Recently, my mother-in-law came to visit us for the first time since our wedding a couple of months ago. Since I haven’t had a chance to spend much time and bond with her before this visit, naturally, I was a little nervous which I’m sure, she was as well. Even though I was busy prepping for an exam, we got to spend a decent amount of time together and things moved along quite well for the most part.
Her visit fell on Valentines Day, which was also our first Valentine together as a married couple. We included her in our celebration by giving her a present, taking her out to dinner and a movie. Even though I didn’t think it was a big deal, I later realized how much she appreciated being included and had told her other kids about it who later thanked me for making her feel so special and at ease with us.
My routine during her month-long visit was to study early in the morning/afternoons while taking occasional coffee and lunch breaks with her. I’d try to free up time in the evenings to cook dinner, clean and spend some time with her, but by then hubby would also return from work so I’d feel more at ease if I had to be away. She was very understanding towards my situation and tried to free up my time by helping as much as she could with the cleanup and cooking. She said she wasn’t there to spoil me when I first got married so she asked about my favorite foods and cooked for me. She also went shopping and got presents for me and the house!
Although reluctant at first, she slowly started incorporating little changes in the kitchen/ minor changes in the house and started giving me some tips on household stuff. I was not bothered by any of it because I didn’t want her to think she had to tip-toe around her son’s house now that I’m also living there; therefore, I’d thank her for her suggestions since most of them actually were helpful-- if not I’d take them as a grain of salt, or the entire shaker in some instances. So basically, it was all good vibes between us (apologies for delving into too many details but wanted to outline our scope of comfort with each other).
The day before she was leaving, I finished up studying a little early and planned on spending the rest of the day with her. Around noon, I was leaving the house to go out for Jummah prayers with her when I noticed that my wedding ring and band were missing. Now, there are only three places in the apartment I place my rings in: the top of our toaster oven if I’m in the kitchen, a small windowsill if I’m in the living/dining room, or in a jewelry box on our dresser if I’m in the bedroom. I may not know where they are specifically at a given point of time, but in the event that I’d need to search for them, one of these spots is precisely where I’d discover them. Since we don’t have any visitors in the small town we live in currently, I can afford to be a little careless with placing my jewelry around the house as long as I keep track of where I place them. Anywho, on this particular day, I looked for them for about an hour and couldn’t find them in any of aforementioned spots. I asked my mother-in-law if she had seen them because she had cleaned up the house while I was showering and she said she hadn’t. By this time, we were getting late so I decided to give the search a break and give it a fresh start when I come back because sometimes you can miss things that are right in front of you.
When we came back, I retraced my steps from when I last remembered wearing them and thought I had placed them in the windowsill but they weren’t there! I dusted, and sweeped most of the apartment and moved furniture around (we have a small apartment with very little furniture so not easy to lose things around here) but couldn’t find them. My mil asked me not to call my husband because he might get stressed but I called him anyway to see if he had placed them anywhere and he said he had seen them on the sill while he was talking to his sister the night before. Since it was our usual tea time, mil made herself a cup and was sitting on the dining table which is RIGHT next to the window, so while I was on the phone with hubby, I went back to the sill, searched again and told him its not there. All this time, mil never offered to look, even though I was going crazy at this point. She said she can’t help me because she doesn’t know where I place my stuff. I was dreading that since I was distracted with my studies, I might have taken them off while showering or washing up in the sink and they might have gone through the drain. We had already thrown away our trash so I went outside to go through our neighborhood trash. At this point, I had already been searching for the rings for over 4 hours and I was in tears because I knew for a fact I had lost them to either the bath tub or sink. I came up to our apartment and my mil was in her room. I was going to the kitchen to get something when something gleaming in the sun caught my eye; sitting right on the windowsill were the ring and band neatly placed on top of each other. I realized immediately what had happened. I left the rings untouched and went to mils room to tell her that I didn’t find the rings and that I was sure they’re gone in the drain. I told her I had searched and fretted enough and will take a break and study. I was hoping that she found them after I went to look in the garbage and would tell me she placed them in the window but she didn’t say anything. This was 2 hours before my husband was going to be home, I texted him that the rings weren’t in the sill at first and after hours of searching they had been placed in the exact spot I remember not checking once but hundreds of times. That I would not speculate on why she did what she did, but I wanted him to know that there’s no doubt in my mind she moved them.
When my husband came home, I was still in the room, he stopped by to see his mom and then came to see me. He hugged me and told me he was sorry about what had happened but that his mind cannot accept it because it goes against the kind of person his mom is. We decided that we won’t bring this up with her and either he or I will pretend searching again and finding it on the sill and just move on. We left the room after a couple of minutes because and she was standing outside with the rings. She said she found them about an hour ago but didn’t want to come to the room and tell me bc she didn’t want to bother me while studying (even though she had previously come to my room numerous times for various reasons when I was studying). She said that I looked really stressed out so she did nafl for them to be found. I told her I quit after searching for a while because I thought they were gone. She said I can’t just say that because “it was bought with her sons money” and that “I should be careful about where I put my stuff”. Even though she made it seem like she was just joking about the “son’s money” part but it was hard not to notice her snide and sarcastic undertone. I decided to just stay quiet because if all of this charade was planned for the sake of creating some drama or tension before she leaves, I didn’t want to be a part of it. Hubby stayed quiet as well. We took her to a dinner after that, pretended everything was normal even though I was really jaded by the event. We talk and text normally ever since she’s left, so things are back on track after this little bump.
So now I ask, what could have been the reasons behind this act? As much as I’d like to stick to the theory of “she was just teaching me a lesson on being careful with my things”, it doesn’t make sense because she was more than welcome to share her disapproval/ give her opinion on things and she did exercise it quite liberally. She knew I’d be MORE than okay if she told me to be careful and not place them in random places then why would she resort to such a mean way of punishing me. That too for so many hours when she clearly knew how upset I was. The fact that she placed it RIGHT where I had looked numerous times in front her, and that I know I couldn’t have possibly been so blind to think I missed it even when I dusted that window ledge, could mean that she wanted me to know she had moved them and see how I’d react? No human is perfect, everyone has insecurities of some kind, and I know many stories of the existential crisis bouts that a son’s marriage brings in a mother, especially the ones originating from our part of the world. As hurtful as this was to me, I can’t overlook all the other nice things she did during her stay and hold a grudge against her for this.
Personality wise, my mil is one of the most wisest and logical person I have met, and doesn’t quite fit the profile of a typical mother-in-law a Pakistani girl has to deal with since she got married when she was 16 and moved to the US right away. My worst fear is that she wanted to start something between me and my husband. I don’t think I could be a more perfect wife to him and he a more perfect husband to me; its a relationship based on pure friendship mashallah. So could this have stirred any jealousy even though we have really been nice to her and her relationship with her son has not been impacted by my presence? If only I knew!