I could never see eye to eye with my mother-in-law.
At first, we tried living under the same roof, but we only managed a month before calling it quits.
My relationship with my father-in-law was fairly cordialwe managed to find common ground. But things with his wife were a different story altogether. She took a dislike to me the moment we met.
You’ve picked the wrong pan! shed shout at me. You dont even know how to boil potatoes properly
And complaints like that flew my way day in, day out.
Eventually, my husband and I moved into a rented flat, and it was around then I found out I was expecting. My father-in-law had a word with my mother-in-law, telling her to mind her manners for the sake of her future granddaughter.
Shes a handful, my dear, hed sigh to me. She was a firecracker when we were young, and now shes become completely impossible in her old age. I only married her because she waited for me to come back from the army, and then I suppose I just grew used to it.
Strangely enough, my mother-in-law turned over a new leaf while I was pregnantshe became astonishingly quiet. But the moment my daughter was born, the old problems resurfaced. Our little girl arrived five weeks early, though thankfully she was a picture of health.
Thats not your child, my mother-in-law told my husband coldly.
Are you blind? Cant you see why she was born premature? She must have someone elses baby.
I was grateful that my husband stood by me, shielding me from her accusations. The last time she went too far, he even showed his mother out the door.
She never met her granddaughter, refusing outright to put things right. My father-in-law, on the other hand, visited us often and brought small gifts, even though he was given a hard time for it at home.
Ive no idea what television hed been watching, but when my daughter was three, he took her out for a walkand went to get a DNA test done. He said he wanted to teach my mother-in-law a lesson.
Is my son not here? my father-in-law asked as he turned up at our flat, looking rather unsettled. Actually, its better this way. Ive got the DNA results. Turns out my wife was right. Whose daughter have you given birth to? Shes not from our family!
I was dumbfounded. Id known nothing about any test, and I knew without a doubt my husband was our childs father.
So, my husband and I took our own DNA testsand sure enough, it was confirmed: he was the father. But the shocking twist? My father-in-law wasnt the biological grandfather.
So thats what she meant by waiting for me to come back from the army! he exclaimed, deeply upset.
In the end, after so many years of marriage, he filed for divorce despite her desperate pleas for forgiveness.
So, before pointing fingers at someone else, its worth taking a good, hard look at yourself first.
What do you make of that?
