Her Birthday

Yesterday was her birthday!!!

I have never had a chance to wish her happy birthday. Neither I wanted to wish, nor she would accept anything from me on her birthday.
Our relationship has been like this ever since we have met each other. It's been like a never ending cold war!!

We are poles apart, and two extremes that can never be connected. But we have only one thing that is common, and that's what we are fighting for!
It is the love and affection of one person.

I feel ashamed to be in this situation, and fighting with another woman for the simple love and affection of my husband. I believe it is my marital right, and I shouldn't have to fight for it.
But then, she too has her own rights. She has done so much to him than me, and her place in his life is incomparable. Its a pity that she is in this ugly fight.

It is simply the fault of the man, namely my H who failed to balance both the love of his life; hence the women are fighting

Yes, you guessed it right! She is none other than my MIL. My dearest enemy!

I've learned about her when my H (then colleague) fondly shared his childhood memories during one of our lunch time together back in 2004. We were seeing each other back then, but didn't have any idea about taking this relationship further.
Even then, I still wanted to be in the good books of his family; thus interestingly noted all the details he shared about each of them.
From that time onward I liked this mother character!

The only woman in his house, and the most submissive person who dedicates all her life to the family.
She was born as a queen, in a palace to a very rich family. Yet, lost her parents at a very young age, and lost all her wealth to both her unfaithful brothers later.
She was married off to her H - who married her only for money!
Since then, her role in life has been to serve her H and children 24/7.

I felt pity and realized the fact that her life would have been different had she has a female relationship in her life. Be it a mother, sister or daughter would have changed her fate for good. Since she has no one to go to, it is obvious that all the male in her family takes her for granted!
I was too quick to jump into conclusion, and even to avail myself as that "unborn" daughter to this woman, because I felt so connected with her even before I met her physically.

She was in India, and my H was working in Sri Lanka with me. There was a plan, that his family from India would be repatriate to Sri Lanka for good, and he initiated all the plans for that.
I was on the front line to look for a decent house for them, and I consider all the factors like a comfortable kitchen, manageable house, and great neighborhood from a woman's POV, so that she would enjoy it.

When they reached Sri Lanka, they were suppose to register themselves with UN first before their files being transferred to the Government authorities. Though I was in charge of that UN department that registers foreign returnees, I conducted myself like a humble DIL before her instead of a UN professional at my office when I met her for the first time.
I sought her blessings as a friend of her son, and since then I extended so much support to the family with the hope of being in their good books.

She did not like me from day 1. It is because she "guessed" our closeness, and hated it.
She hated me for my race, religion and all the details that showed how different I was from her "ideal DIL"

Things got an ugly turn when my H decided to take this relationship seriously, and informed the same to his parents.
By this time, I had become his everything and our relationship was very strong!

He didn't want to lose me just because of the ethnicity that we have no control over. So, he decided to fight with his FOO for their acceptance.
My FIL, BILs, and all the men at his home liked me. Favored me for who I am, and compared my nature with whoever the potential brides MIL has sought after.
With their blessings, we decided to tie the knot after having waited for 5 long years for her acceptance.

But we could no longer wait, as our body clocks were ticking and the society was pressurizing us.
On our wedding day, she was forced to be present, and officially declared her defeat.

We thought everything would be fine once we bring her first grand kid to the world. But she had other plans and in fact evil plans to kick myself and the kid away from her son's life.

Life would have been better had she remained with the same angry mode. We would have protected ourselves from her anger no matter what. But she changed it like how a snake would change its skin and pretended to shower all the love and affection on us.
We simply got carried away, because all we wanted was her love and acceptance since the beginning.

But it didn't take us long to realize how venomous her grudge was, and how much she has been waiting for the right moment to take revenge.
Thank God !!! We have managed to NOT to give that moment to her though life has been a roller coaster ride for most parts because of her.

Its been 11 years since marriage, and more than 15 years since we are known to each other.
More over, she is our neighbor!!!

We would continue to wait for her love and acceptance one day, because we love her!!!

 

Thanks @jayasala42 , @ashima10 @HariLakhera for your wonderful feedbacks

@Viswamitra sir
First of all, thank you so much for nominating my post for the finest narration competition. It was just a rant, as i felt very bad for not being able to celebrate her birthday with her grand kids despite of living in the next door.
But thankfully i have convinced my H to meet her later that day & present something as a birthday gift, to which she didn't say anything negative.

Answering to your question...
As far as i know, she is not an open minded woman with education or clarity. Within whatever her boundaries, she thinks the girls who fall in love are bad characters.
Their parents are of cheap characters and their upbringing has all the flaws.
Also she was not prepared to accept a Christian as her DIL, that too as first DIL.
Poor lady, she had everything that she didn't wish for.
Not to mention my modern look, skin, and language that makes me very different from them.

She took it so personally that it was her fault that her son fell in love, chose a diff girl as his wife and didn't give in to her cribs earlier.

She publicly accepted to everyone that she failed as a mother & lost it.

Her relatives & friends (actually rivels) fueled the fire by always pointing our differences. They further threatened her about how this 'weird' DIL could turn out to be a home breaker one day.
Not to mention how it must have been hurtful to her when my FIL, BIL & Co sisters sided with us, and wanted to be together!

Me being brutally honest, and so real in life has got so much to do, bcz i should have acted, or pretended to be like her ideal DIL at least earlier to convince her. But i was who i am, and that didn't attract her.

Nevertheless, I still blame my H for being so poor in balancing relationships. He must have stood straight when she abused me, if so she would have slowed down a bit... And we didn't have to completely cut ties with her.... Past is pasts. its all fate! But we hope for the best