My marriage lasted five years, it was the happiest time of my life. My spouse and I treated each other with tenderness and love. We managed to give birth to two wonderful daughters-twins. And then Philip disappeared. He left home and disappeared.
He was seen in a supermarket that terrible day, they say he was even holding flowers. He disappeared on the eve of March 8. I never waited for my husband that day. At first, I wanted to howl like a wolf. I managed to get a job, even though I had two small children. I was not entitled to material assistance because my husband had disappeared and no one cared that my two children had lost their livelihood.
On those days when my daughters were sick my mother would sit with them. She had to come to us from a neighboring town. While I was at work my grandmother would cook and clean the house, and besides that she was always busy with her granddaughters: drawing, sculpting, reading them fairy tales. My mother was in her sixties, and I could see that it was hard for her to travel from one town to another.
However, my mother-in-law was not too eager to communicate with her granddaughters. She wouldn’t visit us more than once every few months, she would just give us presents and leave. Besides, she constantly blamed me for Philip’s disappearance. Every time she told me:
– Your lover must have beaten your son, and he’s lying in a hospital somewhere and can’t remember who he is or where he’s from.
– Why do you say such nonsense?! – I couldn’t help myself. – Do you think I am well alone with two daughters in their arms. I have to work like the damned. I can not even properly bathe. Thanks to my mother, she helps us, she comes from another city to visit us, and you live next door and do not take part in the life of granddaughters. You don’t give a damn about how your son’s children live.
– Why are you talking to me like that? You had children for yourself, not for me, so raise them yourself. I may also dream of living at least a little for myself. I used to babysit all the neighbor’s kids, and now they have grown up and do not even say hello to me, and so I’m not going to step on this rake again. – my mother-in-law told me.
– But they are your own granddaughters, they are your son’s daughters, how can they be compared to the neighbor’s children? – I answered.
– Children are only noisy, littering and annoying, and I need peace at my age. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the one who lost my son, not you. I don’t want to live, every day is hard for me.
When you look at your mother’s spouse, you don’t even think that she is struggling to hold on. It is obvious that she is not interested in anything but her own person. I told my mother-in-law that my children were her granddaughters and I really needed her help.
But my husband’s parent immediately started lecturing me about how she had brought up her son by herself and hadn’t delegated her parental responsibilities to anyone.
– I take it that you refuse to help me raise my daughters? Can’t you do it, at least in memory of your son? – I tried to get through to my husband’s mother.
– I live in memory of my son! And your children will not give him back to me! – Cut off her mother-in-law.
At that moment I realized that I could not expect help from this woman. I even began to think about whether she should be forbidden to talk with my daughters, because they still do not see her neither care nor love.
I keep thinking about how my Philip would take it all? I think he would be upset that I forbade his mother to come and visit us and talk to her granddaughters. However, I need financial and moral support and I can’t put it all on my mother’s shoulders.
Can you advise me what words to use to get through to my husband’s mother?
