In the summer of 2016, when our son graduated from university and our younger daughter finished high school, my father-in-law came from India to stay with us. What began as a happy time quickly shifted. When our son quietly told us he no longer wished to keep his unshorn beard,he wanted to trim. I approached it with compassion. His father, however, reacted with confusion and frustration, asking, “Then why keep the kesh at all?” Though he asked our son to wait until his grandfather returned to India, the deeper message was clear - he was more concerned about appearances than our son’s spiritual journey. Instead of guiding him with love, he withdrew, leaving me to support our son alone.
During those months, I cared for my father-in-law daily, making his meals and ensuring he took his medication. My son made fresh phulke for his granfather when I was at work. When he once preferred cold milk, I gave it to him - something the children also drank. My husband saw this and publicly accused me of trying to harm his father. Even after realizing he had misunderstood basic things like pasteurized milk, he never apologized. That humiliation in front of the children and his father marked a shift. When children are young, they see their father the way you picture him in front of them. The veil I had about him was lifted. Children witnessed the bitter truth of our marriage. I understood I was carrying all responsibilities while being blamed for everything.
Our family slowly began unraveling. Our younger daughter left for a university 3,000 miles away, carrying emotional burdens she never voiced. Our older daughter’s mental-health crisis soon followed. When doctors altered her medication, she spiraled; yet when she needed both parents, my husband withdrew again. Even after a Gursikh couple urged him to participate in her care, he walked out saying, “Do whatever you want to do with her.(Tu jo ehda karnei, karlei. Mai taan kamm te chaliyein)” At the hospital, she completely stopped speaking and eating. I cared for her alone - bathing her, feeding her, praying with her - while he offered comfort only sporadically. Though moments of softness appeared, steady support never did.
Once she returned home, fragile and dependent, he remained largely uninvolved. Our younger daughter, alone in a distant city, developed stress-related health problems and frequently ended up in emergency care. Financially and emotionally, both girls needed us. I carried most of that weight while his anger and detachment deepened.
Our "old" house itself was deteriorating. On Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s Prakash Purab, when I moved a few items from the dining table so a contractor could sit, he exploded—accusing me of throwing away a bag of his ex wife’s belongings. After twenty-four years of marriage, the comparison cut deeply. That night, I left our marital bedroom permanently.
Though we reached our 25th anniversary in 2018, the peace was fragile. Discussions about house repairs repeatedly turned into fights. When he finally placed renovation advertisements in front of me, insisting I choose, it became clear he was once again shifting responsibility. After I took intiative for the actual work myself, he later told others it had been his anniversary gift to me.
We tried to celebrate our children’s milestones, including transferring the car to our son as a graduation gift. But I later learned my husband had emailed him instructions for the transfer without once calling it a gift, I understood why our son felt pressured instead of valued. My husband dismissed his feelings and tried to silence mine.
The winter of 2018, all three children returned home. For a brief time, the house was full of warmth - shared meals, sunlit hair oil massages, eating home grown oranges, laughter, Gurmat events. But even then, I feared the peace would not last.
It didn’t. Early one morning, our younger daughter excitedly measured the kitchen wall to plan artwork for the newly renovated space. She gently moved a framed picture of Baba Nanak to the adjacent wall. Instead of appreciating her initiative, her father; just having finished his Nitnem; erupted in anger telling her this was not her home, she was “only a guest,” and only he had the right to decide how the house should look. When I tried to explain, he escalated, shouting and asserting control until he threw a chair that narrowly missed me. All three children saw it. Raised to honor their faith and look to him as a model of piety, they were left shocked and confused; struggling to reconcile the peaceful ideals of Sikh religion with the fear and anger their father now embodied. Later, he denied throwing the chair at all - rewriting the event entirely.
When we sat together as a family afterward, our children bravely told him his anger had become a painful pattern. Instead of listening, he defended himself. They asked him to attend therapy; he promised he would but never made an effort.
By the spring of 2019, the atmosphere had become so suffocating that our son resigned from an excellent fellowship two months early and moved away just to escape the environment. Though the move strained him financially, he shared his deeper thoughts with me years later that he had never shared before. As painful as it was to hear, I thanked Guru Sahib that he was now safe - away from the constant tension and volatility he had grown up with.
The children were forced to shoulder fear, stress, and emotional neglect in a household defined by anger, blame, and instability. They faced mental-health crises, physical stress, and lost opportunities, all while receiving little support or protection. Constant exposure to manipulation, humiliation, and parental withdrawal robbed them of safety, security, and a normal childhood, forcing them to grow up far too soon. Next
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