After we got married, we started living with my husband’s parents. It so happened that we had children early, when we had not yet had time to earn our own corner. My mother-in-law was always a very hot-tempered woman. Despite the fact that she helped us in the beginning of family life in many ways (my parents did not have such an opportunity at that time), her rude and bossy character crossed out all the good things.
I cannot respect this woman because when the children were 2.5 and 1 year old, she kicked us out of the house with our things in the cold. The reason for that was her youngest son’s teething. Then she accused me of having given birth to two children of my own free will and of having to think about the conditions in which they would live. According to her, the constant screaming of her grandchildren caused her migraine to worsen, and she began to have trouble sleeping. My mother-in-law said she was tired of us, so she sent me and the little kids to “stay with my own parents. My husband tried to intervene that night to protect us, but it was no use. I had to call a cab at night and drive across town with crying children to my parents.
My husband and I remember this incident very well, because after a night outdoors, the youngest had a cold, which we then had a lot of trouble with. My parents, though they were not prepared for a night visit, still sheltered us. After they kicked me and the kids out, I promised my mother-in-law that I would never go back to her house again. It was hard, but after two weeks, my husband and I somehow scraped together a place to rent and moved our stuff in.
For a long time after that I didn’t want to communicate with my husband’s mother and wouldn’t let her near my grandchildren. Then she started complaining to everyone she knew that I was being cruel to her and hiding my children from her. It even got to the point where she called my mother and described the situation from her own point of view, telling her how insensitive and ungrateful I was. In response my mother made a scandal of it.
Three years have passed since that incident. My passions have calmed down, but I still have a grudge against my mother-in-law and can’t forgive her completely. I communicate with her, and even hosted her on several occasions, but our relationship is still strained. Now she is complaining to my husband and me that we let her grandchildren not see her as a grandmother. Why on earth would the children love her? Why should they? There is a second grandmother babysitting and playing with them all the time, and they see this grandmother once every six months, for 1-2 hours. This woman has probably forgotten how she betrayed us and threw us out of the house in the winter, how she yelled in front of her grandchildren, and how she tried to convince her son not to come with us.
How can I explain to my mother-in-law that the children are not toys, and that they will not run to her at the first call when their grandmother gets bored? She should be glad that I let her see her grandchildren after all I have been through, and that they don’t remember that night.
