“My husband’s family expects me to quit my job after we have kids” shares 30-year-old high achieving Indian M’sian woman

The post “My husband’s family expects me to quit my job after we have kids” shares 30-year-old high achieving Indian M’sian woman appeared first on In Real Life.

This is a story of a 30 year old Malaysian woman who discovered that her husband expects her to quit her job after they have kids, which was not what was discussed before they got married. She questions her financial security in the event of any divorce. 

I grew up in a lower-income family, my dad a truck driver and my mother was a cleaner for an office and clinic near our house. I have no shame in where I came from but I knew that I needed financial independence from an early age. My dad died when I was 12, leaving my single mom to care for me and my two other siblings aged 8 and 6 at the time. 

You can imagine how hard it was to even just survive the month on a single income. We got by through good deeds of family, friends and charity. My dad’s family pretty much forgot about us after he died and we almost never met them unless it was Deepavali. I managed to get into UM through a Bank Negara scholarship and even managed to start a small business using the money won in an entrepreneurship competition organized by another local bank at uni. 

All of this to say, you can imagine how important financial literacy and freedom is to someone in my situation. Due to my hard work, I even managed to buy my mom a house and help out monthly with her medical expenses. My career working in the financial sector in Malaysia has been an upward growth.

and I was even promoted as the youngest head of department in my MNC. 

Marriage & family

I met my husband a few years ago, when we worked on a big merger account together and spent a lot of time on that project. We got to know each other and we dated until last year, when we got married. My husband comes from a wealthy family. They import products from India – sarees, spices, jewellery – you name it. They have multiple stores across Brickfields and Klang, and grew up in that wealth for the last couple of generations. 

He’s an ambitious guy, which I like about him. He has plans to further grow the family business and keep the legacy. When we got married, we talked about our dreams and goals and how many kids we want and all of that, and I shared many times with him what I wanted to achieve in my career. It seems that he has failed to inform his family because they expect me to quit my job after I give birth. 

Since we got pregnant immediately after getting married, I guess there never was time to get investigated on this issue by his family, however now that I’m eight months pregnant, I started to notice some comments from his family. At first his sister asked something about will I miss working, which I replied no, I will enjoy not going to work – because I assumed she was talking about a 3 month maternity leave. Then last week his mom asked how it feels leaving the working world – to which I clarified that it would only be a maternity leave. That’s when everything unraveled. 

Apparently my husband had never explicitly told them nor corrected them when they assumed I would be resigning from work after I gave birth. I had never seen my in-laws that angry before. They were spewing all things about how a child needs their mother and.

people will think they don’t have money if I continue working along with many other things that are pointless to repeat. 

I told them clearly that to me, I need to secure my future. I know they have a lot of wealth but it was not mine and if anything happened like a divorce or death, I need to be able to support myself and my kids. During this whole time, my husband didn’t defend me, but allowed them to shout at me and even accused me of accusing them of not taking care of me if anything happens. 

I feel like given my family history it just really makes sense why I think this way. While yes they do have money, I’m really not counting on it to save me on a rainy day. I saw my mother suffer trying to put food on the table while her in-laws never even bothered to help. When I confronted my husband, he said he didn’t want to say anything to me because he knew I was ambitious but in reality he had hoped that after having a baby .

I would change my mind and decide to stay home and raise them. 

I’m at a loss for words of what to do or how to feel. My due date is next week, so I also feel like I just want to focus on my baby and prepare for her before she comes, rather than open this topic of discussion with my in-laws or my husband. 

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Read also: ‘I gave up my family to pursue my dreams’ Shares 34 YO M’sian woman – In Real Life

https://inreallife.my/i-gave-up-my-family-to-pursue-my-dreams-shares-34-yo-msian-woman/

‘I gave up my family to pursue my dreams’ Shares 34 YO M’sian woman

The post “My husband’s family expects me to quit my job after we have kids” shares 30-year-old high achieving Indian M’sian woman appeared first on In Real Life.