My mother-in-law and I

OLA: Whenever we spent the weekend at my in-laws’ house, she would have a dig at me every now and then. She would say: ‘You don’t need to air the room like that, it’s making Antek sick’ or ‘My child would never speak to me so rudely’. I took every such comment to mean: you are a bad mother.

JAGODA: She expects Marek to still be at her every beck and call. Cleaning the car, changing light bulbs, painting, assembling furniture – all done by my husband.

EWA: My mother-in-law Halina is the best in the world. A person thinks life sucks, goes to her – and suddenly looks at everything in a different light.

OLA, 39 YEARS OLD

We live three hundred kilometres apart, we used to visit our in-laws several times a year. When someone called during our visit, my mother-in-law would say: ‘Marcin is here with Antek’. I would add out loud: ‘Me too!’. I once pointed out to her that it was unpleasant. She didn’t comment. She doesn’t like confrontation. There was never any open conflict between us, she would always spit out a sentence dripping with venom and then cut it short. Usually when we were leaving.

She would always prepare a lot for our arrival. She would ask us what we wanted, she would bake Antek’s favourite cake. There was a time when she used to clip all sorts of good advice from the papers for me: about nutrition, diets, feeding the baby. Then she asked if I was using them. I showed no enthusiasm, so over time she stopped collecting the clippings.

To her, it matters what people say. She often comments on the behaviour of others. When she noticed that her neighbour’s son started visiting without his wife, she immediately had a diagnosis: ‘Things are definitely not good in his marriage. It will end in divorce’. I wonder what her thesis about our relationship, that is mine and her son’s, is now. The last time I was at my in-laws’ house was five years ago, and they tended not to visit us with my father-in-law. She doesn’t like to leave the house.

I could never bring myself to call her ‘mum’. She, in turn, could not bring herself to be sincere. Once, I bleached my hair. I could see she didn’t like it, but she thought all weekend about how to communicate it to me. Finally, she said: ‘My friend said you look better in dark hair’.

During one of our visits, my in-laws’ flat became crowded because their friends who were passing through were visiting. After lunch my husband and I went for a walk, Antek wanted to stay. In the evening he burst out crying. It turned out that when we were out walking, my mother-in-law started bad-mouthing me. She told her friends that I lock myself in my room with a book, that I don’t like to eat what she makes, that I dress Antek too lightly. It wasn’t anything too serious, but I couldn’t stand the fact that she was saying all this in front of my son. He was nine years old, it hit him hard. I wanted to talk to my mother-in-law, but my husband said he would handle it himself. He swept it under the rug.

After this situation, I continued to visit my in-laws for a while, but the relationship grew colder and colder. And I resented my husband more and more for never standing up for me. He didn’t in any way let his mother feel that she had acted wrongly. Now he goes to his in-laws alone with Antek. My relationship with my mother-in-law is a topic that is no longer discussed at home.

JAGODA, 30 YEARS OLD

At first I thought: wow, my future mother-in-law is a great gal. We liked similar books and films, we used to go out to restaurants or the cinema together. But then things started to go wrong. The longer I was with my partner, the worse it got. After the engagement, things started to get dire.

More and more often she demonstrated how powerful an influence she was in his life. For example, I said I needed to make an appointment with a doctor for Marek, and she said she knew what was best for him and would give him pills. One time she told me directly, ‘You will never replace me’.

I had a high-risk pregnancy. I ended up in hospital, and my mother-in-law called me and stated, ‘If you miscarry, you won’t be the first, nor the last’.

She tried to force us to live with her. She threatened not to sign over the house. I categorically refused because I wouldn’t be able to cope mentally.

She once called saying that she was feeling unwell, wanted him to come immediately. He was alone with the baby, so he dragged me home because he was afraid something would happen to his mother. I had to drop everything and go home.

My daughter is allergic and cannot eat eggs, nuts or chocolate. She thinks I made up this allergy, even though she’s seen her granddaughter in bad shape.

Once, in a bigger group of people, I pointed out that she kept twisting my dad’s name. She scolded me in front of everyone, ‘You are ill-mannered, mentally ill, and the worst part is that you have your own opinions’.

Now I try to avoid her, I don’t enter into any discussions. My husband says I’m adding to it, making things up, his mum is a sanctity to him. Only in the case of my daughter’s allergies does he take my side. My mother had a wonderful mother-in-law, and I always imagined that my relationship would be like that too. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.

EWA, 43 YEARS OLD

My mother-in-law Halina is the best in the world. Even though she hasn’t formally been my mother-in-law for 18 years now.

You go to her, you walk into the kitchen and you feel the goodness immediately. And then you get a delicious dinner. Plus dessert. Nothing but delicacies.

Her home is open, warm. She is devoted to her grandchildren and still treats me like a daughter-in-law. She always tells me that I’m part of the family.

There were various misunderstandings and moments when our paths diverged. I separated from Piotr, her son, in 2002. He died a year later. My relationship with Halina worsened then, for a time we didn’t talk at all. But she was never against me. Every Christmas she would send my and Piotr’s son home-made biscuits because she knew he loved them.

