Madam, I am 61 years old , retired from Govt service an year ago. I have a problem in my family. Though my wife is a post graduate, she refused to take up any Job and wants all others including her in laws to give her money eternally. Misbehaved with my parents & sent them out of our house for their supposed conservative style and refused to allow my sisters family on a visit and quarreled with me on this ground time & again. She quarrels with me on silly issues loudly infront of kids. She reflects her mother`s attitude in dealing with my parents & relatives. Later She re-started her love affair with her ex lover . Fed up with quarrels at home and keep her away from unwarranted affairs, I decided to go abroad and took her also with me with our 2 daughters. There again, she started another illicit affair with my classmate cum colleague (whom i knew for 2 decades and i treated like a brother and was already married with kids). After 18 months of secret affair , behind me, they finally disclosed and wanted to elope leaving their families behind. Stunned by their ghastly betrayal , I sent my family back to India and also reported the matter to boss, who repatriated that Traitor back. I had to forgive my wife for sake of my Daughters who were aged 12 yrs and 9 yrs then. I am unable to come to terms with their ghastly actions though 2 decades have since passed. We sleep in separate rooms and I have no physical relation with her, ever since as our marriage is over for all purposes. I believe that mutual Trust & respect are the foundations of any marriage. Both are lost in our case. Now my daughters aged 31, 29 are Post graduates but are sitting idle at home wasting time in TV and refuse to do any job as their mother keeps telling them why should women work ?. They refuse to receive any external counselling nor willing to get married nor take up a job nor pursue any studies. They are financially dependent on me. I am now retired and live on Govt Pension. They refuse to understand the reality around them. They have no friend either in Relatives or in their college circles. What to do with their Intransigence? .

Hi AnuAt the outset, thank you very much for your time to listen to my situation.I am 50 years old, married to my lover (46 years now) and blessed with two daughters. My wife comes from an upper caste with a poor background. She was my subordinate and got married in 2001 after dating her for more than 18 months.Immediately after marriage, I lost my job due to my mismanagement of responsibility with no criminal action. I suffered for six months and relocated to overseas and lived there for the past 19 years.With my hard work and commitment, my financial situation has improved considerably now. However, my wife's attitude has consistently changed in line with my financial growth. She strongly believes that because of her luck and my daughter’s luck only I was able to earn that much and live comfortably. With my severe official commitments, I did not mind her attitude that much. After the lockdown, I got the opportunity to understand the change and realised that she has constantly ill-treated me over the past 10 years. Also, I lost my parents a few years ago and my father gave his self-earned property worth a few crores to my elder brother and left nothing to me. At the same time, my wife got her ancestor property worth a few lakhs. This incident psychologically weakened me as she consistently abuses me saying she got a few lakhs worth of property whereas I got nothing from my parents. Now, for the last two years, she is not allowing me to perform my parents’ annual death ceremony rituals. She consistently uses bad words against my (departed) parents and makes most negative comments for the donations I made so far and terms me as an Idiot and useless person. She also criticises me in front of my friends and relatives.Her harassment gone to the extent of pushing me to commit suicide and for the sake of my daughter’s welfare, I managed to come out of that mindset on my own. Now, I am determined to live…. at the same time unable to absorb my wife’s harassment. I tried to explain to her in many ways and even begged her many times to stop ill-treating me. Instead, she is asking me how I am able to tolerate despite her ill-treatment for the past few years….Our physical relationship got disconnected for the past five years as she lists out silly reasons for avoiding me. She is refusing to come along with me to meet a psychologist. Also, she disconnected her long-term friends and created a new circle of friends in order to erase her past and maintain a high social image.From your expertise, kindly advise me on how to handle this situation which will be of highest support for me as I am having sleepless nights for the past 2 years.Kindly do not publish my name and request you to keep it anonymous.

Dear Anu, I am married for 24 years having two grown up children. Both are studying. My wife is not working. She had been adamant and spendthrift since the beginning of our marriage. Just to maintain peace I was putting up with her undue demands. Than in last decade my business suffered for quite sometime still I sold some property and managed the household expenses. Than in 2017 the business started picking up and it started doing well. but having learned the lesson I became very firm with wasteful expenses. And by end of 2017 she broke all ties with me, and started sleeping with our daughter in her room. Now since last six years we are hardly talking to each other despite living in the same house . Her parents are also hand in glove with her and disconnected with me. I also came to know lot of factors about her family. Her father claimed to be a businessman before marriage and later I learned he was working in subcontracts division of a company and making money by illegal means from vendors. He was a heavy drinker and had relations with many women. I also came to know that her father had thrown his father out of house and that old man had died in a temple. To make matter worse her parents are having one more daughter which they claim to be given to some family member and now they don't have any relationship with that girl or the couple to whom they have given their daughter to. So prima facie they have a child or children which they have hidden from society. We attended marriages of her uncle's daughters out of Mumbai. His uncle and his family attended my marriage and marriage of my wife's only brother. Now after all marriages are over they have broken up with that uncle too. He is real brother of my father in law. Her aunty expired two years back I offered to call her uncle and offer condolences she said no need now relationship with uncle is over. With all these I am able to come to a conclusion that the family doesn't value relationships and once their purpose is served they discontinue the relationship. Due to constant problems my children have also become very adamant and are not concentrating on studies. Kindly suggest what should I do in the given situation. Can the marriage be annulled on the grounds her family concealed vital information before marriage. I offered her to go for marriage counselling and therapy but she refused. Please suggest some suitable solution.

