Lamentations of a Mother-In-Law: Dear Mimsters, I will not be going to my son’s house for Omugwo

If Tuoyo would not bring his wife and twins to my house for Omugwo, I will not go to his house and I do not care what anybody says. That is my decision and it is final.

Thank you for what you do through Motherhood In Style. I am choosing your platform to air my story because even though I am in my early 70s, I learn a lot from here especially the way young people reason through the stories and comments I read here.

This story is about me, my children and the decision I have taken is final. I want young women to learn from my story so that they can understand that MILS (Isn’t that what you people call us? Lol) are all not evil. You young women need to learn to do right by your MILs if you want God’s blessings upon your life.

This is about my only son’s wife and me.

The day Tuoyo brought Ajike home, I was skeptical about her but I chose to accept her because I could see that they were in love and I know what it is like to be in love and be rejected by the parent of the one whom you are in love with due to tribal differences. You see, I am Igbo who got married to an Itsekiri man. It was not easy for us due to tribal differences but we scaled through. My husband was such a sweet soul. We shared a really strong bond and even though he was Itsekiri and I was Igbo, we had the best of relationships.

In the 70s when we got married, we had to individually convince our parents that tribalism would not stand in the way of our love. Oh! How I miss Toritseju! He was a good man. And a wise one at that! He would have known how to salvage this situation if he was here.

In honour of what we shared, I refused to remarry when he passed on. I chose to live for my children and God helping me, I raised them well. Today, they are both married raising their own families

Do you see why I did not want to reject Ajike when Tuoyo brought her to me?

So when Tuoyo brought a Yoruba girl home, even though I was skeptical about their union because I had an unexplainable intuition about the girl, but seeing how much my son loved her, I welcomed her and accepted her with my arms wide open.

Just like Tuoyo’s, Ajike’s father was no more. Her mother would visit my home from time to time while they courted and as much as I tried to reciprocate her visits, I just couldn’t keep up. She is in her 50s while I am in my 70s so I explained it away that it was probably due to our age differences.

Nine months into their marriage, Tuoyo and Ajike had a baby girl. That wasn’t my first grandchild… I have had three grandchildren by Temisan, my first child and Tuoyo’s elder sister but this is the first grandchild that would be taking my husband’s last name. I was very happy! I moved in with Tuoyo and his wife to do the expected omugwo.

I tried my best possible to take care of Ajike but I realized that as much as I wanted to make her comfortable around me, she kept her distance.

I got to know about so many shocking things.

Ajike’s mother did her cooking and the house chores for her. She would bring bowls of soup, stew, rice etc. She literally operated her daughter’s kitchen for her and this she did whenever Tuoyo was not around. Ajike kept the freezers locked whenever Tuoyo was not at home.

Did you remember that I said her mother cooks for her? All Ajike did was to store the cooked food in the freezer and microwave it whenever her husband needed to eat. I initially thought her mother was cooking for her because she was nursing so I offered to assist her but she rejected my help. I left the kitchen briefly but returned almost immediately and I overheard her mother telling her to keep me out of her kitchen so that my son wouldn’t know she wasn’t the one coking his meals.

And out of her kitchen she ensured she kept me. She wouldn’t even let me hold my grand-daughter unless she noticed Tuoyo around. She however gave her mother access to every part of the house whenever she came around which was almost every day and she made sure she left before Tuoyo returned home. Whenever Tuoyo was at home, she would leave everywhere she usually locked open; the only issue was that Tuoyo was rarely home; he is a mechanical engineer and a very busy one at that.

I am diabetic and hypertensive which means I have special meals and timing is of the essence for the food I eat. If I had access to her freezer and store, I could make my own food by myself but she would always lock everywhere. In fact, she would also lock herself in the room she shared with her husband whenever we were alone in the house. Of course, she would have my granddaughter with her. I once asked her why she wouldn’t let me hold the child and she said she didn’t think I was strong enough to handle a baby. Can you imagine that?!

She would starve me all day and when my son returned around 8pm, she would serve me with assorted meat in his presence. After eating at such odd hours for days, my sugar level shot up so I devised a means to help myself. After trying to make myself useful in the morning by arranging the sitting room and tidying the guest room where I stayed, I would stroll down their street where I had located a small canteen, buy some food, eat it there, and then, I would gently return to the house.

To be continued….