This year she invited me and my new partner over for Christmas Eve. My family doesn’t accept him, we don’t talk to each other. Halina welcomed Daniel with open arms, said that my parents’ attitude was incomprehensible to her. She helped me a lot during that difficult time.

I know I can always count on her. That if I told her something in confidence, she would keep it to herself. When I have a problem, I’m angry and sad, she will hug me and cry with me. I feel very safe in her kitchen. We love talking to each other. There were times when we would stay up until four in the morning. For me, she is an example of the mother I never had.

MAGDALENA, 36 YEARS OLD

I was with Mateusz for over six years. We didn’t go through with the wedding and it wasn’t my decision. I think it was my ex’s mother’s. When I met him, they didn’t have a good relationship. I heard them yelling at each other on the phone many times, and sometimes he wanted to cut off contact with her. He then resented me for defending her, and I didn’t want them to stop talking to each other because of me.

My mother-in-law didn’t accept me from the beginning. She had a mania for criticism. When we invited her to dinner and I made duck, she said: ‘Oh Jesus, it’s so burnt’, cake – ‘not sweet enough’. Whenever she visited us, my hands would shake as I poured the tea. I prayed I wouldn’t spill it on her. When we were the ones visiting her and I wanted to go back because it was getting late, I heard: ‘And where are you off to in such a hurry, after all you don’t do anything at home anyway’.

Mateusz and I both worked, but I was the one who took care of the house – I cleaned and cooked. And she still considered me a bad daughter-in-law. What she couldn’t stand most was the thought of us not having children. I have a group II disability, and the doctors said I shouldn’t get pregnant for health reasons. From the beginning, I gave my partner the option of walking away. He repeatedly assured me that he didn’t care about starting a family, that he loved me and wanted to be with me. I heard more than once from my mother-in-law that I had wasted his life.

Last Christmas Eve I bought her a beautiful handmade pendant. She didn’t unwrap the gift for three days. She opened all the others right away.

She was obsessed with asking how much things cost. I can understand if someone wants to buy a table, for instance, and is curious about how much someone else paid for it. But she was asking about trousers, socks, everything. And there was always the comment that it was too expensive or that you should have chosen something else.

I asked my fiancé to intercede on my behalf, but he said we had to work out the relationship ourselves. One time my mother-in-law offered to sew pillowcases for us using the fabric left over from our curtains. But months passed and it wasn’t talked about. I spent weeks constructing a sentence in my head to ask her in the gentlest way if I could take the material back. I finally worked up the nerve to say it, and she resented me for six months afterwards.

Mateusz was addicted to the computer. He would spend up to 13 hours a day using it. He would get angry and aggressive. My mother-in-law saw nothing wrong with it. She said, ‘And what is he to do when he comes home? No family, no kids, you are what you are’.

When there were family gatherings in larger groups, I sometimes didn’t hear anything bad about myself. But every time my mother-in-law and I saw each other, I calculated what to say to avoid exposing myself, to sound as neutral as possible.

Not long before we met, Mateusz bought a flat. We finished it together because it was at the shell and core stage. We planned to get married and I planned to take out a loan to pay for the wedding. But unexpectedly, there was a 180-degree turnaround. My fiancé developed a stronger bond with his mother, and he began to act towards me as if he was annoyed by my every move. When I brought him tea, it was too hot, other times too cold. Or I put it in the wrong place. One day, he said he wanted to break up with me. I wanted to settle accounts with him because I bought a lot of things for this flat. He sent these calculations to his mother, and she wrote to him not to give me a penny. I’m still thinking about taking this to court.

I decided to tell my story because maybe there are more women stuck in a similar relationship. Maybe they will see that the same is happening in their lives and will be able to draw the line at the right moment.

KAROLINA, 32 YEARS OLD

My partner and I are getting married on New Year’s Eve, but I don’t think my mother-in-law will take it seriously.

I’ve been with Igor for four years. I met his mother spontaneously, we dropped in on her during a motorcycle ride. It was nice. We had an amicable relationship for a long time. My mother-in-law lives in the country and has her own garden. She called me over the holidays, asked me how I was doing. I let slip that I’d stopped by the market for strawberries. And she said: ‘Well, if you can afford eight-zloty strawberries, that’s your business’. I think she felt offended that I didn’t get them from her.

I often invited my mother-in-law and her partner over for coffee, but they could never say when they would stop by. She preferred random drop-ins. Once or twice they came and we weren’t home. Eventually Igor forced them to give a specific time, we agreed on 5 pm. We’re getting ready, I have my nails freshly painted, suddenly they walk in without knocking. At 4.30 p.m. I couldn’t keep it together and said: ‘Are you kidding me?’ We drank coffee, ate cake, joked a bit. After they left, they stopped talking to us.

I then poured out my grievances towards my mother-in-law on Messenger. I wrote to her that I was sorry they never accepted the invitation to Christmas, that it was a shame they were punishing their grandson. She stated that she didn’t need to explain herself to me.

