Not allowed to go to her parents' house, my wife went drinking for 3 days during Tet.

I am 32 years old this year, my wife is 10 years younger than me so she is still very childish and capricious. Before getting married, she always told me that until we can live separately, if there is nothing important, I have to take her to her parents' house every weekend and on holidays. My wife thinks that all conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law come from being together too much and she doesn't want that to happen to her. Moreover, she is an only child, so it is reasonable for her to visit her parents often.

At that time, I agreed to everything, I did not know that it would put me in trouble right after getting married. Every week, no matter how tired I was from work all week, I still had to drive more than 70km to take my wife to her hometown to visit her parents on Saturday afternoon and return to the city on Sunday. If she did not go to her parents' house, it was because she had a date or a drinking party with friends.

At first, I thought that as long as my wife was happy, it was okay for me to try a little harder, and that it was normal for her to occasionally hang out with friends and have a few drinks. However, my parents did not see it that way. They felt sorry for their son, so they were not happy when they saw me working hard all day, not having a break on weekends or holidays, but having to go back to my parents' house with my wife.

One time, my mother called me aside to talk, telling me to know how to teach my wife because when a daughter gets married, she has to be responsible for her husband's family, not just ask her husband to take her to her parents' house, and if she doesn't go to her parents' house, she still hangs out. My mother asked me to be tougher with my wife and not to indulge her every wish.

What my mother said was reasonable, but I felt sorry for my wife because she got married early and suffered many disadvantages compared to her peers. Moreover, she was an only child, and her diligence in visiting her parents was filial piety and commendable; therefore, I just obeyed my mother and did not "teach my wife" according to her wishes.

Seeing that I couldn't control my wife, before Tet she didn't stay home to clean or prepare for Tet with her husband's family but spent all day going to year-end parties, from the company to partners, and on free days she dressed up with friends to check-in and take Tet photos, my mother was visibly upset.

On the evening of the 28th of Tet, my mother called my husband and I out, saying that she had prepared gifts for our in-laws, and asked us to bring them to my wife's parents on the 29th of Tet and return the same day so that we could have a New Year's Eve dinner with the whole family. My mother said that all last year, the daughter-in-law had gone back to her parents' house on weekends and short holidays, and that she was a new daughter-in-law, so she asked that on this first New Year's Eve at her husband's house, she had to stay home and help her mother cook and entertain guests because there were many relatives.

My wife quickly refused, saying that from the second day of Tet she also had to go back to her parents' house to help them.

Seeing that, my mother immediately called my in-laws in front of my younger brother, first to wish them a happy new year, then asked for permission for my husband and I to only visit my parents' house on the 29th, and then return on the first weekend after the holiday. My mother was good at speaking, and presented her case reasonably, so my mother-in-law happily supported her. Only my wife was still resentful, but had to listen because there was no other way.

My father is the eldest son and the head of the family, so Tet is very crowded with guests. Especially on the first day, all the families gather at my house to wish each other a happy new year, eat and drink, then disperse to other houses. That morning, my husband and I got up early to help my mother with cooking and housekeeping.

At lunch, because she was a new bride, all her aunts and uncles toasted us. Knowing this, I told my wife to just sip and not drink, and I was surprised to see her drink “100 percent” in every cup. Seeing that my wife had a high tolerance for alcohol and spoke animatedly, unlike her husband, everyone in the extended family, except for my mother, found the new bride very interesting.

So after eating and drinking, leaving my mother and sister alone with the "battlefield", they dragged both my husband and I to visit one house after another to wish everyone a Happy New Year, not returning until late at night. Not only that, my wife also managed to schedule a drinking party with her aunts and uncles' families for several days of Tet, something that even my mother had never done despite her decades of being a daughter-in-law.

Just like that, three days of Tet passed, every day I accompanied my wife to wish her a happy new year, but in reality, to go drinking. The level of my wife's "integration" into her husband's extended family made everyone love her. However, my mother was not pleased at all, thinking that her daughter-in-law was avoiding housework, taking advantage of her ability to drink to go out during the Tet holidays, and having a new daughter-in-law was like not having one. She also thought that she was retaliating for not being allowed to go to her parents' house.

My aunt-in-law is not drunk, but during the Tet holidays, every night when she comes home, she is so tired that she is about to collapse. She greets her parents-in-law perfunctorily and then goes straight to her room to sleep. My mother wants to teach her a lesson but doesn't have the chance. She goes in and out, sighs, and blames me for not knowing how to manage my wife. She ordered me not to let my wife go out like that anymore from tomorrow because as a daughter-in-law, she has the responsibility to stay home and help her mother-in-law cook and clean.

But my wife was not so easy to please. The next day, when I told her to stay home and help her mother, she complained that my family was imposing on her. They did not allow her to go to her parents' house during Tet, and now she was also forbidden from going to her paternal relatives' house to wish them a happy new year. I said that my family did not forbid her from going to wish them a happy new year, but she drank so much that the whole family was worried.

Hearing that, the wife immediately said: "I don't see any problem, I'm not drunk, so don't worry. Anyway, if you have an appointment, you have to come, and I won't stay home cleaning during Tet, if you have anything to report to your mother, then report it."

I was shocked by my wife's indifferent attitude, so I loudly asked her to stay at home. So she cried and asked to go back to her parents' house because she could not stand being oppressed by her husband's family. While my mother always pressured me to be tough, my wife was just as tough, even resorting to crying and sulking. Caught between the "two bullets", what should I do?