Why Women Don't Want To Live With Their In-laws Anymore

For generations, it was standard practice for a woman to move in with her in-laws after marriage. But with families becoming nuclear, roles and duties for both partners evolved. But did the in-laws accept the changes that followed? Married women with jobs will tell you 'no.'

Srishti Raj, a former Software Engineer at TCS had a very interesting take as she explained why more and more married women are choosing not to live with their in-laws after marriage. She summed this up in 12 interesting points.

In a post on Quora, Srishti said that she had been living away from her parents' home since 2010 after she completed schooling.?

'Listening to several married?women?stories at?office, I?was of the opinion?that it's difficult to live with?in?laws,?because every daughter-in-law was frustrated and crying. I have seen so many sincere tears of daughter-in-laws on the bench of the office washroom,' she wrote.

After ten years, she started living with her parents again in 2020 due to covid-19. 'I was being instructed from when to wake up, what to eat, when to sleep, where to go, not to meet friends outside(after lockdown) and so many other things for which I have assumed I was my own boss.'

'Ofcourse all these years, I visited home in holidays and vacations, made voice calls and then video calls (when WhatsApp came in my life from 2014), but I was not being watched like I was being watched now.'

'The boss is my mother who decides what?kitchen, Pooja room, dining hall?etc?should look like. Why would any mother-in-law let me decorate her home?' she noted.??

'I and my partner should be the decision-makers of that household. When living with in-laws it's not always possible,' she said.??

'It took major two years of negotiating, sometimes arguing, sometimes not talking to each other etc. to learn to live together happily without suffocating or disrespecting each other.'

'Will I be able to argue(even respectfully) with my in-laws and not be labelled argumentative or hear things like, 'bahot jubaan chalati hai' (she argues a lot)? I cannot argue or reason with them to the same extent I can do with my parents.??

'A couple of years go into adjustment. And same will be the case with in-laws. But?now, I don't have the mental capacity to go through such adjustments again for years.'

'If a girl is living with her in laws, it's a rare phenomenon that the girl parents would ever come and stay at that place.'

'When I and my husband have our own home, it's not a parental property it's ours. Both set of parents come to stay if one set of parents are not living there permanently. This helps me as a daughter to take care of my parents.'??

'We make this clear at the beginning of a relationship or any arrange marriage alliance. I have skipped a lot of profiles because they were living with their parents. Even if it means, I would stay unmarried I am okay with it. I want mental peace.'

'I want no set of parents to be living with us initial few years of marriage. That's the time, I will give to nurture my marriage and that will also be a time my partner would understand few things I don't compromise on.'