3 years ago because we literally had to create a physical barrier to stop the verbal and mental abuse, haven’t visited Melbourne since Nov 2019, the world has been through a pandemic since then and so many people in the world have died, not to mention, people in my own family have died of Covid, and I’m sure people in Sangeeta and Vinod Kashyap’s family were also affected by Covid, but still whatever goes wrong in the Kashyap family, is Harita Gandhi’s fault.  There is a reason I never changed my legal surname when we got married by the way, and it is because I do NOT want to be associated with Sangeeta, Vinod and Shivani and the rest of the abusive Kashyaps in any way, and there is no way I want to have the same surname as these narcisstic, abusive, hypocritical people.  Yes, my surname is hyphenated on facebook, but that’s it. I have not, and will not, be legally changing it anywhere.  As far as I am concerned, I come from a good family, I was raised by parents who have good values and morals, and I cannot lose my identity by changing my surname to a surname that honestly repulses me because all that name does is bring memories of abuse and trauma.

 

April 2023

We visited Melbourne for Hemant’s close friends wedding, this was the first time we had gone since November 2019.  I messaged Hemants’ dad on facebook messenger a few weeks before we went, asking him to meet us while we were there.  I know he reads my messages, but he never replies.  He still hadn’t replied by the time we were in Melbourne, so I told Hemant I didn’t want him to visit his parents, and he agreed.  Then a friend told me I should let him visit his parents, even if it’s just for a short time.  So he planned to see them for lunch one day while I made plans with another friend.  This made me so upset that after so many years, they still didn’t want to see me.  So I messaged his dad again and asked him to return the sarees my parents had gifted Hemant’s mum and Shivani during our rokka (which they had done out of kindness at the time- there is no tradition where the families have to gift each other anything).  Of course, his dad told him about that text of mine and he was furious.  No idea why he tells him about some of my messages, and not the ones where I ask to meet and talk?  Of course, because that makes him look bad and me look good.    Hemant went to his parents house for 2 hours for lunch while I spent time with another friend, and his mum gave both sarees back to him.  Still in their packaging and untouched since 2017.  He only spent 2 hours with his mum after 3.5 years, and it’s like his mum didn’t care.  He didn’t even see his dad and Shivani during this trip.

 

What was also ironic, is Hemant’s friend who got married, only knows Hemant because their parents were in the same kitty group.  But Hemants parents had cut contact with those friends during our wedding time because their 2 sons were Hemants groomsmen, and they did the catering for our wedding.  According to Hemants mum, they had taken our side by doing this.   Most of Hemant’s parents friends all made the effort to talk to me when they saw us at the wedding.  They could’ve easily avoided us or just said hello.  But they all asked us how we are, and how is life in NZ, and that they are so sorry for what we went through and they wish they could talk some sense into Hemant’s parents, they could never imagine doing that to their own kids.  I wonder if Hemant’s parents know their friends actually don’t agree with them?  Most of these friends of his mum are still facebook friends with me and we have all kept in contact since I moved.  If they didn’t like me, why would they bother keeping in contact with me?  Some of them even said if we ever move back to Melbourne, we have their support and we can always go to them if Hemant’s parents don’t want anything to do with me.

 

May 2023

Hemant had been acting strange for a few days so one day I asked him what was going on because his behaviour was odd.  He told me his mum rang him a few days before to tell him his only cousin in Melbourne, Rishi, had died of liver failure.  Which was caused from excess alcohol over many years.  I asked why it took him so long to tell me, and he said because he knows I have nothing nice to say about his family.  I asked him why he didn’t want to go to the funeral, and he said his mum rang him the morning of the funeral, so it’s not like he could go, even if he wanted to.  Who does that??? Surely she knew a few days before.  But she purposely told him at the last minute so he couldn’t go, even if he wanted to.  This is the power she tries to hold over him.

