My mother-in-law told me to divorce her own daughter

“You have to get a divorce.” The sentence my mother-in-law spoke didn’t hang in the air. It became the air. It consumed it. Thick and suffocating.

I already had tears in my eyes and it was hard to drive. His voice blurred the rest of my vision. I didn’t know what I wanted to hear when I picked up the phone.

I didn’t know what to say back, so I kept driving. I wasn’t the first person to have issues with their mother-in-law; a 2022 study in evolutionary psychology found that both men and women reported more conflict with their mothers-in-law than with their mothers. But she wasn’t telling me to leave because she hated me.

My mother-in-law told me to divorce her daughter.

I rushed out of the house, leaving my heart and soul crushed on the kitchen floor. I wouldn’t need it. And yet, the phantom pain of the heart exists, even when it’s gone.

A few weeks before the wedding, I stumbled upon a text message from my future wife’s lover and fled the apartment. I fled the scene of a crime, the blood from my stabbed heart invisible and yet ever-present. It was my mother-in-law who helped me through it.

Not to continue the marriage, but to do what I had to do. And whatever it was, no one in his family would think badly of me.

I talked to her more often. I confided in her. More than I did to my mother, to whom I said nothing. A mother always loves her child. A mother also takes on anyone and anything that can harm her child. If I told my mother, she would not forgive me. The bond between her and my future wife would be like a rope bridge against a brewing storm. At least I knew my mother-in-law would always love her daughter.

At the time, I wanted our relationship to last. I wanted us to make it. Maybe because I really loved him.

According to psychiatrist Dr. Scott Haltzman’s 25 years of research, 40 percent of marriages experience infidelity. So maybe ours could survive it. Maybe it was because I was afraid of starting over, losing my emotional investment and watching it crumble to dust in my hands. She knew my father before he died. If I were to move on, any future relationship would end without ever knowing the man who helped raise me.

I told myself many reasons why I needed things to work. Feeding my soul with deceptive crumbs quickly left it ravaged and hungry.

But I continued the relationship. I kept going. Maybe I could replace the crumbs of lies and deception with something meaningful. Something tangible. I forced myself to believe it. The glass slipper could still hold with a little daydreaming and enough breaks.

The problem is that in real life, pretense doesn’t work. And glass slippers don’t work without cutting off a few heels and toes. We planned the wedding.

Terje Sollie / Pexels

But no amount of artificial facades or decorations could turn our pumpkin into a float. Two weeks later, I discovered that it had continued its adventures.

Two weeks later, I found myself driving out of the apartment. Leaving. Going nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Why I thought things would change, I don’t know. I wanted to believe everything would be okay, so I convinced myself of lies.

When you lie to yourself, everything else is lost, because no other line of thought can get through. I blocked out the idea of probable truths and realities. And in the end, it happened the way it was supposed to end.

I was driving the car, my eyes misty, the phone rang. My mother-in-law. Maybe she asked how I was. Maybe she skipped the pleasantries. I don’t remember.

But one sentence she said has stayed with me. I can still hear it. I can sense the tone and the venom. Her sharp fangs were not aimed at me, but at her daughter. “You must divorce her.”

I had lied to myself for months. My mother-in-law told me the truth. Eventually, we divorced. I told my mother everything. Sure enough, my mother gritted her teeth, her eyes narrowed, and her idea of my wife changed irreparably.

At the divorce hearing, my mother showed up (I told her not to). My mother said something to my then ex-wife after she left the courthouse. I don’t know what she said, but while my ex was in tears, my mother blew him a kiss and walked to her car.

Mothers will always defend their children. My ex’s mother eventually did the same thing. She stopped talking to me. She kept moving, and looked down on me. Because mothers will always love their children.

studio cottonbro / Pexels

And for a short time, the woman who was my stepmother gave me advice I wouldn’t give myself.

Sometimes it is necessary to listen to your heart. Other times it is essential to listen to others. Because even though I may sometimes dream of living in a fantasy, it is important that the words of others are anchored in reality.

Alex Alexander is a pseudonym. The author of this article is known to YourTango but has chosen to remain anonymous.