Three years ago, my mother-in-law turned my child and me out onto the street. Now she takes offence because I refuse to speak with her.
I am thirty, living in London, raising my son, and trying to build a decent life. Yet the pain still lingers inside me, unshaken. Because three years ago, the woman I once considered family cast us out without a second thought. Now she cannot fathom why I keep my distance—more than that, she resents me for it.
William and I met during our first year at university. Ours was a true love, no games or fleeting passions—things grew serious at once. Then, unexpectedly, I fell pregnant. Despite taking precautions, the test showed two lines. There was fear, panic, tears—but I could never have considered ending it. William didn’t run. Instead, he proposed, and we married.
We had nowhere to live. My parents were in rural Yorkshire, and I’d lived in student halls since I was seventeen. William, though, had been on his own since sixteen. His mother, Margaret Whitmore, had remarried and moved to Bath with her new husband, leaving him her two-bedroom flat in Camden. After the wedding, she “graciously” allowed us to stay there.
At first, things were calm. We studied, took odd jobs, prepared for the baby. I kept the flat tidy, cooked, saved every penny. But everything changed when Margaret began visiting—not as a guest, but as an inspector. She rifled through cupboards, checked under the bed, removed her gloves to run a finger along the windowsill. Heavy with child, I scrambled to please her, but nothing I did was enough.
“Why isn’t the towel centred?” “Crumbs on the kitchen mat!” “You’re not a wife, you’re a disaster!”—these were her constant refrains.
When our son Oliver was born, it grew worse. Exhausted, I barely had energy to sleep or feed him, yet she demanded the flat shine like a surgery. I scrubbed it spotless three times a week—still, it was never enough. Then one day, she declared:
“I’ll return in a week. If I find a single speck of dust, you’re out!”
I begged William to reason with her. He tried. Margaret wouldn’t bend. When she arrived and spotted old boxes of hers on the balcony—untouched because they weren’t mine—she erupted.
“Pack your things and go back to your parents! William can decide for himself: stay with you or here!”
And William didn’t betray me. He came with me to Yorkshire. We stayed with my parents. He rose at dawn for lectures, worked evenings, returned late. I took remote gigs, but earnings were scant. We counted pennies, lived on pasta and eggs. Without my parents’ support, we wouldn’t have survived. But love held us together.
In time, things improved. We graduated, found work, rented a place in London. Oliver grew; we became a solid family. Yet the bitterness remains.
Margaret lives alone now. The flat she threw us from stands empty. She calls William occasionally, asks after Oliver, demands photos. He speaks to her—bears no grudge. I cannot. To me, it’s betrayal. She shattered us at our weakest, abandoned us when we had nothing.
“It was my flat! I had every right!” she says.
Perhaps she did—but where was her conscience? Her heart? When we stood at the station with a baby and two suitcases?
I am not vengeful. But forgiveness isn’t owed. And I won’t re-enter her life.
