Somebody wrote:
“Ammachi sounds like a tough cookie”.
You working full time and coming home to someone like Ammachy must have been😱
Not that bad, when I think about it now.
It was my problem too. I am a people pleaser.
I shouldn’t have taken her idiosyncrasies seriously. But I did. She was mean to everybody. But nobody said or did anything about it, not to hurt her feelings. Anyway she wouldn’t have listened to anybody. She was a Monarch as I said before, she loved nobody else other than herself.
😂
But God made me as comfortable as possible that nobody can even dream of, to deal with her in any situation. I did everything I have to do for her as a good daughter-in-law with the help of Babu till she died at 100+years.
But I used to stand on my knees & even head to please her and make her love me after the day one of my marriage.
Then I stopped all that after 20 years and told her that hereafter she would not get my love, but only decent services, because she doesn’t deserve my love 😍. This happened one day when Babu told me in despair after seeing my sadness,
“You have to know something. You cannot make other people love you by loving them or giving expensive gifts 🎁 or money, or being a slave to them. When are you going to learn this?”
So that day onwards I thought about my stupidity of 20 years!
It is a long period of time, 20 years and then took the above decision.
I kept my word. I was decent, never took any revenge upon her for anything she said or did or shown me before, also tried my best to ignore all her comments which hurt me.
So that’s me.
Genuine me.
No, I am not related to Mother Teresa or anywhere near her, but I will not tell a lie to anybody to save my face, probably I would change the subject not to tell a lie.
How long was she with you?
Almost always. I never saw her as a burden. When you love your husband, anything we do are just to make them happy. I gave her respect ✊ because of my love 😍 to Babu.
Our tradition is parents live with the younger kid throughout.
Foot-note:-
My relationship with my mother-in-law, Ammachi:-
We never yelled at each other or argued, as you have seen on TV series or movies.
We were very decent and classy people.
Only once, I talked back to her face, only once!
One day Aby yelled at me at the kitchen in front of her when he became irritated for something I said.
I could see the big grin 😃 on Ammachi’s face at that time enjoying this great show through the corner of my eyes, and I felt very sad for being put down by Aby in front of her. He never gets upset that bad.
He stormed out of the kitchen, I just stood there stunned 😳.
Ammachi slowly got up, took her walking stick and while passing by me as if to nobody she said:
“I brought up my children nice and right !”
I was really ticked off.
I walked to her to face her, then for the first time ever in my life, I felt as if I am 6’ tall.
I told her.
“You are right. But not because you brought them up they are nice and good.
All three boys of yours have the gene 🧬 of your husband, Appa, the most gentleman, I have ever seen in my life.
If any of your kids had your gene 🧬, you wouldn’t be living with any of them as of now. And I don’t think or believe the children grow up-to be good or bad, not only because how they are brought by their parents, but it is God who decides whether they are going to become good or bad. Nobody can do anything about it. Never claim that you made them like that. I will never agree to that. Never ever talk to me like this.”
She didn’t say anything back to me, but walked out of my site slowly.
I didn’t feel any guilt for talking back to her.
It is God who made me say those stuff I believed in.
We can help them, lead them through the right path we think is the best, but it is God who decides each one’s destiny.
Parents do their best to bring up the children through the right path to make them good 😌 and responsible adult, but unless God allows a happy ending to their destination, it is never going to happen.
So no parents can fully claim of their children’s success as the hard work they put in. Parents would have sacrificed a lot, for the children’s success, still can’t claim it happened because of them.
Give credit to God for where it is due.
That’s all for today!
I didn’t know that you had mother in law problem. I had the same situation. We were not allowed to talk back to elders at our time and some of the mother in law’s took advantage of that. But now I know that if we had showed the courage to stand up for ourselves they would not have got away with that. But that courage should come from within. Some people don’t have sympathy and empathy. Anyway nothing bad happened to us.