My name is Victoria. I’m twenty-nine years old, and I’ve been married to Edward for three years. We have a strong, loving family, raising our little girl, Emily, and trying to live peacefully. But one person refuses to let us rest—someone who should be dear to us: my mother-in-law. Or, more accurately, a woman who will stop at nothing to tear our marriage apart and drag her son back into “Mummy’s arms.”
It all began five years ago, when Edward and I first met during our final years at university. I introduced him to my parents almost straight away—my family is warm, kind, without pretence. But he… he delayed. A whole year passed before he finally took me to his home. And the moment I stepped inside, I knew—I wasn’t wanted there.
Edward’s mother, Margaret, greeted me with a stony glare and a smile colder than December. At first, I thought it was just nerves, but time revealed the truth—her dislike of me was real, deep-seated. She never accepted me. Not as her son’s girlfriend. Not as a woman. Not even as a person.
When Edward and I decided to move in together, Margaret staged a full-blown drama. She screamed that her son was “still a boy,” that he couldn’t manage without her, that I was corrupting him, pushing him into adulthood. Edward, a grown man of twenty-three, was—in her eyes—a helpless five-year-old. But we moved out anyway.
That’s when the torment truly began.
Messages flooded in daily—how to feed Edward, what to cook, how to wash his clothes, which oranges to buy (peeled in advance, because apparently, he couldn’t do it himself!). When I calmly explained that her son was perfectly capable, she took offence. Then came the meltdown over Edward visiting her in a jumper—”Are you blind? It’s freezing! Everyone’s in coats, and he’s half-dressed!” Never mind that it was fifteen degrees outside, and not a soul wore a coat.
When we announced our engagement, the nightmare escalated. Margaret began inviting women over—friends’ daughters, neighbours, colleagues—parading them in front of Edward, declaring, “Now *this* is a proper wife!” Furious, he stopped visiting her altogether. But she didn’t stop.
She started turning up at our flat—unannounced, uninvited, with a list of complaints. Every visit ended in scolding: “There’s dust under the sofa!” “Your soup tastes like cafeteria slop!” “You’ve let Edward go to ruin!” I bit my tongue. For a while.
Then, a week before the wedding, she exploded. My dress was a “rag,” the restaurant menu “a disgrace to the family.” I’d “humiliate them in front of everyone.” I snapped. I threw her out.
An hour later, Edward got the call: “I’m ill! It’s my heart!” He rushed over—only to find her perfectly fine, cheeks rosy, not a thing wrong. A lie. A manipulation.
She didn’t come to the wedding.
After we married, when Emily was born, she never visited. Not a single nappy, not one toy. When invited to meet her granddaughter, she spat, “That’s not my grandchild. She’s not his.”
Edward was torn between his mother and his family. I saw the strain. But he chose us. He set a boundary. And she never crossed it again.
I don’t speak to that woman. I have nothing to apologise for. I won’t let her ruin my family. I won’t let her trample my daughter, my husband, or my life—just because she can’t accept that her son is grown, and his choice of wife wasn’t hers.
I’m exhausted. So exhausted. Sometimes I shut my eyes and imagine an ordinary mother-in-law—one who brings cakes, who doesn’t pry into our bed, who doesn’t bark orders on child-rearing, who hugs me and says, “You’re doing well.” But that’s not my reality.
My mother-in-law still dreams—her son will come home. To her. Without me.
But here’s the thing: It’ll never happen. Because he chose me. And I’m proud he never bent under her pressure.
As for me? I just want to live. Raise my daughter. Be a wife—not a competitor in some twisted game with his mother.
Yet the weariness lingers…
