I have been married for over 5 years. It was an arranged marriage and throughout my existence in the past 5 years, there have been very few moments when I have felt truly happy. My wife has always lived in a nuclear family and seldom respects my parents. While I have always been a sensitive, sophisticated guy, she continues to be a loudmouth, arrogant person, who wants things to be done only her way. Her parents have always been supportive of her behaviour and have even allowed her to stay at their place for over a year after one of her bitter fights with me and my family. I aspire to live with my parents and have found little support from her and her family as far as my vision and dreams for the life ahead. Her parents, fearing social backlash, for keeping her far too long at their home somehow convinced her to move back with me at our home but her behaviour has hardly been cordial. That was my brief background, now here are my two dilemmas:

A) We now have a daughter and my parents have guided me to just follow her instructions and try to keep her happy by doing whatever she wants. But it suffocates me because often her demands are unjustified.

B) Her elder sister tries to unnecessarily interfere with our life and calls her every day to check out the latest gossip in our life. Her elder sister even abused me and spoke about my family in a derogatory way on phone while my wife was staying with her parents for a year. I now insist on keeping her sister out of our lives, but my wife behaves arrogantly and wants her sister to be allowed to continue her relationship with me as my sister-in-law, while I don't think I can tolerate her anymore in my life.

I sometimes feel like committing suicide to get rid of the problems in my life, but refrain from doing it only for the sake of my parents who love me a lot. I don't know what should my approach be moving forward?

Not being of your culture, I cannot give you any opinion on arranged marriages. You get what you get. Its apparent though that you are so very caught up in the female interaction stuff that you are distracted from the goal of establishing your own male routine.

Let your queen rule the household matters and get your control back over your own life, and activities. Put aside these small personal family squabbles, they are beneath you and have no place in your life and are but emotional distractions from the important role you play as head of your household. Lead by example, as you really should not give weight to the interactions between your mate and her sister, so stay out of it, it is of no consequence, but a drag on your head. It doesn't matter what they discuss.

You agreed to this arrangement, and its you that have to set the pace for the interactions. Obviously you have not figured out the very important way to establish the foundations of communications, so as you do going forward all of your actions must be taken with cool, calm, and collected, deliberations and no matter her manners, YOU must be always in control of YOURSELF.

Do not be overwhelmed by her emotions, she is female, they are emotional, understand this, as her style is so much more different than yours, so see beyond the emotional out bursts, and see the real reasons behind the feelings. In this way, you learn and can have effective strategies to combine the two differing styles you are having great conflict with, and resolve issues that plaque you both.

Do you have older males to talk to? They can give you insights to solving these conflicts, that work for you both. There is no need to have these conflict rise to this level of misery. So get and stay in control of yourself, as this is but a learning process, so that you can either grow together, or you will have to grow apart. But you must first define yourself, and your own boundaries of GOOD behavior for yourself, and express what you expect to your partner, and know what she expects of you.

But first, leave the small personal stuff to the women, and follow your own path to keep your household secure. Focus on life career, and not in ruling your female. They never listen any way and its better to let her gossip, and visit her family whenever she pleases.

She is as clueless as you are about how to proceed, so tell her to work with you, or get a divorce and do as she pleases. In some things you can be sensitive and giving, in some things you cannot, so know the difference, and apply accordingly.

I think what you've suggested seems to be the logical thing to do, moving forward. I would like you to go through some other important details as part of my case and give your opinion after understanding my perspective and my background with regards to the following:

a) The interaction between me and my wife's elder sister has been limited since our heated telephonic discussion 2 years ago, while my wife was staying with her parents. My sister-in-law is now trying (through my wife) to what she calls as 'mending bridges' with me and has been sending me SMSs, along with calling me on festivals, to wish me. She has now got her husband to call me as well to wish me on festivals. But I either don't take their calls or reply with a simple 'THANKS' to messages by her and her husband. From within, I do this because I don't feel comfortable keeping a relationship with a person, who disrespects me and my family and has had the audacity to speak disrespectfully about us while her sister was living with her parents after our fight. Despite attempts by my sister-in-law and her husband, I have kept them at a distance and try my best to avoid them at family functions. But my wife often fights with me over this and insists that I sit and talk to them whenever we bump into each other at family functions. I don't know whether its my ego or the trauma of what I have been through, that stops me from interacting with them. But I want to know from you as a third person, what should I do moving forward, while you look at it as an outsider?


b) I am an Indian and plan to ideally keep living with my parents for the rest of my life. I have mine and my parents' reputation to protect, so a divorce looks unlikely in our conservative society and I would rather commit suicide if I fail in this relationship that take a divorce. I sometimes feel I have a very cluttered mind and like you rightly pointed out, I haven't been able to concentrate on my responsibilities as the head of a family and as an influential professional. While the issues might seem trivial to you, but they've had a huge bearing on my mind in the past 5 years and the constant trauma isn't helping me get better at all! Her parents, brother and sister always support her misdemeanors. Unfortunately for her parents, her brother has now got married and can't keep her in their parents's house anymore fearing a backlash from his own wife. But they still continue to support her from outside and behave like 'imbeciles'. I want to know from you the approach I need to take moving forward. It's been 5 years of non-stop fights and a struggle for me and I want to get rid of my troubles, specially with a baby in the house and want to give the baby a healthy atmosphere to grow.

Thank you for the further information, and I assure you I don't take it lightly.

It seems though that with all due respect you are a ridged, fellow that resists reconciliation, or compromise due to past conflicts, and resentments. Maybe they fail to honor you, or apologize the right way, but they have been trying in the way they know how.

I think you give them a chance, by first forgiving their flaws, and actions the best way you can and try this again. Even in conservative societies, is it not acceptable to allow those that have harmed you a face saving way out in the name of building acceptable relations? You maybe don't get everything you want, but will at least get peace and a larger family.

That's what I meant by lead by example, as if they reach out, YOU reach back, as being civil is NOT defeat, or giving in, but putting practice and people above the strict adherence to principle.

I think that is a step forward. Holding on to old hurt, and resentments, is being stuck in the past, and the future cannot be attained under those conditions.

The only way that love grows is by embracing the changes needed to give it room to grow, and a hard heart cannot accomplish this important human function. Its like trying to hold onto an bad meal, the poison builds, and makes you sick.

Lead by example, and feed the good, and starve the bad. That is the path to a healthy, happy relation, and a peaceful home. Conservative, or not. Have a good time getting to know each other. Which you have not done a great job of yet.

Put your best forward, whether they do or not.

From a female perspective, I have to wonder what the expectations were before you married. Why did you marry each other? Was there pressure to marry? Have you both been so stuck in your own ways because you are privately rebelling against having been pressured (how ever lovingly the pressure may have been applied) to marry?

I also think you may want to calm down and see how you seem disrespect your wife and her family. You have called them names and have had nothing good to say about them. Somehow, I don't think this started recently. I know it is common to want to stand up for one's own family and not see the how 'your' side may be feeding into the problems.

You call your wife loud-mouthed and arrogant (and a few other things). How does she see you? I have learned through the years that many women are labeled loud-mouthed or arrogant simply because they refuse to sit in a corner and allow the men to run their lives. What do you see as your wife's place in your household and your parents'? Is she supposed to be your wife and partner or a servant?

I suggest finding a marriage counselor in your area. I know from previous research there are counselors who are well versed in working with couples in arranged marriages. Hopefully, you can both learn new ways of communicating with each other and building a life together. I have read enough questions from Indian couples to know that there are compromises that can be made if both of you are open to working together. It means you listen more to each other than parents and siblings. Together, you should look at the world around you and see what the best parts of it are that you want your daughter to learn and experience.