In Their Debt
My husband and I have been married 10+ years now but don’t have kids. His family is overseas, and he was sent to the US at age 14 to attend school because his family is pretty wealthy—oil business, film stars, and politicians. Not Crazy Rich Asians level, but certainly a far cry from my own working-poor background. Over the years, we discussed moving back, but the big roadblock is his crazy family.
Some of the stuff they’ve done over the years include: Guilting us for money so his older brother (who has three kids, two servants, and never held a job) could go on a vacation. Making us cancel a trip to an island because his mother wanted to “surprise” me with a trip to the orphanage to hold babies…because I didn’t hold my niece enough, which means I hate kids.
I should mention I’ve worked in childcare for five years…but they don’t know what I do for a living. They threw us a “wedding” that we didn’t ask for, mostly to drum up support for their political campaigns. They then insisted on getting us rings that don’t fit and making my dress, which also didn’t fit. My auntie is a seamstress and told me the measurements I sent were fine.
However, my mother-in-law insisted that I couldn’t be that skinny and my sausage American fingers were definitely not a size 4 for the ring. They also told my husband to divorce me because I refused to wear that hideous dress she wanted me to wear. Really guys, it was an awful, tight, heavy-fabric dress that was so narrow that I couldn’t walk in it.
They love constantly guilting us with memes and sayings about “give all you have to your parents” and “heaven is at the feet of the mother” then outright telling us that we “owe” them money because they raised my husband and sent him to school. I’m thinking, why the heck did you have kids then? Last I checked, sending your kid to school is raising your kids!
Recently, my husband got a raise and foolishly tells them, thinking they might just MAYBE say something like “we’re proud of you”. But no. Just “Okay, you owe us $1,000 a month now to payback living expenses”. What the heck. I should mention that this family has $$$ and my husband—having grown up with their brainwashing—has been doggedly insistent that we NEVER seek help from them, even if it means sleeping on the streets.
Now I understand why. He’s always “in their debt”.