We got married when my husband and I were almost 35. I had two miscarriages, so when I was pregnant with our first son, I was scared and worried about a lot of things. We went back to my in-laws, which they share with my brother-in-law and his wife, so someone could take care of me.
My brother-in-law and his wife moved out right after I gave birth to our first son, so it’s only been my in-laws, my husband and I living together since then.
My husband’s job is not fixed in terms of time, as he sometimes has to work all-nighters and then has days off, during which he sleeps all day to compensate for the nights he has to stay awake. Because of this, my mother-in-law always volunteers to help me comfort my son if he wakes up in the middle of the night, which annoys me, since I ask my husband to help me, not to her.
There was one time I got mad at my husband and couldn’t help but throw a towel at him. Unfortunately, the towel landed on my mother-in-law’s face.
My husband immediately turned to me and yelled at me, saying, “You and your whole family aren’t even as good as my brother’s wife. He said it because my parents were busy when I had just delivered our baby and could only spend a few minutes before returning to work.
There was another time when our son caught a fever, and my mother-in-law said she would help, but she turned to her phone after a while. I told her to help me look after the child instead of using her phone, which made her angry and called my husband to tell him how upset she was. She even said that I was not brought up well by my parents.
She also constantly compared me to her other daughter-in-law, accusing me of abusing her, unlike the other woman. I gradually grew distant from my brother-in-law’s wife because of this, even though I got along well with her before.
My brother-in-law’s wife has a lot of time to take care of my in-laws because she doesn’t have a stable job and is self-employed. She hasn’t even come to do the chores since she and her husband moved out, but every time she meets my in-laws she checks on them and talks like she’s worried about their health. I think she’s a hypocrite.
But my mother-in-law doesn’t think so. Whenever our whole family gets together, I’m treated like a stranger, while all of my mother-in-law’s care goes to my brother-in-law’s wife.
It’s been over seven months since I gave birth, so I went back to work and left my mother-in-law to take care of my son during the day. I come home during lunch before I go back to work in the afternoon, then when I come home after work, it’s evening. I only have time to put my son to sleep before the end of the day.
But my mother-in-law complains that I never touch anything in the house. She says I only care about my son instead of helping him with housework.
Meanwhile, she helps my brother-in-law’s wife take care of their child without saying a word.
And that’s not even all that makes me unhappy. My mother-in-law constantly compares my son to my brother-in-law’s kid, telling me that her kid can already drink that much milk or learn to sit up. These constant updates exhaust me, because each child has their own pace of development.
I’m a little obsessed with hygiene, while my mother-in-law is rather negligent. When my brother-in-law’s child was infected with hand-foot-mouth disease and had to stay home to be quarantined from other children in the class, I told my mother-in-law not to not pass to avoid catching the virus, which she ignored and brought the virus home, causing my son to catch the disease.
I don’t know what to do now. It is impossible for me to move because I need someone to take care of my child when I am at work. But if I stay here any longer, the discord between my mother-in-law and I will only deepen.
What should I do?
