Or as mine came to be known as.... Poor Amy.
Our wedding day became a "poor Amy" day. Poor Amy she is going to miss G, Poor Amy this, Poor Amy that....
Poor Amy's neighbor greeted us at the gate when we arrived back from our honeymoon with "poor Amy, she has missed G so much"
Our house wasn't quite finished so we were to stay with G's parents for a month. That lasted all of a week, As G.s mother used to come into our bedroom every morning and wake us up with "do you have any washing?" Huh!!
A bigger martyr of a MIL nobody ever had.
The sad thing is G's father adored me and me him. He was a wonderfully, kind hearted man who every year grew flowers to bloom in time for my birthday and would arrive early on the morning of my birthday with his arms overflowing with flowers, He looked on me as the daughter he never got. G was an only child.
MIL kept a very careful eye on the building of our house. She was there twice a day checking on things....
At Christmas time I always dreaded her gift to me. No MIL should ever buy their DIL sexy nighties ... It is just wrong. Plain wrong.
As we lived around the corner G would drop in to see his mother on his way to work, on his way home for lunch and yes you guessed it on his way home in the evening. I soon discovered she was cooking for him grrr so instead of fussing over his lunch I made vegemite sandwiches and left them on the bench top and for dinner I would make enormous meals and watch him struggle to eat.. Eventually he stopped his mother from cooking him dinner as he was putting on too much weight,
So instead of meals for dinner she would bake for him. Sponge cakes. slices and the like. I once in the early days of marriage asked for "her" sponge cake recipe. FIL was over and looked in the oven and asked me if I was making a pancake... I said no that is the sponge recipe from mother. Yes I had to call her "mother" He said he would check with her about the recipe. He smelt a rat whereas innocent me didn't. Turns out it was not her recipe.
G had an accident that landed him in hospital and by now we had our first child a girl. Much to FIL's delight. On this particular day at the hospital the maiden aunts were there with MIL and FIL. They doted on poor G and kept saying sorry to poor Amy, and poor Amy this and poor Amy that. Hey, I am his wife what about me and his child I felt like shouting as she lapped up the sympathy,
Even my friends started to call her poor Amy. It wasn't long before I felt suffocated. You see we lived in a Court so the only way in or out was past MIL's house and if I tried avoiding her and went left I had to drive past his aunt's house. Oh how the phones would run hot between them whenever I went out.
The one and only time I yelled at MIL was when she entered my house for the umpteenth time without knocking. That particular afternoon I was naked in the bath with my toddler and suddenly there is MIL standing in the doorway with no intention of leaving till I yelled at her to get out, From then on she at least rang to ask if she could come over or at the very least knocked first.
Just remembered, she knew my movements so well that she would be out the front of her house sweeping the path every time I went past and if I didn't go past she would ring G at work.
The final straw for me was when G's father passed away and G was figuring out how to extend the house to accommodate his mother. I bit my tongue as I was silently thinking over my dead body.
Eventually, I left him. Once his father was no longer there to support me things went from bad to worse, G would never hear anything bad about his mother, in his eyes she was a saint. He was brought up by his mother and her mother who lived with them. FIL was an engineer and worked away from home.
The day I finally left in swept MIL to take charge of my house.
She was a great actress and never said anything bad about me to the neighbors. FIL saw to that lol So, at her funeral a few years ago former neighbors and relatives are saying to me "poor Amy" she loved you, you know. Poor Amy always spoke well of you, I just nodded as I knew from the horrible divorce she hated me. she even wrote an affidavit saying I had let her down as I was to help design her new kitchen and now who was going to help her, I think she was wanting compensation. Every day in court there she was holding G's hand. I was convinced I wasn't just divorcing G but also his mother. In fact I am sure I was.
There are many more horrid and sometimes very nasty MIL from hell tales but I like to think that when she died FIL reunited with her and gave her a sound ticking off.
On a happier more positive note MIL number 2 is lovely. She had a MIL from hell who followed them out here from England and who she called "the duchess" MIL mark 2 tries very hard to be a friend and not an MIL. She only gives advice when asked, such a rarity for a mother who also loves her first born son.
