High-class meddling

She has taken it upon herself to make my life as miserable as possible, and I partly blame my husband for taking the back seat, writes Tatiana Saina

After reading books and attending pre-marital counselling on how to deal with in-laws, I thought I was quite prepared to handle this age-old problem. I was wrong and I have since realised all the information I gathered before marriage was useless and I just had to grow a thick skin to survive the in-law storm. I also realised that my friends were not exaggerating the horror stories they often narrated about their in-laws.

My mother-in-law takes the trophy of high-class meddling.

From the word go, she was in the picture, albeit in the background at the beginning. Things have gone from bad to worse over the years and I have since quit pretending to be the sweet daughter-in-law. It has come down to the jungle law of survival for the fittest.

The nonsense of mother and daughter-in-love is nothing, but pretence. I have since learnt that no amount of goodness can earn me love and respect from my husband’s mother. I am simply a stranger who has come to take away her perfect son, and she was not taking it lying down.

She has taken it upon herself to make my life as miserable as possible, and I partly blame my husband for taking the back seat.

I can take the long phone calls with her son, but she can’t use flimsy excuses to settle in my house. There have been many such occasions, but one of the most ridiculous excuses she used once was that she was not well and needed to be taken to a referral hospital nearby and be closely monitored as she recovered.

I arrived from work in the evening and was unpleasantly surprised to find her comfortably sprawled on my favourite seat. I was very pregnant and couldn’t wait to collapse on the sofa. I put on a brave face and greeted her before heading straight to my bedroom.

 I had contemplated not coming back to the sitting room, but the thought of missing my favourite soap drove me back. It was useless because we ended up watching her favourite soap, which was on a different channel and started 20 minutes earlier than mine.

I was so mad when I found her seated on the same spot the following evening that I ordered my husband to buy me another TV or get rid of his mother.

The TV did not come for a few more days, but I was very glad when it finally did. I did not have to deal with her again until she left a week later.