Our community member writes a heartwarming open letter to her mother-in-law asking her to stop teaching her how to be a good wife!
Dear Mother-in-law,
I have a humble request – Please stop teaching me how to be a good wife.
I do understand that you love your son a lot. And, I feel my husband is blessed to have you as his mother. But your love for your son is breaking me every day. It is heartbreaking how you keep finding flaws in me without realizing that my sole purpose in life is not to change myself in a way that your son can lead a happy life. I have my own desires and aspirations. I am not a thing that has been brought up for your son’s entertainment.
So, next time when you tell me how to dress up or how to cook or even how to talk to your son, please remember your son is my husband too!
Please stop assessing how good or bad I am as a wife based on the regressive thought process.
How can she carry her maiden surname after marriage and still remain friends with her husband? How could she not apply sindoor and wear ‘mangalsutra’ and look like an unmarried girl? How could she drive around the city at any time of the day and without being questioned or restricted by her husband and parents? How could she talk to her husband in that tone? How could she ask her husband to cook for her?
I do understand that you don’t have bad intentions but how your motherly love blinds you sometimes is heartbreaking.
Do you remember the last time when I cooked red-sauce pasta, you told me so rudely that how could I make it when I know your son doesn’t like it. And, you said that too in front of the maid.
I want to tell you, there would be certain things that I do for myself – not for your son, not for you! I won’t feel guilty because if I can’t make myself happy how could I make your son or you happy!
Maybe you have given up on your dreams and aspirations for husband and kids, but I won’t.
I hope you would soon realize that times have changed and women are not ready to be the only ones compromising and adjusting. As a couple, we need to adjust to each other’s needs.
For example, it is fine if your son cooks for us when I am taking an office call.
It is fine if he does laundry when I am busy washing utensils.
It is fine if he sweeps the floor as I cook.
And, sometimes it is fine for him to do things when I am tired. Because I would do them too when he is tired.
We are equals and we want it that way. In times, when men and women are equal at the office, then why do we make them feel unequal at home?
I am extremely sorry, how you had to bear the burden of the whole family on your shoulders.
You never sought out for help because you believed it was your responsibility to take care of the family and kids. It is heartbreaking how your generation of women sacrificed yourself for your husbands and kids. I do feel sorry for your sacrifice but now times have changed.
So, please stop pushing yourself too hard to be a good wife, who endlessly sacrifices for her husband and kids. And, please don’t push me too!
I will sacrifice things for my marriage but I won’t be the only one who would. Both of us – me and your son – would make compromises, adjust, and adapt to make it work. Believe me, neither my clothes nor my cooking skills define whether I am a good wife or not.
My courage to stand with your son when life would hit a hard patch will make me a good wife.
My strength to sail with your son through life’s darkest times will decide whether I am a good wife. It would be my power of not giving up on our marriage when our relationship will hit a rough patch.
And, the days when your son couldn’t pick himself up, it would be my ability to hold him in my arms to get us out of the dark times.
