Husband Clothes

Well, today we’re going to delve into the excruciating topic of my mother-in-law. She is from another country. This means that she lives THOUSANDS of miles away–and I like it. Here are a few reasons I say that:

1) She had a difficult time getting a visa to come see us in the US, so I got her a visa and sent her the money for her ticket. I had to send emails to the State Department over a period of like 3 months to make this happen–not my husband, ME. He didn’t know English–nor did he have a job to contribute to the thousands of dollars for her airline ticket that I paid from my piddly salary. Did I even once mention to her how difficult all that was? Nope, I sure did not. And read on to find all of the rewards I got for my efforts!

2) Day 1 of her visit: As soon as she walked into the door, she took my face into her hands and stared into my eyes for like 5 minutes. All I can remember is wondering why she wore so much eyeliner and why she chose the color blue. It was like staring into two scary florescent blue paisley shapes with pupils. I think by this she was trying to communicate to me that I should be honest with her because she can see into my soul? What it actually communicated to me was that perhaps someone should call 911 because I think the crazy just got off the bus, and she somehow managed to disable her straightjacket.

2. Day 2: She asked me how many men I had “rendevouz” with before marrying her son. Hu? My response was a very freaked out facial expression. Her response to this was “Oh, I see. So I guess you were not a virgin. Well, in my country, that means you are basically a prostitute.” Don’t you wish you could meet her? Then for the rest of the trip, she proceeded to treat me like a lowly, low-class citizen and tried to make me feel ashamed of being a prostitute. Critical note: I didn’t answer her question. Maybe I was a virgin. Maybe I wasn’t. Two people need that info–me and my husband. Is my mother-in-law one of those two people? No, I don’t believe she is.

3) Day 3: She insulted me for helping her a lot. Due to severe economic hardship in her country, “we” were sending her $100 to $200 per month. And by “we,” I mean “I”…My husband had no job. I had a very piddly salary and a hard time paying rent for us, BUT I sent this lady money–I couldn’t let them live without the basic necessities of life–and I never mentioned how hard it was for “us” to send. SO, on day 3 of her visit, I said something like “I am sorry it’s so hard there. At least we can help a little.” She raised her eyebrows sneeringly and said, “That? Oh, that money has been barely even enough to renovate our balcony.” Really? GOOD TO KNOW.  Needless to say, no more money being sent her way.

4. She made it impossible for me to nurse my baby. During her trip, I was nursing my son and had trouble producing enough milk even after 5 weeks–most likely due to stress from my mother-in-law’s presence and mistreatment. So the doctor told me to give him a little bit of formula each day, but only ONE TIME so as to keep him needing my milk. My mom-in-law was constantly dying to feed my son formula, but I refused to let her. (She was disgusted with me and claimed I was starving him, which I was not.). So, at night when he cried, she would rush into our room (YES, our BEDROOM), take the baby before I woke up, and feed him formula. If I happended to be out during the day, she did the same thing (but I quickly learned not to be out). His need for my milk quickly disappeared completely, and in this way, she ruined my efforts to nurse him. AND felt perfectly fine about it.

5. She pushed my baby’s stroller in front of oncoming traffic. In her country, people just cross the street wherever the want to and apparently need only a 5 foot clearance. We took a walk to the park, and she decided to cross the street in some random place. I said, “NO we can’t cross here!” She proceeded to go, though there were cars coming both ways–to her, they looked far away (I assume). I GRABBED his stroller and started pulling it back to the sidewalk. Now–here’s the REALLY fun part. One of the oncoming cars was a taxi cab, which stopped (so as to avoid hitting and killing us). I pointed at it ad said to my mother-in-law, “Do you have ANY IDEA how dangerous CAB DRIVERS are in this city?? ANY IDEA?” For the rest of the day, she repeated over and over, “Oh, your city has the niiiicest cab drivers. See how nice he was to stop for us? We were in no danger at all.” I got three words for you. just three: total freaking psycho.

6. She used to purposely calls my sons “her” boys. She does lots of stuff like this to prove her dominance in various situations (by “dominance,” I mean of course, “imaginary importance.”) As in, she says things like “Oh, I miss my boys so much.” Once she even added, “because they’re mine too you know.” Um, no they aren’t.  Word to the wise: It’s never a good idea to tell a mother that her children are “yours” and then proceed to try to teach her why.

7. She’s mean to everyone, not just me. During her visit, she argued with guests in our home, people who attended my son’s baptism, my husband’s friends. She also constantly badmouthed her own daughter and husband (who are both very nice, at any rate definitely normal people who don’t deserve to be badmouthed)…It’s not each individual action, it’s her whole perspective on life. She feels she’s here to set everyone straight.

The list literally goes on and on. The problem isn’t her individual actions. It’s her whole perspective on life. But I will say that a meddling mother-in-law has probably caused more than a few divorces. I’m so glad she didn’t have that affect on my marriage. But if she lived close to us, she very well might have. Life is too hard when you live in close contact with people like her. I would have needed to break free.

Filed under: Being Mean, First Years of Marriage, Mother-in-law, Uncategorized