I (30F) am married and live abroad with my husband (30M). My MIL keeps pressuring me to follow traditional fasting rituals from their culture, even when we’re not in India. I honestly don’t mind doing them, but when I ask her the meaning or significance, she has no answer — just “we’ve always done this.”
I was raised in a home where I was free to choose what felt meaningful. My husband doesn’t support me in this either — he says, “Just do it, what’s the harm?”
I’m not against traditions, but I want to follow them with understanding, not blind pressure. How do others deal with this kind of situation?
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I mean I’m not religious but I wouldn’t blindly follow any ritual that I didn’t understand. Why won’t hubby tell you what it means?
I would never participate in any sort of ritual or ceremony whether it is cultural or religious without understanding at first.
Your husband needs to get his head out of his ass and either explain to you what is going on or understand that you’re not going to do it if you don’t get an explanation
Sounds like MIL’s more invested in controlling you than actual tradition. You’re not being unreasonable for wanting to understand the significance. Tell her to Google it if she doesn’t know.
“Sorry MIL, they may be the traditions of your culture but they are not the traditions of mine. I’m happy to support you in whatever you choose to do but they do not apply to me so I won’t be participating”
These are the first signs of control, I would start to set some boundaries now otherwise you will find she tries to completely control or overrule other aspects of your life as well. Do you have children? If not and you’re planning to have a family, watch out!
I’m a little confused. You’re married but now culture stuff is becoming a problem? Surely your husband fasted before. You never had a conversation? Did you tell him you would follow his culture without understanding what that meant? Or is he expecting you to get on board? Cause this is probably more of a husband issue
…. What’s the harm? Cool. Then what’s the harm in not doing it? Either way, one of you will be disgruntled, it way as well be his mom. If she can’t even explain the significance to you, it’s not really all that important is it?
“This is what we’ve always done” is the dumbest reason to do anything and at times is incredibly harmful. You primarily have a husband problem, but one I don’t see being solved any time soon.
You’re making complete sense with this. A traditional practice like this is generally meant to have some deeper meaning, and to achieve a specific based goal.
If nobody even knows why this is done, what’s the point of this exercise? “It’s tradition” doesn’t mean a thing without having some understanding of what you’re trying to do.
That being said, it might be worth seeing if you can establish what the practice is based out of. Is this daily? Weekly? Tied to a specific calendar date? If there’s a specific schedule, that should give you someplace to start. If it’s not tied to a religious calendar, is it based out of traditional medicine?
This could be an interesting rabbit trail to dive down.
Sounds like MIL wants a puppet, not a daughter-in-law. If she can’t explain it, maybe she doesn’t even know why she’s doing it. You’re not a robot, tradition without meaning is just control dressed up in nostalgia.
I wouldn’t be comfortable doing something important to any religion, without knowing why or what for. I had a friend way back when, who was Muslim but didn’t cover her hair. We got to talking about it and she explained that she didn’t know that much about it, and she felt that would cheapen it if she did it without fully understanding and consenting with knowledge. To me, I think that’s the correct way to go.
I feel like it’s respectful not to engage in rituals that mean nothing to you. Same as if someone was pushing you to be baptised. It’s not respectful at all to go through with something you don’t even believe in. It’s demeaning to those who do them with feeling. If it’s something you’re willing to do once you understand it, I’d research it myself, and decide then. To be honest, if you’re not the same religion, it may feel like blasphemy, but if you’re not religious it just comes down to whether or not you want to do the ritual. Personally I would feel uncomfortable as I’m not religious at all. But others may feel differently to me.
I have learnt one thing the hard way, the sooner you start asking questions/setting boundaries/saying NO, the better.
If you give in one time, you’ll be expected to give in EVERY SINGLE TIME. Start saying no before you lose your voice.
Am Indian. I don’t fast. My reasoning is that I don’t believe in them.
It’s important to set this boundary very early in your marriage. It might take a year or two for your husband and MIL to understand that you will not blindly follow everything they say, but by the third year, they will realize that arguing about this is futile.
Your husband might ask you to lie to his mother and say you fasted when you actually didn’t to keep the peace. I don’t recommend doing that because it will cause issues in the long run. Be firm with your boundary and nip this in the bud sooner rather than later.
You have BOTH an MIL and SO problem. You need to tell your husband you’re not doing the fasting rituals and he can communicate that to his mother. No is the only answer you need to give them. They are not meaningful to you, so don’t do them.
Tell your husband you will follow every fast that he also does. See how fast the harm is figured out
I’m definitely not super-informed on the ins and outs of fasting in religious traditions, but my best guess is that it is meant to be undertaken as a means of either atonement or purification.
In either case, it would need to be done with intention, IMO: if you’re fasting to atone for something, you need to have the thing in mind and regret whatever the actions were; if you’re fasting for purification purposes, you need to know what you’re supposed to be “ridding yourself” of, whether it is physical or moral “impurity”.
