Confessions of an Emotionally abused Indian Husband-Bhaveen Sheth DOTSIM

Bhaveen Sheth the writer of this blog "The Diary of a Single Indian male" shares a post from Quora on the condition of an emotionally abused married Indian man. Please read the post below:

I am 26 years old and I just got married to the girl I loved. Eight months into the marriage, I am depressed and on the verge of doing something disastrous but completely silent.

My wife has been an extremely spoilt child even by her own declarations. Every month, she spends a large chunk of the salary on stuff that we eventually throw out in a week or two. If I protest, she threatens to leave me or tells me that I am not a man for not being able to provide ‘basic’ amenities to her. Basic here includes dresses of brands I can’t pronounce and gift items and decorative stuff that we have little place in the house to keep.

I earn decently or that’s what I thought. Every single day, she asks me to do better at my job and earn more money. If I don’t earn more money, then what sort of a man am I? This is what she believes. She texts me constantly when I am working and asks me to come back home as early as possible. That affects work and in turn, the money. But if I have to stay back for longer hours and work harder, we get into fights that last for days. She threatens to kill herself.

She keeps posting feminism based messages on Facebook and is an avowed believer of equality. At home, she tells me that I should take care of the house and see how tough that is. Which is what I have been doing for three months now. I also do all her work at her workplace (she works in accounts and I find the time to do her balance sheets every day). She proudly proclaims to her friends that she works and takes care of the house all by herself, but I know better.

Since my mother is a heart-patient (my father passed away seven years ago), she has told me that ending this marriage will be her end. I must continue.

Every single day, we discuss about where she should go and shop, what she should wear, where I must take her to lighten her mood since the household work makes her miserable. If I express one opinion about where we should eat or what we should do, she tells me please think about me too. It’s not about you all the time. If I tell her that can I bring my mother to take care of her at least for a few days, she tells me ‘I don’t have time for useless people.’ Her family comes over and stays for days on end (which is a decent expense for me that makes things worse later on). If I protest, the threat is there and my mom is told about her son’s incapability. She believes it and reprimands me and asks me to work on myself.

I have stopped protesting, stopped speaking, stopped thinking. If I think and my face twitches, she tells me, ‘what was that? Why did you look at me like that? Are you doing me a favour by being nice to me? Do you know I could have married anybody…’ I sleep after her and wake up before her to prepare her first cup of coffee. I cook on most days since the last three months. ‘I will cook when I feel like. My father has always kept me like a queen. It’s time you did that too.’ I work constantly and barely get time to do anything else. At night, she tells me, ‘I think you are failing as a husband. I think you don’t realize how lucky you are. I hope you grow up and start valuing me.’ This is not a recent happening. I am writing about eight odd months here.

So what sucks about being a man? I cannot express my anger in this situation without being called a wuss. I tried exploring some legal options to end this charade but it won’t end well for me and with my mom undergoing her treatment, I won’t be able to afford it. I have told by my wife that I harass her or that I am like other men that rape women, if I don’t reach home within the time she specifies. She constantly complains about me to her friends, about how much of an idiot I am. She also discusses my sexuality with her friends and proudly tells me about it. Imagine if I did stuff like that? Yet, all that talk passes off as allowable coffee conversation. I can never claim that I cooked something or kept the house clean. No extra points for managing work and the house. But for her, that’s very commendable as she is a woman and has to battle inequality every day. For me, all this stuff must be easy as I am privileged.

I know feminism is a good thing and it is important to win the war for equal rights for women. It is very much the need of the hour. But my battle is lost. I will always smile and pretend things are ok, while I am dying inside.

This is the reality of many married Indian men, however a majority chose to suffer silently throughout their lives. I really feel sad about this person but there is nothing  that I can do. An important lesson learnt from this post is that before marriage every Indian man should thoroughly scrutinize the girl and put his expectations clearly before proceeding for matrimony.Should you ever encounter an over pampered spoilt princess in a prospective then drop it, just drop it from the start, you don't want end up with the life that this married man has shared above.

This is Bhaveen Sheth signing off for the day and promise to be back with a lot more.

BHAVEEN SHETH-DOTSIM- EMOTIONALLY ABUSED INDIAN HUSBANDS

Bhaveen Sheth the writer of this blog writes on married Indian men who suffer from emotional abuse at the hands of their wives. I try to state the facts on emotional abuse faced by many Indian husbands to such an extent that many have been forced to commit suicide.

