– In two weeks my husband’s mother has an anniversary, – says Anna, – and I accidentally found out that she invites guests to our apartment. When I told her about it, she told me that I do not invite them to the same house. But it’s not even the size of the apartment. In fact, Kate hates to cook. I was always amazed that the woman lived and did not even learn to make any salads.
Anna and her husband are raising three children, they have been married for more than fifteen years, all this time they lived in their mother-in-law’s four-room apartment and only last year Kate started living separately.
After the wedding, the preparation of lunches and dinners fell on the shoulders of the daughter-in-law. Cooking was never Kate’s strong suit, and her most serious culinary masterpiece was making Navy macaroni. For a woman, even making soup is a serious problem. She cannot cook even with step-by-step recipes. My mother-in-law was happy to take care of her grandchildren, sometimes helped with cleaning and ironing, but she could not be dragged into the kitchen with a leash.
– The biggest paradox was that my mother-in-law loved to have parties at home. I also loved guests, so I never minded her inviting them over. It was always me who cooked for all the holidays.
Of course, on Kate’s birthdays, my sister-in-law cooked, too. Before the feast, the daughter-in-law would write a list, and her husband and mother would go shopping. Always in the house gathered a decent number of guests. To make things more comfortable the adults had the table in the hall, and the children in the kitchen.
All the family gatherings were always very cordial, the guests shared the news, joked, laughed, sang and always talked a lot. This year, her mother-in-law decided not to deviate from tradition and invited guests to her sixtieth birthday, but to her son’s house.
– Now Kate bought herself a one-bedroom apartment and moved into it, and her son’s family left the four-bedroom. We are very happy about this decision of her mother-in-law, because now we can live only as a family. Despite the fact that Kate and I have a good relationship, we live more comfortably ourselves, and now each of our boys has his own room.
Kate bought an apartment not far from her son and now she can visit his family any time she wants, and the daughter-in-law can’t do without her help, because the grandmother takes her grandchildren from school and takes them home.
After the move, Kate would be celebrating her anniversary for the first time. The daughter-in-law was sure she wouldn’t have to cook for her mother-in-law’s birthdays anymore, but Kate hopes things will stay the same for her.
– Why should I invite guests to my one-room apartment? I do not even have as such utensils, and the furniture, I’m even talking about, I do not even put them on what to sit.
Of course you can rent a cafe, but Kate has a lot of expenses this year, because she bought an apartment and made repairs in it, bought appliances and furniture. And besides, her idea to celebrate the anniversary at home is not like her in itself, because in a public place to communicate normally will not work.
Maybe in fact mother-in-law is being too impudent, deciding to celebrate her anniversary in the house of her daughter-in-law and her son? Of course, she is the legal owner of half of her son’s apartment, but she left there on her own, and is the son’s wife obligated to lay the table for the birthday of her son-in-law?
And maybe the insolent acts not mother-in-law, and daughter-in-law, who should be grateful to her husband’s mother for such a royal gift, because she actually did not have a meter of real estate!
Who do you think is right in this situation, the mother-in-law or the daughter-in-law?