My mother-in-law is… a bit of a character. She’s not a bad person, per se. But for some reason, she just doesn’t seem to like me — or rather, she doesn’t seem to like the decisions I make. She always questions the decisions I make. Yet she also clearly favours my sister-in-law. She can make the exact same decision as me or buy the same thing as me, but [Mother-In-Law] will question me for it while praising [Sister-In-Law] for it.
Other than this odd quirk of hers, she’s a perfectly fine person. She dotes on all her grandkids equally and is otherwise civil and well-behaved.
One day, [Mother-In-Law] is over, dropping our kids off after taking them out for the day so we could finish redecorating the kitchen.
We’ve almost finished, so we show her what we’ve done. Things go well until she sees that we have purchased an electric tin opener.
Mother-In-Law: “Why did you get an electric one? What if the power goes out?”
Me: “We have good old-fashioned ones in the drawer just in case.”
Mother-In-Law: “Well, then, why do you need an electric one? It just seems so wasteful.”
On and on she goes, making one disparaging remark after another about the tin opener. Eventually, my husband tells her to cut it out; it’s our house, our money, and our decision.
I’m fortunate that pretty much everyone in the family will call her out on her nonsense — even my father-in-law. Whenever it happens, [Mother-In-Law] waves it off and says we’re reading too much into it, or we’re being too sensitive, and she was just trying to help.
A few weeks later, we’re over at [Sister-In-Law]’s house for a barbeque. I’m with [Mother-In-Law] and [Sister-In-Law] in the kitchen helping to put together the side dishes. That’s when I notice that [Sister-In-Law] has bought the exact same electric tin opener as me. We lock eyes and she grins mischievously. I know what she’s about to do, so I play along.
Me: “Oh, is that a new tin opener?”
Sister-In-Law: “Yes, I just bought it.”
[Mother-in-law] turns, looks at the tin opener, and smiles.
Mother-In-Law: “Oh, what a nifty little thing. It fits in so well with the kitchen. And it’ll be so much easier to open tins.”
Me: “Oh, but what if the power goes out?”
Mother-In-Law: “Nonsense. I’m sure she’s got manual ones in the drawer just in case.”
Sister-In-Law: “Oh, so you like it?”
Mother-In-Law: “Yes, it’s lovely.”
Sister-In-Law: “That’s strange. It’s the same one [My Name] bought. And you didn’t like it very much.”
Seeing she had been called out, [Mother-In-Law] stormed out without a word. After she had sulked for a while, she acted like nothing had happened.
No, she didn’t learn anything. To this day, no matter how many times she is called out, she still does it.
Now, I may have painted her like a monster, but as I said, other than this bizarre quirk of hers, she’s okay. In fact, she even took care of me during my difficult pregnancy with our second child. She just seems to have issues with certain things I choose to do or choose to buy.
Nobody can figure out why she does it. [Sister-In-Law] is my husband’s brother’s wife, so it’s not like the favouritism stems from the fact that [Sister-In-Law] is her biological daughter. The two don’t even have that much in common. If anything, [Mother-In-Law] and I have more in common. We support the same football team, we read the same sort of books, and we even share a few hobbies. So, your guess is as good as mine.