 

Now-

It makes me so sad that I couldn’t be part of Hemant’s family.  He fits in so well with my family, he gets along so well with my brother, who is 7 years younger than him, and I wish I had the same with his sister and parents.  But there was just no winning for me.  Everything I did was wrong according to them.  They couldn’t accept that their son is happy with me and that I’m a good person, unlike what they seem to think.  I  was diagnosed with severe depression, anxiety and PTSD by the time we moved to New Zealand. I had a miscarriage in 2019 which doctors told me could be caused from stress.  I’ve also had crohns disease since I was 18 and if I don’t keep my stress under control, crohns can flare up and cause other issues.  People never quite realise all the side effects of stress. I am living in a city I never thought I would be living in again and I feel like my life is a joke. I am 35 and I have no idea where my life is going. Yes, my husband moved to New Zealand with me. My parents have helped us out so much here, they helped us buy our first home, and they live nearby. I will never understand why his family did what they did. I did everything I could to fit into their family but I only got that “nice treatment” for a year before they decided they hated me after we got engaged. Not once did anyone in his family adapt to my way of life or make an effort to get to know me or my family, my work, my hobbies, or take an interest in anything in my life. But I always made the effort with them. The reason I went to their house almost everyday was so I could get to know them and become a part of their family. I feel like I’m living in the Truman show movie and this is all a huge joke they’re all playing on me and I’ll wake up from this nightmare. I know I’m not perfect. But neither is Hemant and his family. Yet I was still accepting them how they are.   I never expected perfection, or needed anything from them.  I just wanted acceptance, love and to be able to call Hemant’s family my family.  I’ve never wanted anything materialistic from them.

I am just lucky my own parents and brother saved us from this nightmare and brought me back to New Zealand to safety and love.  And I am double lucky that Hemant came with me here, where everything and everyone in New Zealand is new to him, because he saw how damaged and mentally broken I was.  He gave up all his friends and family, and the life he knew in Melbourne, for me, someone he had only known for 3 years of his life.  He has fit in to life here so well and he enjoys it here so much more than I do.  He inspires me everyday to keep going no matter what life throws at you, and I am so glad I found such an amazing man even though he came from such a broken family. I have made it a point that my in laws will never get to dictate my life.  I was lucky to get away from their double standards and narcissistic behaviour sooner rather than later, if I had continued staying in Melbourne having to tolerate their abuse, I know I would’ve tried to kill myself because of how lonely I was.

I will never have to worry about my children having the wrong influence in life.  My mother in law is the type of person who retires at the age of 50, and leaves her husband with a heart condition no choice but to pick up an extra job to cover mortgage repayments for the house, because there is no other way ends will meet.  She is the type of person that prefers to sit at home watching Zee tv all day rather than getting a job or learning a new hobby, and claims that she has worked so hard all day when she can see around her that her children and husband all work full time, and they work much harder than her, but they don’t complain.

 

They don’t have much family in Australia and instead of having an additional daughter, my family, and the prospect of grandchildren to their family, they have lost their son because they could not let go of their ego and accept our differences, yet it doesn’t seem to bother them that their son no longer lives in Australia and he had to change his whole life and move countries because of their behaviour..  No one is perfect, but I know I tried to fit into their family a lot more than others would.  I accepted all their differences, and brushed aside anything I thought was odd or didn’t agree with myself.  Yes I spoke up when I thought things were wrong, but I always accepted them and would never disown or cut contact with them.  But they were not willing to learn anything about me, or my values, my work, my upbringing or my interests.  I had to do everything to adjust to their way of life, but they didn’t adjust at all for me.  I felt like it had been a one sided effort with their family from the start, and I learnt the long and hard way that I was right.  The older I get, the more I realise that not everyone is as accepting and welcoming as I am in life, and some people will never accept the 99 things you do right, but they will constantly look out for the 1 thing you do wrong.  For someone that just wanted to be part of her husbands family and be loved, I have realised I couldn’t have it all, but I will be forever thankful for my own family.   Good luck to their endeavours, and hopefully they treat their daughters Australian boyfriend much better than they treated their hindu daughter in law.  I have vowed to myself to never do this to my future children, as no child, no matter their age, deserves to be hung out to dry like this by their parents.