MIL doesn’t need to be a religious scholar to explain it to you. She does, however, need to want you to be doing more than just going through the motions. Sure, you might not eat for a day, but if you’re not “doing it for the right reasons”, whatever those might be, I can’t imagine that your fast would be considered religiously acceptable.
So yeah, I wouldn’t fast “just because”.
“I can’t follow rituals if I don’t know their purpose. It would be like lying.”
My previous comment disappeared. Apologies if this ends up on here twice:
Definite SO problem. If he doesn’t support your right to decide what food you put in your body, and when you put that food in your body, it is time for boundaries with your SO.
He absolutely should be supporting you, voicing that support to his mother, and instituting consequences when she oversteps.
Don’t let this go – think about your future – what is going to happen when you have kids? Are you going to let her take over? What is going to happen when she decides to move in with you?
Boundary and consequence with SO can look like this: “If you don’t support my right to decide what food enters my body and when, I will reduce contact with your mother” (insert what works for you here, such as, “I will no longer share food with your mother or eat around your mother”).
> My husband doesn’t support me in this either — he says, “Just do it, what’s the harm?”
SO problem. He should be supporting you here, not putting pressure on you to do things his family’s way.
What I have seen, is that the family will blindly follow the tradition while the true meaning is lost.
For example maybe they always fast on Tuesdays in a particular family. If you ask why, the answer is often that specific day is the same day that family’s ancestors fasted.
Most likely there is a reason why the person who started the tradition picked that day. It is pretty random. For example maybe they had big meals on Monday after the market trip on Sunday, so they fasted on Tuesday.
You are most likely not going to get the exact answer you are looking for. Either you want to participate or not. If you don’t then don’t let them force you.
>“Just do it, what’s the harm?”
Snickers has a whole bunch of footage about potential harm.
But here’s the other problem: there really is a purpose to it and if you don’t know it, you’re not able to truly do it. In college, I took an Islam studies class, and the professor mentioned how she tried to fast in Ramadan and was so crabby that the family she was doing the rituals with told her it didn’t count. I’m Catholic, we have 2 major fasting days and a season of minor fasting- and we start that season with a gospel reading about making sure not to call attention to it, and an explanation of why we do it.
You’re doing a lovely and meaningful thing in trying to connect with your husband and his family when they demand you sacrifice, and they can’t even show enough appreciation to explain why they’re asking it of you? You don’t ask people to sacrifice for no reason. So if they’re pressuring you to do this, and have no reason to justify this sacrifice, then it sounds like this is actually about control and while I hate slippery slope fallacies, I think there’s a real chance your SO is paving one for you and this is the start.
“I’m not sacrificing my comfort and well-being without good cause and some level of appreciation” is actually a reasonable boundary.
If there is no harm, let him fast first.
That would be a fuck no for me. Are you safe? Do you have your own finances? Do you have freedom of movement? Does she live with you?
‘what’s the harm’ actually goes in both directions – if a tradition is of such little importance that it’s not worth explaining clearly, then it can’t be important enough to follow out of blind obedience. just laugh it off and ask him what’s the harm in having your own bodily autonomy! (just don’t imply or say you’ll do it if you get an explanation. you don’t want to show that pressure works as long as it’s got a justification!)
Just DON’T do it. What’s the harm?
I don’t comply.
Is she there to enforce them? I would just say “okay” and then not do it. If they hound you for not actually doing it, you can say, “but it doesn’t mean anything right?” since they never explained it to you, they can’t get mad. That’s really dumb to tell you to participate in tradition and then not explain the significance. And it’s also not very welcoming! They don’t respect you enough to explain? Tf
Please just eat if you’re hungry. These rituals aren’t yours, and you don’t owe anyone your hunger. You aren’t harming anyone by not participating.
Just because I’m me, I’d be looking up any unfamiliar rituals on Google. For one thing, it might not even be appropriate for me to follow it. Like, I haven’t been Catholic for a couple decades, and so when I went to my father’s funeral, I didn’t take Communion, even though ‘everyone else did, and has always done that’. (Of course, my family also wasn’t pressuring me to, as they were aware that I had ‘left the church.’)
Problem with both, especially if it’s not your faith, they shouldn’t be pushing it on you.
Google the rituals, that way you’ll get the clarity you need if they won’t explain.
This sounds like lesson one in how to be a twat about your religion.
It stops you doing things. Not me.
If it makes no sense to them, why do you have to do it? I would say “this isn’t part of my life. If you can tell me why you do it, I’ll think about your explanation, but we practice different beliefs.
Oh no, what a shame you have your period/feel ill when they want you to fast (pregnancy counts as well, same with diabetes and other disabilities).
That means you’re exempt in literally every fasting culture I know of.