You have probably already read my article on, "Being Married with a Kid" and how stressful that can be. Well here is a new concept for you to get your mind around, living with your in-laws in the same house. Can you say torture?
I am sure a lot of you are going, "Well sure that would be hell. What made you ever think of doing something like that?"
Well my wife and I were living in an apartment on Staten Island. It was a nice apartment, a cozy, two bedrooms, one living room, and a kitchen apartment. But the land lady was a jerk. I will not mention names to keep everything civilized but I will tell you the situation.
My mom was planning on selling our house. The house I grew up in as a boy. She was charging me rent and treating me badly. By badly I mean I hardly saw her during the week or during the weekend and my brother was hardly around too. Some of this could be because I was having a hard time finding a job, and then found one, but it was hard on me physically. I was taking it out on my mom verbally. Another reason was I just felt like I was getting picked on for little things. Left a bowl of cereal on the table? Bad son. Didn't take out the garbage to the side walk on garbage day? Bad son. Haven't' found a decent paying job yet? Bad son. However It should be kept in mind that It was 2005 and I was working at Home Depot as a head cashier and was working some crazy hours 5 am to 2 pm one day 2pm 1am the next day. It was so bad that I was tired all the time and cranky hence the conflict. And paying rent in my own house didn't seem fair either.
Anyway I met my future wife on love@aol.com and within a few months we found an apartment and moved in together. I said goodbye to my mom and her rent and went to a new house with new rent. But at least I was able to see what my money had provided for me, a nice sized apartment with a loving fam.
It was now June and summer had come later than usual. We had no idea how well we would get air conditioning or even heat in the winter; air and heat were included in the apartment rent. The first hot day came and we had a comfortable day inside. This went on for two weeks then one day it was really hot in the apartment and we opened the windows not realizing the land lady had turned on the air conditioning. She was walking into her backyard saw our windows open and cursed and thus began hell.
For the rest of the summer we sweat. She never had the air conditioner on higher then 80's so we bought fans which really did not help. We complained. She said don't cook with the oven and you will be cooler. We begged for air all we got was the fan setting on her air conditioning. Finally summer ended. I think we all lost 10 pounds.
Then winter came. She refused to give us heat. One day it was 10 degrees f. outside it was only 40 degrees in the apartment. And there was nothing we could do. When we complained she said well wear a sweater, or, by an electric heater. Finally we had enough we moved into my wife's mothers house and we decided that we would move to PA and buy a two family house. Her mother and aunt would live downstairs and we would get the upstairs.
And my wife's mother sold her house we found a house in PA and moved. Now it was good we controlled the air conditioning, and the heat. I still had to take out the garbage and cut the grass. But it was home. Then I started to realize why people dreaded their Mother-in-law. She started calling every 10 minutes. The phone would constantly ring. I had no privacy. I would come home and I would be greeted by her calling me, "Hi, smiley." A reference to the fact that I had to constantly travel from PA to NYC, everyday deal with the stuff at work, and then pray, I hopped the right train to get back home in time for dinner. I would be grumpy and hence Hi smiley was her way of being funny.
Her mother was also living with her sister and I used to complain that my wife's aunt was the one constantly causing trouble but it really was her mother. My Mother in law would talk to you so much and so friendly you did not realize all the trouble she was causing. A few times I talked to my wife about moving out. She would refuse and I was left in a situation that was not pleasant but not horrendous like back in Staten Island under the land lady or my mom.
Then one day my mother in law died from Pancreatic Cancer. It was a freak illness that only affect 50,000 a year in the US, and the phone stopped ringing. I mean literally stopped! It was dead quiet. I couldn't believe it. As the weeks went by I started to realize how wrong I had been about my wife's aunt. That it was not her but her mother who had been causing all the trouble. And a few weeks later I was talking to my wife and her aunt about her mother and how since moving in how crazy things had been when my wife said something that knocked me for a loop. "The reason she would call so much was because she was lonely. My aunt could not be around that much and so she had no one to talk to. So, she would call me."
I suddenly felt bad. Here was a woman who had been in the same situation I had been in back when I had lived with my mom. She had been lonely, no one to talk to, and, just reaching out for love. The only difference was I gave people their space she seemed to barge in and demand it from people. So now looking back on things, things, are quieter and I wish she had lived long enough to see hopefully one day my wife and Is' next child. But at the same time my wife's aunt makes a better mother in law then my real mother in law. A lot of factors ended up working for us. And I just am thankful to my mother in law for all she did and my wife and wife's aunt as well at how things turned out.
