This is a case about a couple named Anshul and Priya. Where Anshul is a family oriented guy, has a very high ambition in life, a person with high intellect, belonging to a high SES family. Apart from him, there are three members in his family including his parents and an elder brother. His parents are quite simple and are just like a typical Punjabi family. His brother was working as a consultant with an MNC and was mostly involved in travelling abroad. At that time he was also working in an MNC in abroad at a very high level, but due to his father’s health issues, he had to leave his job and settle back in India to join the family business. His father was running a factory, that now he took care of.
A year later he is married to Priya, they got fixed through an arranged setup. Priya is quite sensitive in nature; she is very sweet, cute, simple, a girl with typically feminine characteristics and very much conscious about her fitness. Just like her husband she also belongs to a family of four, just that she has a younger brother. Her family is quite open-minded. She is quite immature than to her husband, considering the five year age gap between them, the lack of exposure and excessive pampering she received from her parents.
Due to casual attitude of Priya’s family and high self-respect of Anshul’s family, both faced hassles during the marriage arrangement. So, the relationship between the in-laws got bitter, and after the marriage, Priya started having adjustment issues with the in-laws. There were situations when out of respect she didn’t say no to them for a lot of things, even if she didn’t like it. Her mother in law was very organized and perfectionist as a homemaker and had a good relationship with each and every relative.
As Priya got married in a joint family, she started feeling insecure. The entire house revolved around the mother in law, all the matters were discussed with the mother in law. Due to deep-rooted insecurities, she started having negative feelings towards the in-laws.
On the same hand, due to the bitter experiences during the marriage, Priya’s parents, especially her mother used to instigate her negative feelings. She now started doubting the in-laws even more; she even thought that they are keeping surveillance at her.
And all these issues added up to a fight between the couple. It was just a year of their marriage that the families approached us for marriage and family counselling. During the session, we got to know about the suspicious nature of Priya and her emotional instability. Even though she was also a family oriented girl, she was still unable to manage with the in-laws, chiefly due to her sensitive nature and negative thought process.
As discussed during the counselling sessions, Anshul and Priya started living separately as a nuclear family with a fixed amount of money at a rented place. Anshul was not in favour of all this as he was very close to his mom but due to the wife issues, he agreed to it. Now, Priya got her personal space in an independent house and joined job just to keep her occupied so with the passage of time she started positively interacting with in-laws. Initially, the in-laws were annoyed but at the end made peace with it.
However, Anshul is still facing some ups and downs in his life and trying his very best to settle back in abroad. He is trying to shape his life the way he wants. They both are now happy that Priya is very much sorted with her life, and most importantly each and every decision of the family now is made keeping her in regards. Priya became the centre of attention in Anshul’s Family, in-laws are very Happy with her. The whole family goes out for family trips n get together’s. She keeps visiting in-laws place happily at least once or twice a week n actively participate in each n every chores and function. Both in-laws had patched up. The couple is now expecting a child next month.
P.S. – This is a real-life example of one of the cases resolved with the help of marriage and family counselling.