 

The things I find very ironic with his family, is how important what society think of them is to them.  But by worrying about this, society actually talk behind their back more because all their friends and family know they didn’t attend their own sons wedding.  By holding onto whatever morals and values they seem to have, they broke the main value of being there for your family.  His parents have a fairly big group of friends with kids around mine and Hemants age, yet the way his parents treated me was like I was the worst of the worst and as if I didn’t deserve to be a part of their family.  One of his mums best friends, Suma, has a much younger brother/cousin, Dilip (around Hemants age) who married a much younger white Australian woman in 2017- we all went to the wedding.  One of Suma aunty’s sons who lives in Europe is openly gay and in a relationship with a white man.  One of her other friends, Sunila aunty, has a son who was engaged to an Asian girl, and that engagement broke up, and her daughter was also murdered by her husband in 2015.  One of her other friends, Ranjana aunty, has a son who is married to a middle Eastern muslim lady – him and his younger brother are Hemants best friends.  But according to his mum, I am worse than all of these friends of hers- because that is their family not hers.  What is so odd, is that she seemed to have no issues with her daughter dating a non-university educated, white, Australian guy, but she has such a big problem with me and my family.  Like I’ve said earlier, I have no issues with anyone Shivani dates, as long as she is happy, nothing else matters.  What I don’t like, is when double standards are applied to me.  Don’t have one set of rules for me and no rules for your own daughter.  That’s why I speak up about what they did to me so much, because she would never treat her own daughter the way she treated me, and if Shivanis in laws ever treated her the way I was treated, she would be there to support Shivani and tell Shivani to get away from the toxic in laws.  But when she is toxic herself, she doesn’t see it, because in her mind, she is always right.  After moving back to New Zealand, I realised she has narcisisstic personality disorder.  She uses gaslighting as a form of self defence and she has a way of making you feel like you’re never good enough and that you’ve always done her wrong.  But when she does something to hurt me, it’s not valid, and my feelings don’t matter.  This also delves into how in indian culture, the elders are always right no matter what.  She couldn’t tolerate that I spoke up when I didn’t like how she was treating me.  I didn’t fit her mould of the quiet daughter in law who obeys everything she says.  She wanted an educated, modern daughter in law, but not one that spoke her mind.  What she doesn’t see, is her own daughter lies right to her face to get her own way.  But because it’s her daughter, she will always accept anything Shivani does.

What’s also funny here, is Shivani thinks I have a problem with her dating a non-Indian guy.  But I don’t.  I only mention it to point out how contradictory the family is when they can accept who she dates, but can’t accept Hemant’s wife who is the same ethnicity and religion  as them, when they should just be happy their son is with someone of the same religion.  When you are born and raised in a western country, it’s becoming more common for people to marry outside their religion and culture.  Their family friends, Ashima and Samridhi, saw something I had posted on facebook about this irony in 2020 or 2021, and they also chose to interpret it the wrong way. Instead of talking to me about it, they both deleted me off facebook, which I somehow quickly noticed.  Samridhi blocked me, and I messaged Ashima to ask why she deleted me. Her words to me were “I can’t stand seeing you insult Shivani dating a non-Indian and being unmarried at 30 on facebook, when you are far from perfect yourself”.  If Ashima knew me at all, she would’ve known that I wasn’t saying that at all.  I was pointing out the double standards the family had for Hemant and I, compared to Shivani.  I couldn’t care less if someone is unmarried at 30 or with someone from a different religious and cultural background.  Ashima and Samridhi also never bothered responding to the messages I had sent them over the years to chat to them, they would read my messages and not reply.  They knew what we were going through, but never offered to help or be there for us.  What type of “lifelong family friends” are they, to just be there for the good times and run away when someone needs help?  They didn’t contact us when we moved to New Zealand, and on top of that, Ashima and her husband came to our wedding, ate and drank the food we paid for, then we never heard from them after that.  Pretended to be there for us on our wedding day (because non of the parents attended since Hemants parents told them all not to come. Fake as anything. She should have not bothered attending our wedding at all if she wasn’t going to see us again after that. Instead she came and had a good time at our expense, then took Hemants parents side after that.  Now she has a baby, and I just hope that son grows up with better values than she and Ankit have.  Rather than talking to us or being there for Hemant, they came for a good time, then carried on with their lives as if we don’t exist.  Just because they’ve known Shivani and her parents for longer than me, doesn’t mean they knew what happened between us.  I rather not have fake people in my life.  What makes Ashima even more ironically pathetic, is her creep of a brother.  She acts like she is above the line and so perfect, but does she have any idea what type of person her own brother is?  Back in 2015, when I was single, I matched with Veneet on Tinder. We would have been about 27 at the time.  I was clear from the start that I was on these apps to meet a guy I could date, I wasn’t on the apps just for fun or to sleep around.  We messaged a bit, and I asked him if he wanted to catch up for coffee sometime, to which he said “no, just come to my house, my parents are away”.  So I figured out quickly that we were both looking for different things.  I replied saying “no thanks, I’m not interested in sleeping around, I would like to meet a nice guy and settle down soon” and he says “Tinder isn’t for people who want to settle down”.  I had made the mistake of giving Veneet my number when we had been chatting, because at first he seemed really nice, and I didn’t want people around me to see me using Tinder.  So even after I told him I wasn’t interested in one night stands, he continued texting and calling me and asking me to come over for at least 2 months.  Does Ashima realise this is the type of person her brother was in his late 20’s?  If she thinks she’s so perfect, she should ensure she and her family are perfect before judging others.   Then when Hemant and I started dating in April 2016, I quickly realised he knows Veneet because I saw him in some of Hemant’s facebook photos, then he told me their mums are best friends, and that Shivani had also dated him a few years ago.   So I ended up seeing him a few times at things we were invited to, and he always acted like he didn’t know me.  Back in 2016 when Hemant and his mum were in India for a few weeks. I went to their house to have dinner with Shivani one day too and she told me about all the things Veneet had done wrong to her when they dated, and I told her about my experience with him.  Honestly, Ashima- you need to look at your own brother before you tell me I’m a bad person.

