**Diary Entry**
It still lingers in my mind—the day my husband came back from his mum’s, sighed, and casually suggested a paternity test for our two-year-old daughter. “Not for me,” he insisted, “for Mum.”
Thirty-year-old Emily’s voice wavers as she recounts it. “For six months before our wedding, she kept telling him, ‘Don’t marry her, she’s not right for you!’” Her tone turns bitter. “Too pretty, she said. ‘She’ll stray!’ We laughed it off then, joking he should’ve married some frumpy bloke if he wanted guaranteed loyalty. Now? There’s nothing funny about it. Not one damn thing.”
Emily doesn’t see herself as some dazzling beauty. Just an ordinary girl from the outskirts of Manchester—puts effort into her appearance, sure, like anyone would. Slender, well-kept, dresses modestly. Always held herself to high standards in relationships. So why her mother-in-law, Margaret, ever decided she was flighty and unfaithful, Emily can’t fathom. That woman’s made her life hell.
Four years married to James, a daughter in tow. Emily’s on maternity leave now, her days a blur of cooking, cleaning, and nappies. Her only company? Other mums at the playground. But Margaret won’t let up. She suspects infidelity, stalks Emily like some cheap telly detective.
“She’s always spied on me,” Emily exhales, eyes welling. “Phoned to check my whereabouts, turned up unannounced, tried to control my every move. At first, I joked about it with James. But it wears you down. I’ve snapped at her, properly yelled. She’d quieten for a bit—then start all over again.”
The first blow-up came months after the wedding. Margaret barged into Emily’s workplace—no call, no warning. Just had to verify: was her daughter-in-law *really* working? Or lying to her son while sneaking off with lovers?
“No clue how security even let her in,” Emily mutters, shaking her head. “It’s a proper office building, sign-in required. I nearly keeled over when the receptionist brought her to my desk. ‘Margaret, what are you doing here?’ She just said, ‘Wanted to see where you work.’ Then scoped the place out! Open-plan office, everyone at their desks—what’d she expect? God knows what she’d have done if I had a private office.”
Later, the receptionist, Sophie, whispered how Margaret had grilled her. How long had Emily worked there? Was she ever late? Who did she talk to? Any office flings? “I told her you’re married,” Sophie added, baffled. Emily was livid. That night, she unloaded on James. “Your mum’s crossed a line. Talk to her—this isn’t normal. She might as well have checked under my desk for a secret boyfriend while she was at it!”
James must’ve had words with her. For a while, things settled. Margaret only called in the evenings, asked how they were, dropped off homemade scones. Emily dared to hope the storm had passed. She was wrong.
The next incident happened during her pregnancy. Home sick, phone off, she was jolted awake by furious pounding at the door and the doorbell ringing nonstop. “Thought it was a fire alarm!” she recalls. “Peeked through the peephole—Margaret. Face all twisted, kicking the door, mashing the bell. I didn’t dare open it. Called James: ‘Get here now, I don’t know what’s happening!’” He arrived twenty minutes later. Margaret had waited the whole time.
They shouted her down. Emily threatened police, even a psychiatric hold if it happened again. “Keep her away from me,” she warned James. And again, silence.
Then their daughter was born—Margaret didn’t even look at her. Later, the reason became clear. She didn’t believe the baby was James’s. “Obviously,” Emily scoffs, “because I’m off shagging randoms, right?” The logic? James’s family only had boys. A girl, in Margaret’s mind, was proof of an affair. “I refused to entertain it,” Emily says. “We don’t speak. James visits her once a month—alone. Probably for the best. I’d never trust her near our daughter.”
But the worst came later. James returned from his mum’s one day, hesitated, then asked for the paternity test. “Not for me, Em,” he backpedalled. “For her. So she’ll finally drop it. She’s lost the plot, and I’m sick of hearing it!”
Emily laughed—cold, sharp. “For her?” Her voice trembled. “Admit it. You believe her. She’ll never stop. Do three tests at different clinics—she’ll say they’re forged, the doctors bribed. I won’t play her sick game.”
“It’s just a test,” James pressed.
“Why?” Emily stared, tears barely held back. “I know she’s yours. Do you?” She took a breath. “Fine. We’ll do it—after the divorce. I won’t stay with a man who doesn’t trust me.”
The words hung between them like a sentence. Trust in their marriage is cracking, all because of a woman whose paranoia poisons everything. Emily feels the edge beneath her feet—and no idea how to pull them back from it.
