Photo by Cami Talpone on Unsplash
Note:
This post was written in 19 July 2016 as “Greatest Wedding Regrets.” It’s been almost two years on since my husband and I have read more articles on psychology and often fought through the logics. We have been praying together for things that we do not have control on. Our marriage had improved and we have created boundaries. Hence I have rename this post as “When CNY becomes judgements in family”.
Since then, both my husband and I had walked out on my mother in-law when she was being nasty towards my husband and I. We have since talked about it, but my mother in-law denied that she was being judgemental.
My relationship with my in-laws are not great until today, but putting a post here just to remind myself how much I have moved on, for better for worse.
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Being Asian, you can’t omit the parents out from the wedding because we are more like a community rather than individualistic. The western world can get away with small wedding and not inviting the whole clan but it is tougher for the Asian families unless they are more open minded.
Having them in my wedding was the biggest heartache and regret in my life and it is something that I am still trying to get over. I can’t even look at them in the eye anymore. Of course people are just trying to be diplomatic and will go “They do it because they care for you in their own way.”
Yeah, really? If you do something to help but it doesn’t benefit the other person, then no, you’re not helping. Also, if the person keeps inducing guilt and keep disregard my actions, isn’t that abuse?
You think that after the wedding they will be more accepting. To be fair, they tried to accommodate me to a certain extend during the wedding. The biggest peeve that my MIL ever done is to diss my upbringing especially Chinese New Year (CNY) customs.
To a standard Chinese family, the first day of CNY is the most important day to pay respects to your elders. In some clans, the married woman is supposed to go back to her husband’s side for the first day of CNY.
I am aware of this since his mother is so traditional. If she has an issue of me not doing her traditional thing on the first day then yes, she can scold me. But she had asked me many times what my family do for the first day of CNY and no matter what I tell her, she kept dissing it by saying, “But then families must follow the first day of CNY or else it is not family.”
Let me tell you more about my family. Ever since both of my brothers got married, my parents had always let my brothers go back to their in-laws places. Now that’s breaking the typical Chinese tradition because my parents realised that the in-laws for both of my brothers are more traditional and my parents wants to keep the peace. Imagine if my parents did the iron fist on them and made my sisters in-law come back to my family on the first day. If they did that, the family might break apart because we are dealing with a few families with different background.
As a compromise, my family will celebrate CNY earlier so that my siblings and I will celebrate our CNY with our in-laws who are uncompromising on their positions on the first day of CNY.
No matter how many times I told my MIL, she doesn’t get it. It got to the point that I had to elbow my husband in front of my MIL so that he answer her instead of me. But even he did explain in front of her, she still went on, “But they must still do that (first day of CNY) tradition.”
Worse still, she has to play dirty fighting and say, “Your father should do that.”
That is very judgemental and disrespectful. Like I say, if she had an issues with me not giving her respects on the first day of CNY, then yes, she can say something to me but to diss my family graciousness to let us (my brothers and I) do the first day traditions? That’s very disrespectful. What makes her think just because my family celebrate CNY earlier means we are not trying to get the family together? My husband saw how my mother’s side of the family gets the family together and it is not about the first day of CNY.
And a few days ago, she did ask my husband how am I because I think she sensed that I am not opening up to her. She thinks that no one briefed me about the family but the truth is my sisters in-law had briefed me but this is beyond briefing. Her own daughters are under her culture, but I am the outsider.
I told my husband how am I going to open up to her if she is judgemental over the things I am doing. I am not a doctor but a designer (her family glorifies doctors). How am I going to open up when she interrogates me as though I am a criminal (her late father used to be a policeman)? During the wedding, she kept interrogating about what I spend on the wedding and commented that everything is expensive and she wanted to help me to save money. No, she didn’t. She said she will help but she left the tasks hanging and she doesn’t even know the market prices.
I admit that I don’t want to talk to her. Maybe she thinks that when she talks to me is the way of getting to know me better but she interrogates me and diss my decisions and identity, even CNY traditions. It doesn’t help that I am a designer but now that I am doing masters, she is treating me better. I am sorry but if you suddenly change your treatment from bad to better just because you realised that I am more educated, then you’re insincere. I am a chatterbox and I will usually tell everything to people if they ask but for my MIL, I closed up myself to her. Same with my FIL. He is so emotionally and verbally abusive to my MIL and that affects how she treats my husband.
As for my FIL, he kept scolding so many people in the wedding and is a kid stuck in a 60+ year old man body. I do really want to tell him not to be abusive but he is not my father. I don’t have the leverage like my younger sister in-law to tell him off as much as I want too.
I did tell my husband this many times but he is still finding the right moment to tell his parents. His parents are very aggressive and pushy and it takes a lot of mental and emotional preparation to face up to them. Dealing with them will drain up all mental and emotional resources and it can make someone paralysed for a long time.
At the end of the day, we will always say people go through different moments in life to act the way they are (me included).