She arranged with Igor to come to our house the following Sunday. The day before he wrote to her to confirm. Silence. So we decided to go for a walk since the weather was nice. On our way back, we saw a car driving away from in front of our block of flats. She sent him a message: ‘You did it to humiliate me’. And then she poured out a whole litany of things about me: that I was mean, that his previous girlfriend was better. He wrote back: ‘You’re despicable’, and blocked her. She called, he didn’t answer. I’m lucky because he’s always been on my side.

But even though I was deeply hurt by what she wrote, I still wanted things to be okay. I decided she didn’t have to like me, but it would be good for Adaś to have a grandmother. I persuaded Igor to go with him to her by himself. Apparently the litany of ways I’d wronged her started again. I’m willing to let it all go. The only condition is that my mother-in-law apologise to me. But we know she won’t.

IWONA, 28 YEARS OLD

When my mother-in-law learned that her son had found himself a woman with two small children, she wasn’t thrilled. It wasn’t until six months after we started dating that she invited us over. Piotr’s sister was also going to be there with her family. To this day, I shiver when I think of that visit. I expected grave faces and that everyone would scrutinise me. I was worried about how the kids would behave. All my fears turned out to be wrong. My mother-in-law greeted us immediately at the door with a warm smile and handed my children chocolates and asked: ‘Can I be your grandmother?’. There was no awkwardness at the table, everyone made sure the atmosphere was good, and no one asked questions that might have made me uncomfortable.

We lived in different towns, but close enough to visit each other often. My mother-in-law works abroad: three months here, three months there. Whenever she was home, she would invite us over for dinner, for tea. She actually started treating my children like her own grandchildren.

As Piotr and I were finishing building our house, my in-laws suggested we move in with them to save money on renting a flat. In those six months under one roof, we didn’t have a single clash. I took care not to create situations which would cause my mother-in-law to be unhappy. The whole time in the back of my mind I had the thought that it was their house and we had to follow their rules. An example? My mother-in-law didn’t like how I put the dishes in the dishwasher, so we agreed that I would put them in the sink. Throughout the construction, Piotr’s parents looked after my children. There were days that I would see them in the morning and then only before bedtime, and they would handle the rest. They didn’t have to. After all, they could have said: ‘Take them to your mother’. My kids love their grandparents. Grandma makes the best broth and the most delicious pancakes.

When my mother-in-law is abroad, I call her more often than her son does. And when she comes home, we sit and talk for hours. We can spill our guts to each other and laugh together. We don’t always agree, but our relationship is based on mutual respect. Whenever I confide in her about something, I am sure that it will stay between us. Recently I found that when I have a problem, I go to my mother and talk about it with her, and then I discuss it with my mother-in-law.

We once talked about how two women who love the same man shouldn’t compete. We came to the conclusion that she would always just be Piotr’s mother and I would just be his partner. And that’s fine.

Only once, at the very beginning, did she warn me: ‘You will become my enemy if you hurt Piotr’. I didn’t like it, but then I realised she was speaking from the position of a caring mother. She also calls me ‘child’ or ‘daughter’ now. My mother-in-law’s name is Ewa and 90% of her weight is her good heart. She needs to be written about in the papers.

MAJA, 40

I met my mother-in-law over four years ago, a month and a half after I started dating Zofka. In non-heteronormative couples, it’s not always obvious that parents know about the relationship. In our case, there was no hiding or pretending – the situation was clear from the beginning. We were both past many years of different relationships and our parents getting used to them.

We live in Warsaw, my in-laws live in Bydgoszcz. We first visited them on our way for a sailing trip. They waited with food and wine, they were dressed in fancy clothes and excited. Our relationship from the beginning was very positive.

My mother-in-law is a retired physician. She is knowledgeable about literature, art, and is interested in the world. She doesn’t take herself too seriously and has a sense of humour. And she doesn’t interfere in our lives. She always encouraged her children to face new challenges and to be independent.

Zofka works at a university, she’s in the process of obtaining habilitation. My mother-in-law enjoys all her successes, but she’s also proud of me and supportive, for example when I get a promotion.

I don’t know how much the relationship with the mother-in-law differs when the link is female rather than male. In our case, there was no rivalry.

I address my mother-in-law by her first name, as she suggested. We see each other a few times a year. The atmosphere is always relaxed, we often stay up late, talk, drink wine. But there’s no pressure that we have to spend a hundred percent of our time together. My mother-in-law sometimes likes to go away for a while, to be alone. To me, that’s totally fine.

Zofka is vegan, I don’t eat meat. Whenever we arrive, the fridge is full of vegan products, even though my mother-in-law cooks traditionally.

Zofka’s mum is my second mother-in-law. I had a good relationship with my previous one too, but on a completely different footing. It was closer and more chummy. Maybe it was due to the smaller age difference, because when I met her she was only just in her forties. My partner would often go to bed and I would stay up late with her parents and we would talk. With Zofka’s mum this relationship is different, I think I treat her more like a mother-in-law.

Author: Izabela O'Sullivan

Illustrated by Marta Frej

The text was published in „Wysokie Obcasy” a magazine of „Gazeta Wyborcza” on 15 January 2022