Family Challenges Impacting My Marriage Journey
I'm a Bengali man married to a Pakistani sister, and we're living in Canada. My parents are back in Bangladesh and they're happy with our marriage, Alhamdulillah. My wife and my parents get along well, even with the language barrier. My in-laws are religious but not super cultural compared to typical Desi families. I knew from the start they wouldn't be traditional, and I've always been okay with that. I don't act like a typical son-in-law either. My relationship with my father-in-law is great-he's respectful, friendly, and soft-spoken. We go hiking and play badminton together, which is awesome, but he doesn't really try to communicate with my parents in Bangladesh. Like, if they call 10 times, he might call back 3 times. Same with my mother-in-law; she's only talked to my mom like twice in three years. My mother-in-law is religious and always encourages my wife to be a better wife since she's new to it. She's also protective and has supported me when others talked behind my back. I don't have many complaints, but a few things bother me: she doesn't make food for me when I visit, she mostly eats chicken and makes the same dishes, and my father-in-law and sisters-in-law like fish but she won't cook it, so I do. Once when I was cooking, she joked that "the bahu is getting tired." When I make fish, I have to clean everything because she can't stand the smell. Every time I visit, me and my wife make our own breakfast. On weekends, she wakes up and plays Candy Crush even though my father-in-law tries to help. It's so consistent that if I stayed 50 days, I'd make breakfast for everyone 40 days. She says making rice in a rice cooker isn't good, but her rice is mushy and wet. I try to cook for everyone sometimes, making traditional Bangladeshi dishes like Kacchi, khichdi, Tehari, Roast, and Palau. But lately, I feel like they're taking it for granted, and my mother-in-law doesn't cook at all. The sad part is she knows how to cook-she used to run a catering business. I've talked to my wife about these issues, but when I bring them up, she says I'm disrespecting her parents. I try to explain I'm not, and it goes on and on. I'm writing this after two years of dealing with it, and it's still happening. Recently, we argued, and I swore a bit and yelled because I was frustrated after driving for 7 hours. Is it my fault? Am I overreacting? If anyone has advice for me or my wife, please share-jazakallah khair.