 

I could have chosen to wallow in my depression for years to come, but I fight my mental battles everyday with positivity and I refuse to let them get my thoughts.  Yes, I have some very tough days, but I don’t let my thoughts stop me living my life.  Since moving back to New Zealand, as well as working a full time job, I dedicate my spare time to volunteering for good causes. I have got involved with Shakti to help women going through family violence (verbal and physical) safely get out of abusive households, and the National Council for Women New Zealand, to stand up for womens rights and fight for equality for women in every way.  As well as putting my time to good use, this makes my heart happy.  I was told many times by various people not to openly talk about what I went through because it would make people think I’m in the wrong, or look bad on my family or ruin my brothers chances of getting married in the future, and this is when I realised how backwards indian society still is.  So me being me, I rebel against that idea, and rather than keeping my mouth shut, I have shared my story with Shakti and other organisations, and have published it online.  Women need to realise that if they are abused, they did not “deserve it” or do something to start it.  An abusive situation takes two parties, and we are not responsible for how an abuser acts.  We don’t control anyone except ourselves.  Indian society also tends to not call verbal abuse “abuse”.  They just say “that’s how she is” when elders behave in unacceptable ways.  We respect our elders so much that we never tell them when they are wrong.  This mentality needs to change.  Sometimes words, narcissism and silence, can hurt more than physical damage. If an abuser think they can abuse someone, they should also be prepared for the victim’s story to come out in public, and that’s why I wrote this.  So that no one feels alone or like they deserved the way they were treated. I have chosen to become a much stronger person over the last few years and re-direct my pain into helping women that are going through similar, or even worse, with their families or in-laws. I want my voice to help the voice of others be heard so we are all treated fairly.  In some ways, I am thankful for what I went through, if my in-laws had not put me through what they did, I would not be the woman I am today and I might not have got involved with womens rights and Shakti the way I have.  The way I see it, when one door closes (a relationship with my in-laws), another opens (giving back to society).  At the end of the day, tomorrow is not guaranteed to anyone, and it is up to you how you would like to treat people and live today.

I wish I could say this is the end of this drama, but with this family, who really knows.  All I know is if I don’t exist to them, they also don’t exist to me.  Treat people the way you want to be treated, right?

This is Harita Gandhi-Kashyap’s real-life story shared in her own beautiful words with storyofsouls.com

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