How I Overcame Emotional Blackmail Without Losing My Mind
Realizing that I was being manipulated was half my battle.
It’s been eight months since I got married to the love of my life. After waiting for four years, we couldn’t spend any more time apart. So, despite the raging COVID situation and lockdown restrictions, we decided to tie the knot and take the leap.
Our wedding had its own share of drama, from sudden changes of venues to out-of-the-blue demands from the groom’s side (he swore it was all his relatives and not this immediate family); it was a rollercoaster ride which nearly pushed me to edge. After a ton of compromises and near breakup instances, our love survived.
This reminds me of the quote from the recent Tom and Jerry movie, where a wedding is described as the ultimate challenge for love the couple share:
“Some couples rise to the challenges, and others fall.”
I let out the breath I was holding for so long and let myself smile with the foolish assumption that bad times were a thing of the past and it is time for a new beginning. A beginning without the support system, which was my rock for the past few years.
Little did I know that I was diving headfirst into quicksand, and the smile I wore during the wedding will be the last genuine smile on my face for a long time…
Now that the wedding shenanigans are done, and relatives have started leaving, it is just my inlaws and us, so it shouldn’t be that big of trouble, huh? Well, that’s exactly what I thought, and oh boy, how wrong I was.
If you’re familiar with the concept of Indian arranged marriages, you would know that love marriages are not just frowned upon but downright loathed by quite a margin of people here.
Even today, there are instances of couples being ostracized by their family just for following their heart. Some of our friends had to wait 5–10 years just to get the nod of approval from their family.
However, that was not the case with us. Neither of our families threw a fit when we shared our heart’s desire to get married to each other, and we felt lucky and overwhelming loyalty towards our families for letting us follow our hearts.
Being an only child who was brought up in an abusive household, I always craved love and family. Growing up, I never had a sibling or a close friend to share my life’s happenings with. The fact that my cousins deserted me when I hit a perpetual low point in my life gave me trust issues, and even today, I have a hard time opening up to colleagues and friends.
So, our major worry after marriage was settling down peacefully into his household and growing a bond with his mom and sister. Since his mother and sister stayed supportive every step of the wedding, I felt deeply touched and believed that I am honor-bound to take care of them as I would take care of my mom and dad.
Although I didn’t feel comfortable as I would be in my own house, I attempted to push aside any second thoughts and tried my best to pitch in for everything from paying utility bills and going grocery shopping to cooking meals and offering emotional support. Being the neanderthal I am, I got attached with my inlaws too fast and fell hard for the care they showered on me.
I started believing that my family has grown bigger in size from three (mom, dad, and I) to six (him, his sister, and his sister) after this marriage. And, all hardships that we went through to get married seemed totally worth this happiness.
For a while, I presumed that my dark days were behind me and my life is gonna be all sunshine and rainbows. Little did I know that my happiness tempted fate and my life was about to spiral out of control, and I’m about to enter my worst nightmare.
Over my six months of marriage, there are five instances of emotional garbage that made me realize that I had to stop being a pushover who gives in to emotional blackmail and stand up for myself.
Subtle Demands That Made Me Overlook My Own Comfort
Everything from the way you dress to something mundane like applying turmeric to your mangal sutra should happen the way your inlaws prefer.
Once I tried to go out with my hubby wearing jeans and a tee. It was just to a place down the street, but my inlaws subtly told me that I’m way too underdressed, and what’s more, they made me change thrice before they deemed me fit enough to go out. There was a strict dress code inside the house too.
What’s more, at times, they have made me feel that the bathroom tiles are worth more than my own comfort. They preferred to keep their washroom tiles clean and sparkly, forbidding me to do any mundane ritual that will spoil its pristine state. If you wanna apply any beauty products or even indulge in the colorful ritual of applying turmeric to your mangal sutra, do it over the kitchen sink they gently nudged, irrespective of the fact how uncomfortable it made me.
Actions That Proved I’m Not Part of Their Family
I think that some of my fellow writers will agree to have a mental block for writing whenever you move to a new space. Since I was very uncomfortable with my surroundings, I came down with the worst case of writer’s block; everything I tried went down the drain.
I just switched jobs, and I felt awkward going back to my mentor in the previous organization for help. So, I tried to color my way out of the rut and left my sketch pens after a coloring session. Later that day, I was reminded to clear my garbage from the coffee table. It could seem like a simple snarky jab to be stressed over. But it was not a single instance. I had to endure the same comment when I accidentally left my laptop on the coffee table.
It took me a while to realize that they were not bothered by the stuff my husband or anyone else left on the coffee table or couch or anywhere in the living room. It was their house, they were used to seeing them around, but even a small coffee mug seemed out of place and bothered them silly, if the object in question belonged to me.
That is when it hit me; despite all their empty words claiming me to be a part of their family, they didn’t really mean it. As I tried digesting that thought, I started feeling so lonely and all alone in that house irrespective of the fact there were three more people living there.
Manipulating Me into Believing Their Version of the Truth
My husband is an independent music artist. His passion for music and unrelenting drive to prove the same are the most important things that brought us together. As a fellow creator, I could feel the struggles and hardships he was undergoing to make a name for himself. Hearing his story and the ridicule he faced from his relatives, I have always felt protective of him and his dreams.
