"You're moving from your family to this new family. Your husband's family!" An official of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) said.
I noticed that he was literally deleting my previous title from each document. "Now you are part of their (husband's) family," she said. Hearing these words, my eyes widened. I tried to stay normal. My husband, however, later joked that the KADRA officer had given me more than what he had done to me when he was teaching marriage.
This one incident inspired me to be mentally prepared a year before the wedding. Whenever I had the chance, I would listen to their girlfriends, girlfriends or female family members, all of whom would describe their post-marital experiences. Especially those who had to go to the husband's joint family after marriage, I said more.
After a year, when I finished all the formalities of marriage and got a new life and family, I gradually settled down despite some problems. Conversations have helped me a lot in different situations, for which I am grateful. Again in some situations I have been told in advance where to retreat or remain silent. In fact, the stories I heard in that conversation are etched in my mind.
For example, a 26-year-old bride told me that she was not allowed to eat cheese in her new home. Strange as it may sound, it is 100% true. Her father-in-law found out through a WhatsApp forward that eating cheese causes cancer. And that's why such a ban!
"So now we can no longer eat cheese. If we ever forget to eat cheese omelette, all evidence must be discarded immediately," he told me.
Seeing the shadow of disbelief on my face, he added, "I'm serious. I'm smoking. It's okay to see my father-in-law, but eating cheese won't let him see anything."
Then we laughed a lot about it. When I asked her how she was coping with such a strange event, her answer shook my head: "This is her (her husband's) home." I learned from an article in the Washington Post that the Department of Communications at the University of Kentucky conducted two studies on depression among newlyweds. In a study conducted in 2016, 26 women took part. Half of them said they felt frustrated or disappointed after marriage. Also another study on 152 women in 2016 found that 12 percent of women suffer from depression after marriage.
In the minds of most South Asian women, depression occurs within weeks or months after marriage. Mahin, a 30-year-old woman, said, "Once you finish dinner at the end of your honeymoon, life will begin to return to normal. You will discover yourself in someone else's home and keep thinking, 'Well, when am I going home ?!' It's your home, but not at the same time. "
Henna, 29, was told from the start that her husband's home was not hers. "I come from a very conservative society, where girls are married off at a very young age. I remember very well, when I was 21, and my mother-in-law made it clear to me on the first day that this was not my home," Henna said.
When I asked Henna how she was told that, she laughed and said, "Oh, she (Henna's mother-in-law) literally told me, this is not my house, this is their house, and I have to obey them. Gave. " . "
Unfortunately, Henna's experience is not uncommon. For a woman in Pakistan or across South Asia, leaving her home does not mean simply starting a new life with her husband. This often means that you have to 'adjust' to a new family — food, personal habits, and normal life in order to change everything. Moreover, there is an undeclared rule - do not change the environment of the husband's house, but change yourself!
The characteristics of a 'good' daughter-in-law are: she will occupy less space, will not speak her mind and will be obedient not only to her husband but also to her husband's whole family.
Sidra, a 29-year-old dentist, recalls an argument with her husband. He said that the beginning of the quarrel was about giving breakfast to Debor.
"From a religious point of view, I don't want to feed her. But my husband tells me, even if it's not religion, it's their culture. I don't like it. I work outside the home. I have to get it. In my workplace before my husband. I have never complained about my husband's work. But it is not possible for me to do his brother's work. But our argument has reached a point where I leave with my mother the next day. "
Sidra's condition may seem a bit exaggerated. But in fact in Pakistan culture is given priority over religion.
"Not only do I have to take care of my husband, I also have to take care of his parents. But it warms my heart." Samra, who got married last year, told me over the phone. "When it is said that mother-in-law is like your mother, it is a hoax. Mother-in-law is never mother." When I asked my girlfriend Amina what advice she would give me as a new wife, she said, "You can be like yourself. I couldn't get it myself. I wanted to be my best version, but that effort didn't last long." I've been holding my breath for a while. But my in-laws are disappointed again. So prepare yourself from the beginning. Don't give them a chance to complain that you changed after marriage. "
Depression, postpartum depression and emotional and physical trauma have recently begun to break the taboos of South Asian women. I find myself uncomfortable admitting that I am depressed. The new environment around me was perfect. So many times I wanted to deny my big and small depression. I didn't want to be ungrateful.
When you move to a new town, Veena tells me, "You will feel a kind of resentment towards your husband. How well he is living his life. There is no big change in his life. But for me everything has changed, but my husband has to accept. Does not want
"Do men realize how lucky they are? They can open the door whenever they want and see their mother. But I have to wait for the holidays to book tickets."
But one thing I do understand is that after marriage no one can fully prepare you for life. No words or stories are enough. You will find yourself running into a family where everyone in the family knows, knows and understands each other well and has an idea about each other's faults and discomfort. But your condition is like a fish caught on shore.
Listening to these stories, it seems that the people of my in-laws are very lucky. Didn't have to read in such a bad situation. But even then, why does a strange feeling arise in my mind again and again?
In the beginning, I would break my feelings like that. I heard horror stories before moving to a new family, nothing happened to me! But later it took me a long time to realize that it was more important for me to hear these words from married women than to know with interest what should not be done in the in-laws' house. It's normal to be jealous when you see it and get lost at dinner with all the members of your in-laws.
It would be nice if someone could tell me these things in advance. Then I do not have to deny my own sorrow or grief. Those bad moments may not last long, but they were real. And most importantly, I was in no way ungrateful to anyone, and I loved my new life or my husband less. But even then, my new home lacked a few things উঠে waking up in the morning to hear my mother's voice, taking a plate of fruit from my father's hand, talking to my sister before going to bed at night, or sharing countless jokes with my brother. .
We want to maintain a culture where women do not talk about the sadness of being separated from their family after marriage. Concerns about post-change separation also remain unspoken.
How do I convey to men in my life the feeling I once had to endure standing outside my own house in my parents' house? Where do I stand and look at fragmented chapters of life and where do I have to decide which one to take with me and which to leave? The intense frustration and despair that comes with this frustration, where do I put them?
No one in the society thinks about these. Conversely, women who are fighting with their minds after marriage, I say, are not the first to leave their father's house and come to their father-in-law's house. How many more titles will we give them? We don't understand that leaving one's own family and moving to another family is like immigration. And there will be the pain of losing that immigration.
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