Madam, I'm 52 year old, with 20 years of married life. Have one daughter, 18 and one son, 15. I'm well earning government employee. My wife is also post-graduate. However, after marriage, she put half- hearted efforts to get govt job, but didn't succeed. She was never interested to live at different places for the sake of job and also wanted equal rank job. At that time, I didn't realize that she might be comparing with me. Any way, I was fine with any of her decisions. Later she told thatnshe wants to focus on children only. But, after 4-5 years, she started hating my all family members. While they are staying almost 1000 kms away, and except on few occasions, they never asked any help from me. Since last 10 years, she stopped talking to any of them. She doesn't allow my children to visit my native place and meet my family members, even during any marriages or function. My family members or friends aren't welcome at my home. Even after accepting all these nonsense behaviour, she never remains happy. She keeps passing sarcastic comments. She willn't dress nicely. Remains busy in watching movies/webseries on laptop. Many times, our arguments in the past turned to physical also. How long can I tolerate abuse for my family members? All such situations created toxic environment at home. Both of my children were sharp and intelligent, but now they are showing depressive symptoms. I'm not able to focus on my work and affected my personalty and performances. She wants no frills attached to me. In such case, she should have married to any orphan. She neither wants to meet any one for counselling. Now, I also snapped all relations with her family members. But looks, all the doors are also closed for me. I'm feeling suffocated. I neither leave her nor leave the world, as I love my children and my reputations. Kindly suggest the way out.

Dear Anu I am a 46 year old man .. married for last 16 years... My wife is well educated but a house wife by choice.. I lost my father when i was 18 and had struggled a lot to gain a great life in terms of money, name in my field and satisfaction at work. At home front we live a nuclear family... me, my wife and my 12 year daughter. But after my marriage in 2006 for next 6/7 years we were in joint family. my daughter was born in 2010.. In joint family me, my younger brother his wife and my mother were members... during these years, my wife never got along with my mother, brother and his wife... and also had fights [severe kind] where she accused them for petty reason...she demanded separate house within 3 month of marriage.. but since I was not financially settled so I promised her we will buy own home in course of time... but over these 6&7 years her behavior started really erratic.. she stopped talking to everyone, and keep fighting with all my family. also the house with joint family owned my me and younger brother... she demanded i should sell the house and get my share to buy own house. which i refused as my brother and his family with my mother were also staying there... and while buying it my mother had helped us financially, without having her name as owner. over the period things became really bitter... we also had fights where out of anger I happened to slap her.. but as promised I bought another house [with lot of efforts since i m self employee] within 5/6 years and we shifted to another city around our previous house. but after shifting she had the same temperament. She never got along with me.. Over an argument she would stop talking to me, and when confronted she would mention about my share in old house which i left... she was not happy seeing my brother living in that house with his family and my mother... i told her as promised we bought this house and I haven't withdrew my share in that house.. may be over the year i will take my share as per market value.. but at this point we don't need to do it.. since it will involve a lot of turbulence for my brother, his family and my mother as they were settled there. so I strongly told her she should not think about as she have her house and focus on it. Over these time, we had a very cute daughter... growing.. her schooling started.. i got busy with my work... and my wife by choice chose to be house wife... taking care of house... but she was hell bent on the house issue over selling it and taking my share.. and due to that we had several fights... which became my life miserable. her point was why pay EMI when you can get share and pay off the loans for new house. in these 8/9 years she became bitter person... no ties with my relatives /cousins, no friends, never got along with neighbors... and opposite to that i have very cordial relation with her family, cousins, my family and have great social circle. when my daughter was 10 year old, i was already settled with good career and financial status... i had cleared all the home loan for our new home... i did everything all out to make her happier but her wish to sell that house where my brother with his wife and my mother i didn't take share or sell it.. and she keeps nagging me with that and her temperament getting worst... now she started accusing me for having an affair and threatening me that she will complain police if i argue with her. unfortunately my daughter had to see this... but my daughter is very sorted, focused and a good kid. In last 2 years i managed to buy another house, which is bigger, where we shifted 1.5 years back, she wanted to do a puja and refused to invite anyone from my family.. also bought one more house as investment.. and a farm too as second home... Im very happy and satisfied with my career and other aspects of life... but the bitterness of wife kept on increasing... sometimes i felt she wanted me to fail and she could just take the pleasure of making me feel how she was right.. which never happened.. Now she is completely out of touch with my family... her anger triggers when i speak to my brother , my mom, Now over these years my brother also managed to earn some money and he paid me an amount as part of my share for the house he is living.. which we mutually agreed among us... and i withdrew my name from that property... i informed this to my wife.. first she didnt believe.. and then she was not interested in it.. so basically over these years i managed to fulfil everything what i promised also took my share from the joint house even i was not very happy with that situation. but all these incidences.. my wife became a difficult person to deal with... be it talking a simple conversation or smallest issue.. we don't have any physical relation .... we sleep in different bedrooms.. my wife also became too possessive and control freak with my daughter.. my daughter is 12 now and she retaliate with it.. so even they keep fighting now... me and my daughter have a great bonding... over these period i started feeling that i married a wrong person.. sometimes i think of divorce but i m worried about my daughter.. and also lot other things as im 45 already.. i wont say that i have never done any mistake while these 16 years but i never chose to disconnect with my wife... i worked really hard to earn money to build a good fortune for my wife and daughter... but looks like she doesn't care... and she takes me completely for granted... she thinks i wont leave her and will be stuck around.. i also advised to visit a therapist or counselor... or join a meditation or do anything she likes to do... be it creative or extra curricular.. but she just ignores it... i am into creative field and this domestic chaos sometimes really bothers me. it never effected my work yet but i m worried it might just. Let me know your opinion... if there is something i can do more to help this mess with my wife.