Dominik and his wife have a lot to do with their three children and their careers. But instead of relaxation, your vacation only brings more stress – in the form of its very traditional Indian in-laws. How can his family create more freedom?
Dear Mrs. Peirano,
I am writing to you because my in-laws are very stressful. I am English, my wife is Muslim Indian and her parents are very traditional and have high expectations. The parents have lived in Singapore for many years and are retired. My wife is the only child and a daughter too.
We have three children ourselves (8, 10 and 12), are both fully employed and have an extremely stressful everyday life, balancing work and children. My wife is very conscientious and is busy all day doing her doctor’s office, the children’s leisure activities and the household.
Your parents want to visit us at least once a year for at least three weeks and expect us to spend our holidays with them in Singapore too.
It’s really stressful. The parents are very passive and do not help but want to be served and entertained. They don’t find their way around with us, they want to have their own rhythm. That means they never go out, they just wait for my wife or I to take the initiative. And even then, both of them are very anxious and critical. The parents sit all the time in the living room or on the terrace and wait or watch our family life. And that for three weeks!
My wife is often at her limit anyway, and so am I. And when her parents are there, it’s hard to bear. She tries to be the good daughter and at the same time she has great conflicts with her parents and could burst with anger and exhaustion.
In addition, my in-laws gave us a lot of financial support when buying a house. We couldn’t have done it without her. They are quite well off and buy bigger things every now and then (most recently a car) that we couldn’t afford with three children, but urgently need. This of course increases dependency and makes it all the more difficult to say no.
But our relationship suffers greatly from the many visits from the in-laws. We spend our entire vacation in Singapore. I would also like to go somewhere else and just do something as a family without the disturbance. Vacation is actually the most stressful time of the year for us and the mood is really bad.
My wife would like to change something, but she was brought up strictly and does not dare to disappoint her parents’ expectations.
What can I do so that we can solve this problem and become more free from it?
Best regards
Dominik V.
Dear Dominik V.,
In your family, not only do the generations collide, but also the cultures. Actually, worlds collide!
Traditionally Indian parents expect their daughter to sacrifice herself and put the family and especially the parents first. To make matters worse, your wife is an only child and so everything is on her shoulders.
For you as an Englishman, the rules of the game are completely different when it comes to contact with your parents. It would be highly unusual for western parents to expect to spend several weeks with the adult children and their families. And if they did, they would probably take a more active role looking after, playing with, or supporting the family with the grandchildren. In Western culture, the issue of “boundaries” between parents and children is an important issue, and it is considered healthy to have an appropriate distance from parents and to balance them out again and again.
Your wife seems to be doing the balancing act between cultures. On the one hand, she is now a professionally successful woman who has studied and is coping with life in the West. On the other hand, there is still the strict upbringing of her parents, who have obviously made it clear to her what they expect from her: obedience, respect and self-sacrifice.
The word “limits” would probably be a foreign word or a presumption for the Indian parents.
First and foremost, I would recommend your wife to exchange ideas with other women who do a similar balancing act between western modernity and traditional parents – and who have solved it better for themselves. Your wife probably needs someone who is a role model, who speaks her up and allows her to look after herself and let her parents down a bit. And as a western man, you are probably not an authority on this topic, but you need someone who comes from the culture of your parents. Ideally, the women would also be a little older than themselves so that they would have the authority to speak for the generation of their parents. It could be a Muslim therapist, but also an aunt who is more open-minded or the parents of friends.
In my opinion, that would be the first and most important step. Then there would come the practical demarcation: If you set yourself apart and, for example, only go to Singapore for a week and then travel further in Asia as a family, you could use arguments that the parents understand and with which they can save face.
From my point of view, it would be of no use to speak of demarcation and excessive demands and stress. Parents would then wonder why taking care of their own parents can be stressful for a daughter. It would be more elegant if they used reasons that the parents understand. For example professional success: You have to travel from Singapore to Australia, for example, because you have professional appointments with your wife there that are very important for your career.
Or the parents cannot come to you in Germany because you are both doing professional training, or renovating, or looking after your sick daughter.
It would be good if your wife’s balancing act was revealed: We feel that we need more time for ourselves as a family – but we cannot say this openly because it would be offensive to the parents. So we put forward other reasons.
Try to find a healthy mediocrity – and it definitely doesn’t seem to be at the moment. And once you’ve reduced contact, parents will get used to it over time. The first year will be the most difficult.
Best regards,
Julia Peirano