A 59-year-old woman wrote us a letter and told us an interesting story about her and her daughter-in-law. The woman asked us for advice and our thoughts on whether it would be rude for her to get back at her DIL for hurting her several times. Please read more about the woman’s complicated family history and let us know what you think.
She is 59 years old and her name is Rosa. She recently wrote us an online letter.
“Hello, my name is Rosa, and I never thought I’d do what I did to my son’s family,” she began. But things were getting bad, so I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. I had to teach them all a lesson. But I’m not feeling better now, and I need help figuring out if I treated them badly and if my decision was too harsh.
Rosa kept telling her story. She said she was a widow and now lived alone in a big country house that her grandmother had given her. Nigel, her 35-year-old son, was born and raised in that house. It was also where he first brought Helen, his then-girlfriend who is now his wife.
Rosa says that the first time she met Helen is like it was yesterday in her mind. “I had this gut feeling from the very beginning that Helen and I will never be friends,” the woman says, giving more details. She was rude from the start, asking about my education and background. I felt like I was at a job interview instead of meeting my DIL for the first time.
Rosa and Helen have never had a good relationship.
Rosa keeps telling her story and says that Helen hasn’t changed much about how she feels about her since they first met. Her constant joke about Rosa’s job as a cleaner being “indecent” was meant to make fun of her. She told her she was “illiterate” and that she should read more books.
In order to make her son happy, Rosa was taking those bitter pills one after the other. As is often the case, Nigel loved Helen with all his heart, even though Helen was a bad person, and they were starting a family together. Rosa just didn’t want Helen to come over as often, but she loved having Nigel and her two grandchildren, Mike and Tommy, over.
Rosa and the rest of Nigel’s family were hit hard when he lost his job as CEO of a big multinational company. She was pretty sure that Nigel would have a hard time getting a new job quickly because he didn’t have a good reputation in the business at that point. Nigel’s family had to leave the house they were renting right away because they were running out of money. They had to look for a cheaper place to rent.
Rosa stepped in and made a very important choice. She used all of her life savings and the money her late husband left her after he died to buy a house for Nigel and his family. She bought it in her own name and made it look like Nigel had chosen to buy a house and that the money was his inheritance.
Helen didn’t know that Rosa brought in a lot of money for the family.
Rosa then says, “I never meant to tell Helen who really bought that house for them.” I went even further. Since I knew they were all having a hard time with money, I started sending good amounts of money from the money I still had from my late husband to Nigel’s account. In the beginning, he didn’t want this help, but as he kept looking for a good job, he really needed it.
Rosa wrote that things between her and Helen didn’t get better over time. On the contrary, Helen was being even meaner to Rosa because their family was having a hard time with money.
Rosa was raised by Helen, who never missed a chance to tell her that she was wrong for giving birth to a son who is “so worthless that he can’t stand for himself during an interview.” Nigel was successful at his last job, and he worked very hard to get there. She seemed to have forgotten about that.
Things got really bad one day, while the family was on vacation.
Rosa keeps telling her story and says that she finally lost it while on a normal family trip with Helen, Nigel, and her two grandsons. Even though the woman wasn’t really ready to go on that trip with Helen, she finally did because the kids were so excited to see their grandmother and spend time with her.
Helen was being really rude on the trip. Rosa wrote, “She called me names the whole time we were traveling.” I was called a “old lady,” and she told me to “stay home and clean.” “This was the very last straw, and I had to make a hard choice.”
Rosa told everyone that her revenge hurt her too, but she just couldn’t take it any longer. “I went home quietly,” she says. I sold their house right away. People bought it in my name, so I was the real owner of it. This is why I put it up for sale: I was waiting for Nigel and Helen to call me to tell them what I had decided. I wasn’t going to explain anything because I thought they would get it. It had all been too much for them, and they must have both realized that.
It was hard for Helen to hear the bad news.
Rosa wrote that Helen and Nigel came to see her to sell the house the same day she did. They brought their grandchildren with them. Helen turned pale when she learned who bought that house for them and helped them through all of these tough times for their family.
She tried to control Rosa by talking about her grandchildren and how they would be renting a house again. Rosa suggested that they bring their two sons to her house and stay with her for a while. Helen did not like this idea, so she started calling Rosa names and calling her the “worst grandmother on earth” over and over again.
Nigel kept quiet the whole time because he was trying to say something shy, but his wife was so angry that she couldn’t hear him. Rosa said she felt bad about what she was doing at one point, but she was also sick of Helen’s rudeness and constant offense.
The woman ended her letter by saying she’s still not sure if she was too strict with her son’s family and her grandchildren in particular. She asked us and our readers to give her an honest opinion on the matter.
Rosa should pay attention to what her mind and heart are telling her.
We’re thankful that Rosa put her faith in our editorial and told us her story.
At first glance, the choice may seem very harsh, and it is true that it is a tough one. But we believe Rosa should trust her gut again, just like she did the first time she met her DIL many years ago.
It’s likely that the woman should make some plans for herself. What’s more important to her: her grandchildren, who will still have a decent place to live even though she has to rent it, or her own feelings, which have been hurt by her daughter-in-law?
Many of us think that people can change. For Helen, this may have been a good lesson that she can’t treat other people the way she treated Rosa. Rosa might give her one last chance and try to sell their house again in the hopes that she will change.
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