This house is in my hubby’s and my name. Hubby also bought them a separate house which is in my hubby’s name but they don’t live there even though it’s bigger than our house. They come to stay for 9-10 months and their house is locked! Their “excuse” is that they’re getting old and MIL can’t handle all the housework alone and wants to stay with her kids. BUT, she doesn’t stay more than a week with any of her other sons or her daughter, just us. Even the other sons and daughter come to stay with us since MIL/FIL are here. I didn’t threaten her but a couple years ago we all did have a meeting with a Mufti because that’s the advice hubby got from our local imaam. Mufti sahab advised to give me a separate house and told MIL to not interfere and all that good stuff. She agreed but only for a month may be. Then again, she went back to her behavior. I can’t threaten anything because hubby won’t like it either no matter how bad his parents are. He already tells me to ignore and all that, even though he knows how they treat me.
It’s not about having it at home or outside, the main thing is she doesn’t want me to enjoy alone with my friends. She needs a reason to embarrass me or humiliate me. Last night hubby told me to cancel the party and have someone else have it at another friend’s house so we can tell MIL that we were invited and we didn’t THROW the party. He just casually told MIL oh we will cancel the party but another one will have it at their place, and she’s like “khabardaar mere bagair kisi dawat mein gaye to, jaan nikaal dungi tumhari”. And of course there’ll be other girls whose parents/in-laws MIL knows, so word will eventually get out even if we decided to do so!
And if I stop cleaning after them, the house will be like a dumpster. I did that once coz my cousin does the same thing and she advised me that. But no, didn’t work in my case. The dishes from the whole week were piled, the laundry was overflowing, it was just a mess! MIL is clever, she knew I wanted her to do it so she used to put even more clothes than her regular in the basket. Eventually, she started yelling and calling me names and I had to do it because I couldn’t stand the mess either.
YES, she WILL call the people, she has done it before. But she didn’t do this type of thing of canceling but called them to see where I was because I didn’t take her with me. I had a doctor’s appointment and had to mail something out, and she was sleeping when I left. It was not here though, we were in a different city back then so not with this circle of friends. She has all the phone numbers of my friends, even the ones she’s never met or talked to. She made me give her the whole contact list of my friends numbers. When I asked why, she said “kabhi zaroorat par sakti hai”. Oh and also, whenever we have a dawat at home where aunty/uncles are also invited…she says she wants to call everyone, even my friends. She calls and invites everyone, even my friends that she doesn’t even know or has talked to ever.
And taking her everywhere is not imposed by my husband. Actually, my husband doesn't impose anything but when she throws tantrums, crying spells, quoting quran/hadeeth, hubby gives in and tell me to do what she says. Like in this case, hubby agreed to have it without MIL and when MIL found out, he said "up to you but ammi naraz hojayengi" so, he basically meant "no". He never gives me a direct response, it's always "up to you, but ammi....." If it was up to me, I wouldn't be where I am today. Now, I told him, I'll have the party this time, I don't care what ammi says after she comes back, we can have another one after she comes and he goes "deal with it yourself when she comes back, don't tell me if she says anything to you". So basically, he wants to stay out of it. But when something happens, he tells me do as ammi wants and ignore everything.
Actually, she does FEEL young. She compares her clothes to mine. I once said “ammi yeh color thora young logon ka hai” and she’s like “tumhari maa budhi hogi, main to young hun”. My mom’s the same age as her! She even says to some colors like agar “tum pehan sakti ho to main kyun nahi” even though she has to wear an abaya on top anyways! Oh and most important part, recently, she has started to go to MY friends houses WITHOUT telling me. Some of these friends work, some don’t even have parents/in-laws at home, just husband/wife/kids. She calls them when she’s on their way! A couple of them she went without calling them first, after being in the U.S for almost 14 years!! Some of these friends I’m not even close to, to tell them how MIL really is. So these friends call me and just give me hints of how inappropriate it was for my MIL to “stop by”. How embarrassing is that? Of course, I can’t even tell this to MIL because she will throw tantrums and blame me that I don’t want her to go to my friends’ house or I’m making this up or something!
I’m just done with all this. I just want peace. I don’t even know how to get out of this mess, which I created myself and decided to marry him even when my parents told me how his family is!