The MIL

My mother-in-law was quiet, self-effacing and incredibly shy. Always in the shadow of her far more sociable, confident and eccentric husband. He was a figure of standing, a pillar of the community who thought it was amusing to poke fun at his wife in public. Like his son, he didn’t realise how much damage his off-hand remarks at her expense could cause.

She had a strange childhood, buried deep in the country. Schooled at home and not allowed to mix the local kids, her mother instilled her with the belief that she was somehow better than the rest of the hoi polloi. She read voraciously and was incredibly knowledgeable but had very few social skills through lack of interaction with other people.

It was the War that made her. In the absence of the menfolk, who had gone off to fight abroad, she found herself in charge of the village farm. Responsible for milking the cows, killing chickens and generally providing food for the local populace.

Naturally, she met a soldier, fell in love and, when the War was over, moved to be with him in a town miles away from her birthplace.

For several years, they lived with his parents but, eventually, moved in to a little place of their own where she raised a large family on a very tight budget, all fed on food they grew on their allotment.

Her children were everything to her and, when they left home, she began to withdraw from public life, preferring to avoid being the butt of her husband’s sense of humour at parties and social gatherings, other than family occasions.

I can remember, not long after we were first introduced, and our men were in the garden whilst we sat in the lounge.

She said to me: ‘Don’t let him do to you what his father did to me!’

Before I had a chance to quiz her further on what exactly she meant, they returned and the conversation was left incomplete.

It was not until many years later that I finally understood. Before that, I had become someone that my own husband ridiculed on a regular basis but I thought I could handle it without being damaged. I had no idea how I was internalising the hurt and the growing ever more anorexic as a result.

Not long before her death, my mother-in-law was delerious, drifting in and out of a coma. One of her children heard her moaning and muttering a name. A man’s name which was not that of their father. They all thought it was highly amusing but it transpired that the name in question belonged to a man who had worked on the farm before the War. A man that she had quite clearly been in love with.

We will never know why their romance did not continue or what it was that made her hark back to those times in her delerium.

She seemed happy enough and there was affection between her and her husband, although the only time I saw it demonstrated was one Christmas when they were sat on the sofa and she was just holding on to his earlobe with her thumb and forefinger.

She died recently, after a long spell in a nursing home with dementia, so she was unaware of our separation. Her funeral was the first occasion at which I have had to see my Husband’s family since I left the house but I just couldn’t not go to her funeral. She had been my mother-in-law for almost three decades.

People find it hard to understand the nature of our divorce but we seem to rub along much better than we did when we were living together. The family took their cue from our behaviour and my nieces came over to hug me and enquire after my well being. Their only concern was that I was ok. Even though they are all grown up, I am still the aunt who remembered their birthdays and Christmas and their good wishes meant so much.