Since we started dating, I started financially pitching in every now and then to solve his money troubles. No, I was neither well off, nor did I have a 6 figure package or decent savings. I was getting paid a salary of 40k every month, of which nearly 60% went to my personal loans.
I used the rest of the money and my credit card to manage my household expenses. Being the only breadwinner of your family is challenging; you have to pay for a never-ending list of expenses and do every trick in the book to make ends meet. Amidst all this chaos, I found a way to help him out financially every now and then.
Despite knowing everything there is to know about his life, I was gaslighted into believing the worst possible things about him. It led me to a point where I started questioning everything he said and ultimately started believing that he is a financially irresponsible person who is the reason for all hardships his family faced to date. Although I snapped out of the trance a few months later, it still eats me away for falling for it.
Using Me As an ATM & a Taken-for-Granted Maid
Since I couldn’t afford to take over the expenses of another household, I did my best to pay nearly 50% of the household expenses, which is our share. Some months, it went past that, but I didn’t really mind. For, it is my family too, right? I did not question their spending habits even when it put me in a precarious position financially. That was a stupid move on my part.
In addition to coaxing non-existent money out of my pockets, they also guilt-tripped me into believing that I was not pulling my weight in household chores. Man, there was a maid and all that, yet, they had high expectations for their new maid erm, daughter-in-law.
However, whenever I did something, it was never up to par. Whether it is a dish I cooked or the way I cleaned the washroom, there was always something that I could have done better. I still don’t understand how on earth I’m supposed to mimic their mother’s cooking. I’m a woman, not a xerox machine. Meh, like all dysfunctional adults, I kept trying and trying until I crossed my breaking point. I never managed to get their vote of approval, though.
My Health Seldom Being a Priority
Be it my mental health or my physical health, they never deemed either to be something worth their concern. Being a clinically depressed person, I was on antidepressants. He knew that my happy pills were the only hold that kept me from going back down the old road of self-harm and suicide attempts.
But, after listening to their offhanded comments about how it was all inside my head and I should stop taking those pills or even stop meeting my therapist, he started nodding along too. While I don’t blame him, all those conspiracy theories about mental health problems made me take a step back and think if I was getting addicted to those thrice-damned happy pills.
That’s the worst mistake I could have ever made. Without my happy pills and no one to discuss all the emotional baggage that I was carrying, I started losing my marbles. All the pent-up frustration that I kept bottled up broke loose when I had a miscarriage. And a part of me still blames my inlaws for what happened.
After being silent for so long, my anger reached a boiling point and I bolted from that place to my home. Everything aside, my home is a place where I was not frowned upon for being just my own self. However, I couldn’t just indefinitely stay at my place for eternity, after all, I am married and I can’t freeze my husband out forever.
When he kept pushing me to get back, I blew up and let loose 7 months’ worth of emotional garbage on my clueless husband. That’s when my foggy brain finally cleared up.
A Tale of Recovery and Rejuvenation
I was surprised by the amount of baggage I carried, for I pegged myself as a person who did not hold grudges. Oh boy, how wrong I was.
A part of me wanted to storm into their house and ask a few choice words for pushing me to a proverbial edge. But, after listening to all that I endured and kept bottled up all this time, he wanted a clean exit outta there. Although it was the polar opposite of what I had in mind, I realized an epic verbal battle was not worth the drama it will unleash.
Instead of opening another can of worms, I decided to clean the mess that was already out there.
- We moved to a new place. It was hard setting up a new place from scratch and even harder to maintain single-handedly. When money seemed to be the problem, we took a payday loan to speed up the process and finally get a chance to move out. It was a risk, yeah, but this seemed like a safer bet than staying for eternity as someone’s puppet.
- I went back to my therapist. While I got an earful for all the self-harm I indulged in, it was worth it.
- I reconnected with my support network. They didn’t respond well after being frozen out for so long, but still, they welcomed me with open arms.
- I opened up to my colleagues at work. I was candid about what’s going wrong with my life and how it is affecting my work. To my surprise, they received it well and have been nothing but supportive since then. This is the best decision I made this year.
- I tried to rekindle my reading habit. Reading has always given me solace during difficult times, and I just dived back into the fictional world to forget my real-life woes. I completed reading 26 books this year. My reading goal is looking achievable.
- I tried different tactics to coax my muse out of whatever dungeon he/she is hidden. I’m trying an array of methods to get out of my rut, and this blog is an example that my attempts are bearing fruit.
- I restarted my passion project, shibhuwrites.com. It has been my dream to start writing about writing under my own domain. I purchased the domain a year ago. But, I neither had the time nor the motivation to just start. I decided to throw all my fear out the window and give it a try, finally.
- I try my best to keep myself busy and away from stray thoughts of self-harm. Whenever I hit a block, I try to talk it out with a friend or my husband or my therapist. I’m glad to say that there have been no new instances since I moved into our new place.
Summary
Walking away from emotional blackmail wasn’t easy. Realizing that I was being manipulated was half my battle.
What I realized over these 8 months is that walking away from a toxic relationship isn’t easy but totally worth it. It is okay to put your foot down and say no to emotional manipulation. Letting it all go came with its fair share of guilt, anger, and grief for the family that I thought as my own. But, slowly yet steadily, I’m becoming accustomed to it and learning that it is easier to keep moving forward. I’m using all the anger bottled up inside me to fuel my step.
