Dear Readers,
I am writing this with personal experience. I got divorced when my child was 1 year old. I was not ready to remarry, but when my child turned 7, I met someone who was in the same situation as me. He had a daughter age 6. She lived with his ex-wife, but spent 1/2 of all her vacations with him and every other weekend. Before deciding to get married, I had told him that the only reason for my second marriage was to get a father's love for my child. I was well off financially, so I did not need a man to support me. My child had no interaction with his father after the divorce. We did not have a joint custody like my current husband does. I also said that whenever his daughter visited us, she would never feel that she is with her step mother. I would try my best to be her friend and make her comfortable. In my marriage, my mother in law gifted me two sarees, two salwar kameez, one gold set and one pair of diamond earrings and pendant. After the marriage I found out that one of the sarees was her sister's. The sister had worn it, gotten tired of it, then given it to her. She had worn it in parties and gotten tired of it and now she gifted it to me, on my wedding day. The other saree was a gift to her that she did not like. Out of the two salwar kameez, one was torn and the other one was something that she did not like.
Would you treat a woman, who is going to enter your household and become a part of your family like this? After treating your bahu like this, can you expect your bahu will respect you? I dont even think them worthy of spitting at!
I am not poor by God's grace, but even if I was poor, I would tell my daughter in law that I cannot afford anything new for her. But I would not give her worn clothes as chadhava. I dont know if you would agree with me or not.
But things did not work out nicely after marriage. His daughter could run all over the house, my son was not allowed to do that. His daughter could watch cartoons, my son was not allowed to watch them. His parents would come from grocery shopping and announce loudly "look what candy I have gotten" - and naturally being a kid, my son would also go to his new "dada". I still remember that man took the candy and gave it to my "new" daughter and kept the other piece of candy on the table and walked away. My son asked me if that was his candy. I was so hurt, I really did not want my son to touch it, but I had to give it to him, not to hurt his feelings.
My husband started to treat my son really bad too - as his daughter was having problems in elementary school and my son was on the Principal's list every semester. I wanted to divorce but could not because it would have really hurt my parents. I made sure that I was with my son at all times. I went to work after I dropped him off to school and then got off work and picked him up from school. We have managed this way for 10 years. I really dont give a damn about my inlaws after the way they treated my child and me.
Everytime my MIL would call on our anniversary, she would be like, oh you are still there, I guess I should wish you. I would smile and say thank you. For the past two years, I have stopped calling her and I do not pick up her phone. First she used to say you never call me. I used to reply your son gives me your messages as you speak with him daily and I am sure he must be telling you everything about us.
I am going to stop as I dont want to relive the pain and the anger.