Not one day goes by when you don't get to hear or read on cases of domestic violence against Indian women in newspapers, internet or the social media. The feminist media has tried its best that any such cases whether real or fake are highlighted and given all kinds of publicity.

It is always the married Indian women who are physically abused, harassed, ill treated, beaten,battered, thrown out of the house. The media loves to make martyrs out of such Indian wives, not to say that they want to increase their own TRP ratings. No one focuses on emotionally abused Indian husbands. Their condition is at best forgotten.

I write on this topic as I feel that many Indian husbands are being emotionally and mentally harassed in India.A majority of such men choose to remain silent. They do not discuss their problems with anyone. As the years go by, abuse becomes more toxic.

Life has never been easy to men in India. Marriage is a ceremony that all Indian men want to undergo. They want the tangible and intangible benefits offered within the institution of marriage. Unfortunately real life is not a dream world, it is not some Yash Chopra movie where there is always a happy ending.

Many Indian women are smart and manipulative. They are aware of the weaknesses that Indian men have.They always want to have an upper hand in the marriage. Marriages in India have been all about mergers and acquisitions where both sides want to get maximum benefit out of the other.

One common observation about emotionally abused Indian husbands is that their wives  are stronger and more confident than them. It is the wife who takes all the decisions and it she who will call the shots. Another observation is that these wives are good looking and well groomed while the husbands are average or below average lookers.

So why do you have beautiful Hourie looking women getting married to an average Joe? The answer is simple! The guy is loaded . He comes from  a decent family, has good educational qualifications ( you know the IIT-IIM  passout, B-School pass out, software engineer, doctor, investment banker). He draws a good salary. All this is enough for a beautiful woman to marry him even if he is a dork.

Many such abused Indian husbands suffer from an inherent inferiority complex. They are men who are not confident, they suffer from a low self esteem, they have never discovered themselves, they never had any girlfriend before getting married, they never went out on  a date. These men were bought up under a strict patriarchal father and extremely loving and caring mother. Such men always seek validation , especially from women.They are emotionally dependent on their mothers and subsequently in the later years of their lives, their wives. It is this weakness that is exploited by the wife.

During the initial years of the marriage men may not notice emotional abuse but over the years the verbal abuse, taunts,criticism and sometimes physical abuse increases. These manipulative wives make their husbands so dependent on them that they end up seeking validation from their wives for each and every thing.

In the later stages things gets very bad.These wives want it all. They want to rule the house.The husband will naturally give in.Many such husbands are happy to play the role of a second fiddle.

And then the abuse becomes toxic.The husbands often get compared with other men who have been more successful than them. These manipulative wives openly insult and humiliate their husbands by stating that they have not been able to achieve anything when compared to other men.

Emotional tantrums are often thrown by the wives as they want to have what they want.There are times when the husbands are openly insulted in public by their wives. They are rebuked and taunted in front of others and the wives openly laugh at them.

And if that was not enough, these wives use threats to get what they want. They threaten on walking out of the marriage, they threaten of divorce , of filling all kinds of false cases against their husbands. Some women go to a further extent. They put their words in action.One of the most powerful instruments that such manipulative women use is the SILENT TREATMENT. They stop acknowledging the presence of their husbands. They stop avoiding their husbands till the time they come and apologize and meet their demands of their wives.

Another weapon used is the absolute denial of sex or any kind of physical contact knowing how desperate men are for sex.The poor husbands are forced to live the life of a married celibate.

Children and in-laws are further manipulated. These women play the victim card who is always neglected and abused.WOW!! Talk on women's empowerment and you have it.

And of course there are these evil wives who will put their evil thought in action. They will flirt with other men in front of their husbands, knowing how their husbands will burn from inside. Some will even have affairs with other men to put their husbands down. After all it is all about MY CHOICE.

Abuse extends to the level of the financial arena. These wives take full control of their husbands salary while the poor husbands survive on peanuts. These wives end up splurging the hard earned money of their husbands on all kinds of materialistic pursuits.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the abuse  faced by Indian husbands and I hope after reading this blog post more Indian husbands will share their stories.

This is Bhaveen Sheth signing off for the day and promise o be back with a lot more

BHAVEEN SHETH