I can no longer bear living with my husband’s grandmother. It’s absolute torture!
Sometimes I feel as though I reside not in a home, but in a museum where nothing may be touched. For months, I’ve begged my husband to move, even to a rented place, because sharing a roof with his grandmother is sheer misery. She forbids touching anything—every object, even the dust cannot be wiped without an uproar. Everything is “an antique,” everything “holds sentimental value,” and if I dare arrange things my way, she clutches her chest, her “blood pressure spikes,” and within half an hour, all our relatives know because she rings them to lament how ungrateful we are.
Before our marriage, we took out a mortgage on a flat. For our wedding, our parents gifted us a generous sum, and I was overjoyed—finally, our own home where I could be mistress of the house. We both worked, managing the payments together, and all was well… until I discovered I was expecting. It was a complete shock—I’d been on the pill. At first, I was stunned and even considered ending the pregnancy, but my husband and parents insisted, “Absolutely not!”
I kept working until the birth, and we managed. But once our daughter arrived, everything collapsed—we were down to one income. My husband took on any extra work he could to keep us afloat. I couldn’t return to my parents; their place was cramped, and his parents already housed his younger brother and sister-in-law.
That’s when his grandmother stepped in. She offered to let us move in—she had a three-bedroom house, more than enough space. I barely knew her, but she seemed pleasant enough. We agreed, rented out our flat, and life eased financially… but not emotionally.
At first, it was tolerable. Then came the nightmare. In her house, nothing may be disturbed. At all. Not even by the child! If our daughter reaches for something or crawls where she shouldn’t, Grandmother acts as though she’s having a heart attack. Worse, she accuses me of deliberately letting the child grab things to hasten her death! When my husband returns from work, she launches into a theatrical performance—I’m a terrible mother, neglectful, disrespectful. And him? He shrugs, pretends it’s nothing. To him, it’s normal. For me, it’s unbearable. I’m on the verge of breaking.
I’ve begged him: let’s return to our flat. We’ll scrape by, tighten our belts, but at least we’ll be free of this madness. He asks me to endure it—when my maternity leave ends, we’ll move back. But I don’t know how I’ll last till then.
I proposed we swap roles—let him stay home while I work. Let him endure a day with this “gentle old soul.” He refused. So I issued an ultimatum: if we don’t move next month, I’m taking our daughter to my parents’ in another town. He’s thinking it over. And I’m waiting—not for words, but action. Because I have no strength left to endure this.
