Love marriage turning toxic because of controlling Indian in-laws
I really want to save my marriage and win my husband back. I’m from India and we had a love marriage. Before marriage and also after marriage, my husband was very chilled out, open-minded, supportive, and never made me feel like “women belong in the kitchen” or anything like that. But his parents are extremely controlling and honestly their own marriage is not healthy either.
My FIL calls my husband 10 times a day and interferes in every single detail of our lives. Last week me and my FIL had a huge fight and he created a massive scene at home. My MIL is very conservative and believes I should behave/dress a certain way, cook all the time, take care of my husband in a traditional manner, etc.
The problem is we stay with them around 3 months every year, and those 3 months become the worst phase of our relationship every single time. We keep fighting constantly there. Earlier if we stopped talking for a while it used to feel serious, but now distance and silence have become routine between us.
Right now things are very bad. My husband keeps telling me “just pretend for a few days, we’ll go back soon,” so I’m trying to act okay in front of my in-laws, but internally I’m extremely stressed and unhappy.
Another issue is that my husband takes a lot of financial help from his parents, so they dominate him a lot and influence his thinking. Slowly I feel like he’s changing. Earlier he never believed in rigid gender roles, but now he says things like women should handle household work. I genuinely feel he gets manipulated very easily.
I’ll also admit I’m not perfect. I can be immature, insecure, emotional, angry, and sometimes I also create issues or react badly. But I feel both of us are stuck in this toxic cycle now.
The saddest part is I think my husband now sees me as the “problematic wife” who always fights and doesn’t adjust, whereas I honestly feel like the environment itself is ruining us.
I don’t want my marriage to end. I want to reconnect with him emotionally and make our relationship strong again despite all this family interference.
Tl;dr Has anyone here gone through something similar in Indian marriages/in-law situations? How do I make my husband understand my side without constant fights? How do I rebuild love, trust, and emotional connection again?