If you don’t want to read another in-laws thread, please look away now.
I recently travelled to see the in-laws with my little one-their first grandchild.
To cut a long story short, my mother-in-law (also my khala) didn’t deal with her grandchild. At first it didn’t bother me but when little one became so ill she was taken to see an emergency doctor because she couldn’t hold her head up and my mother-in-law just sat in her room chatting away to her brother (Yes, my mamu) and ignored the fact we were all worred, and the fact little one was being carted away to see a doctor.
When we got back to the UK, little one was still sick. Unfortunately she was hospitalised. My mother-in-law didn’t even call me to see if we were coping. Just for support nothing else. My husband says he called them, and his mum asked about little one but noone bothered calling us or speaking to me when I really needed the support of the elders.
My cousin (brother-in-law) called after we returned from hospital panicking as he was only told by the fact we were in hospital by his brother-his parents hadn’t told him. He was quite upset but I just covered and said it’s likely they didn’t want to worry him. Did I do the right thing? I didn’t want to cause friction in the household.
To be honest, khala started changing towards me soon after I married her son. She started with the classic of ‘you need to give all your mubaraki money to my friends daughter she needs it for her husbands business’. Then it moved to "look at all these kaminee girls wearing kameezes on jeans’ (knowing that I do that), then it was snide remarks about how a lot of girls wear abaya to Pakistan to impress people but don’t wear it everyday (however I do wear it in the UK).
Whilst I was in Pakistan she also made the comment of ‘noone should marry their sons within family’. I also found out she hid the fact I had an emergency c-section ‘because she was ashamed’ that I opted for that. I never opted for it, it was life or death situ.
Our room in Pakistan (allocated to us at the time of marriage) has been emptied. My beds in there, which is used by my brother-in-law. So when we visited we had to ask for the room back.
And when a ristaa came up for my brother-in-law my husband asked if I could go as well as my nand-she basically said no because I wouldn’t know what a good daugher-in-law looks like.
MIL brought up the fact other family in England have built big houses in Pakistan. I mentioned that we had discussed it, however it seemed more sensible to potentially invest in a land scheme in Islamabad as it was currently affordable and she flipped saying her son ‘couldn’t afford such ayaashi’. She then got nasty about the fact my father was a loser. I know that! Why bring him up?
My mother-in-law is continuing with this weird behaviour and out of order remarks.
Looking back my mother-in-law really hated our choice of baby name-she wanted something modern, however we wanted traditional and religion based. She flipped then and literally didn’t talk to me for ages.
How much do I ignore? If they won’t deal with their grandchild or even bother finding out if shes okay should I just cut them off? My cousin (nand) is also changing.
My husband (as far as I’m aware) is completing his financial duties towards his family, he calls them and visits as and when required. We’ve done nothing I can think of that has caused such a big issue that the nastiness is increasing by the day. I deal with my own family (fathers side) and have never asked my husband to visit them incase it makes my mother-in-law go weird as I never know what shes thinking.
It’s upsetting, and I just want the nastiness to stop.
How do I handle the situation? I don’t know how many more comments or actions I can ignore.
