I was married last year in an arranged marriage setup. My husband is a management consultant, and most of his work does not require him to be physically present at the client site. His job location is Delhi. I am an IT professional and completed my engineering from one of the most prestigious engineering institutes in India.
Currently, I am based in Pune, working for a well-known MNC. Before marriage, I asked him if he was flexible regarding job location and willing to move to different cities based on circumstances. At first, he was very stubborn about living in NCR permanently since both our families reside there.
However, when I brought this up with both parents before saying yes, he said he was willing to consider relocation if needed. My current company does not have an office in NCR, and I have been trying to switch to a company there, which could take time. So, I asked him if he could shift his job location to Pune for some time, as he works from home, so that we could live together. He refused.
He lives with his elder brother and his wife. His elder brother leaves for work early in the morning and returns late. My husband works from home and stays with them. My in-laws do not stay with their elder son, as their elder daughter-in-law has issues with my mother-in-law, and my father-in-law works in a different location.
This is the background of my problem. The real issue is that I have noticed my husband and his Bhabhi share an unusually close bond. At first, I shrugged it off, thinking they might just be good friends. But slowly, things started revealing themselves. I stayed at his elder brother’s home for three months right after our marriage. During this time, I noticed that my husband was mostly in his Bhabhi’s room whenever his brother was not home-even though we were newly married. He would run to her to ask what he should wear whenever he was stepping out. Many times, while we were sitting and watching a movie as a family, I caught him staring at her in a way one would stare at their wife or girlfriend.
His Bhabhi, my husband, and I are of the same age, while his elder brother is older than us. His brother and Bhabhi do not seem very close, and I have always seen her talking to my husband more than her own husband.
From the moment I entered the matrimonial house and during my stay there, I noticed that his Bhabhi was not very kind to me. She tried to instigate my mother-in-law against me and often picked fights with me, which I tried my best to avoid. She is a shrewd manipulator. When things started getting out of control, I tried talking to my husband about her behavior towards me. Instead of listening, he said he had known his Bhabhi for three years and never had any issues with her.
He claimed that she was much more responsible than I was because she was a housewife who did all the household chores while I simply sat with my laptop pretending to work. He said I could never match up to his Bhabhi, who takes care of everyone. Not only that, but he verbally abused me, using extremely offensive language toward me and my parents. He accused me of trying to break his family and even asked me to apologize to his Bhabhi, which I eventually did just to maintain peace.
Whenever I try to talk to him about how I feel regarding his emotional absence in our marriage or subtly express my dislike of his unusual closeness with his Bhabhi, he just yells at me and says he cannot tolerate anything against her. My mother-in-law is also a typical Indian woman and blindly believes whatever fake stories my husband and his Bhabhi tell her about me.
My husband and his Bhabhi are always chatting, either on WhatsApp or Instagram. He treats her as if she is his wife. After three months, I had to return to Pune for work, but he refused to get his base location transferred and insisted on staying at his brother’s place.
My point is that he should either stay with me or with his parents. I don’t understand his obsession with staying at his brother’s house. He doesn’t even come to Pune for my birthday or Valentine’s Day. I don’t want to go to his brother’s place either, as it makes me uncomfortable seeing my husband and his Bhabhi playfully flirting when his brother isn’t around.
I tried talking to my mother-in-law about asking him to stay with them instead if he didn’t want to come to Pune, but she blamed me for thinking negatively about her younger son and elder daughter-in-law. I don’t know what to do. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed, hoping his affair with his Bhabhi will stop once I switch to a job in NCR. I just want to know-am I unnecessarily being paranoid, or does everyone else think the same about my husband’s obsession with his Bhabhi?