The Woman Who Lives in the House, But Not in the Conversations

The Woman Who Lives in the House, But Not in the Conversations

There is a peculiar kind of loneliness that doesn't require an empty house.

Sometimes, the house is full—of people, voices, tea being poured, television murmuring in the background, relatives dropping in, family discussions happening in the next room. And yet, you are not really there.

She is not an uneducated, financially dependent daughter-in-law waiting for someone to tell her what to do.

She is an accomplished doctor. She has built a career. She has a mind of her own. She has lived a life outside the four walls of the family home. There is a cook in the house. There are helpers for the daily chores. Yet somehow, when the important conversations begin, she disappears.

Parents especially mother and son speak privately. Family matters are discussed behind closed doors. Decisions are exchanged in whispers. And the husband—who can discuss everything with his mother—sometimes doesn't discuss the same things with the woman he married.

She generally hears about it later. Or sometimes, she simply senses that something was discussed without her. In a Punjabi joint family, perhaps this is an old rhythm. A mother's emotional hold on her son doesn't automatically disappear when he gets married. Years of shared history create a language of their own. And the mother sees her daughter in law as a threat like a child abductor.

But somewhere between maa da puttar and husband and wife, a woman can quietly become the person standing outside the conversation. Not because she wants control. Not because she needs to know every little thing.

Not because she wants to replace the mother. She simply wants to know— "Do I belong here?”

And that question hurts even more when she has spent years being there for everyone. She may not cook the meals anymore because there is a cook. She may not clean the house because there are helpers.

But she has still given something far more difficult to replace—her youth, her years, her companionship, her emotional labour, her presence, her identity as a wife and mother. A woman can be financially independent, professionally accomplished and socially respected—and still feel emotionally invisible at home.

That is perhaps the most ironic kind of loneliness. 

You don't need someone to need you for everything. You need someone to include you.

Marriage is not only about sharing a home, children, finances and social responsibilities. It is also about becoming each other's safe space for conversation.

And perhaps this is something the next generation needs to rethink. A mother does not become less important because her son is married. And a wife also should not become less important because she entered a family where relationships have existed long before her.

There should be room for both. Perhaps the real beauty of a joint family is not that everyone lives under one roof. It is that nobody living under that roof should feel like an outsider. So maybe, sometimes, all it takes is a simple—“Come, sit. This concerns you too.”

And perhaps that one sentence can turn a woman from someone who merely lives in the house into someone who finally feels at home.

My generation should learn lessons and try to put a full stop.

Love Juju