My mother-in-law dreamed of having a grandchild for years… Now she doesn’t want to know him
I’ve been with Edward for almost ten years. We got married out of love—no one pushed or forced us into it. It just happened: we met, fell in love, and had a wedding. Everything was going well, except for one thing—his mother, Patricia. From the very first days of our marriage, she constantly repeated the same thing: “I need grandchildren, I want to dote on a baby!”
I was only twenty-six at the time. Just beginning to build my career, Edward and I lived in a rental apartment in Woking, saving for a mortgage deposit, planning renovations and a job change. A child simply didn’t fit into the equation. I honestly explained to my mother-in-law, “Not now. We’re not ready yet.” But she seemed not to listen.
She got offended, threw fits, and claimed I was ruining her son’s life by not giving him a proper family. In her logic, if a woman doesn’t have children, she’s useless. I tried to keep the peace for a long time, but every month her insistence grew more aggressive. “You shouldn’t have married him if you don’t want kids. He should’ve married that girl from the university,” she would say over and over.
Perhaps she would have been calmer if she had someone else besides Edward. But he is her only son, and she focused all her attention, unstable love, and pressure on us. We bought a flat, got into debt, lived under the burden of mortgage payments, but that didn’t concern her. She wanted a grandchild. Right now. Immediately.
Then another issue arose: one day, Edward’s cousin called him, surprised, to say Patricia had visited—not just for tea, but with a request to transfer her property to her. Naturally, the cousin refused. Edward and I pretended we hadn’t heard about it, and the topic was dropped. Two months later, I found out I was pregnant.
The news was unexpected but joyous. My husband and I embraced and even shed a tear. Finally, a long-awaited baby. I thought everything would change now. Patricia would be happy. After all, she had been striving for this for years, persuading, crying, shouting, blaming. Now her life’s dream had come true. We invited her over when we returned from the hospital with little Tom in our arms. She came not alone, but with relatives. I set the table and dressed the baby for the occasion.
Then I heard her say, “Well, I scared you enough—so you finally had a baby. As if I could have done it any other way—it’s your own fault.” I felt sick. In front of everyone, she uttered this venomous phrase with a smirk. As if she had won. As if the child was not love, not a gift, but the result of her pressure.
From that day on, something broke. She stopped calling. She didn’t ask how the baby slept, ate, or if he was healthy. Occasionally, out of politeness, she would ask her son, “How’s Tom? Coughing?”—and that was it. No toys, no blankets, no birthday cards. Just coldness and indifference. Yet she had sworn to be the best grandmother in the world.
I don’t understand how she could beg, plead, insist for so many years, only to turn away. My husband says this is her way of manipulating, that it’s our fault for allowing it all. But I disagree. A mother, a grandmother shouldn’t be like that. A grandson isn’t a tool for pressure or an answer to blackmail. He’s a person. A small, innocent person.
It pains me to watch my son grow without the love of someone who so loudly demanded her “right to be a grandmother.” It’s painful because I believed one day we would have a strong, united family, where both my mum and his mum would rock the cradle together. Instead, it’s just us doing it alone.
Now I don’t call or invite her anymore. I’m tired of expecting warmth that isn’t there. I gave her a chance. She wrote it off. And maybe it’s time for me to do the same.
