on in-laws and life's miseries

S said her in-laws think she is the wickedest daughter-in-law ever. i can never imagine anyone calling her wicked. Because she is someone whose heart is clean – i have known her for so long, i ought to know. She, so very untypical of her, said she might as well be bad to prove them right. She is on maternity leave and is at her parents’ home. Her in-laws did not come to visit her even once to meet their grandson.

What is it about in-laws? Of course, i know of so many who are good souls. But then, i know of others who make my blood boil. Why can they not realize that their daughter-in-law is a person with her own individuality? Why do they expect her to change herself completely to suit them? OK, i can understand compromises – but how does that make sense if the only person who is supposed to compromise is the daughter-in-law? S is a wonderful human being – and there are very few people i consider wonderful. Why can’t they see her good points instead of being prejudiced against her and making her out as a vamp? A woman leaves her home and family for her husband (why??), go to a new place she must call home for the rest of her life, has to learn to “adjust” to her new environment – and instead of welcoming her as one of their own, all they can do is find faults with her – she cannot do that, she does that, she does not do that. What the fuck? And i know, the advice meted out to her is – whatever it is, you are a woman, you have to cope with it. It is your lot. You have to learn to bear everything. My foot. Are we beasts of burden that we have to tolerate everything thrown at us? Don’t women deserve happiness? Are we incomplete without a man, without being married?

Someone who has been abused by her husband told me this –no matter whether your husband beats you up, kicks you, you have to bear it. What can we do, we are women. This is in our destiny.

What the ****. She is not an uneducated person or financially dependent on her husband. She told me she stayed because if she left, he might get married o somebody else and her children’s lives would be ruined.

Sometimes, life is too ugly. We make it ugly because we don’t do anything to change it. Why cannot we realize that there is always another door open – that we can always break a bond that makes you bleed instead of making you smile? Happiness – it is ours if only we know that it is something within us and not something someone is going to bestow on us