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I write about the weird complexities of relationships to make a better life for me and my daughter through words. https://ko-fi.com/maryduncan
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.
Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to marry my boyfriend and have his mother, Luanne, become my mother-in-law. I already know Luanne doesn’t care for me, as I am thirteen years younger than my boyfriend’s ex and she thinks her son left his wife to satiate his need for a younger woman. I know this is not the case and I am comfortable with our age difference, but it definitely makes Luanne a bit suspicious.
When we visit her house, which is not frequent, she usually does not make eye contact with me when we talk, and I can’t say she has any real warmth towards me.
On the other hand, I think Luanne is a very smart, stable, rational woman and I don’t think that she would disrupt our lives if I end up marrying her son.
My sister Grace married her new husband Rich this past summer, and recently they traveled to Europe for about month, taking an expensive, luxurious honeymoon. Grace asked me to dog sit for her fur baby, but I can’t stand dogs and declined, so they enlisted Rich’s mother-in-law Regina to house and dog sit for them instead.
Rich is a realtor and makes a great living, so he bought his first house young, and it is a nice one. The kitchen, the heart of the home as they say, was Grace’s favorite place to play with recipes and experiment with new dinners. She is the kind of person who actually bakes for fun, as a hobby, and will give her cookies, sweet breads, and cupcakes away to neighbors, just to have a reason to bake.
Well, when Rich and Grace arrived home after their vacation, they were stunned when they entered their house and found that their large, functional, and beloved kitchen island was gone.
“What…what happened, mom?” Rich asked Regina.
“Oh, you know how hard a time I have getting around with my walker,” she said, banging her walker’s four legs on their tile floor.
“So you removed our kitchen island!?” Grace exclaimed. “How did this happen?”
“I just called my old contractor friend and had him come remove it and replace the flooring with the extra tiles he found in your basement,” Regina said, then threw up her hands in frustration when Grace and Rich just stared at her in horror.
“What was I supposed to do for a month? It was too hard to get around in here!”
Grace was seething with anger and retreated to the bedroom so Rich could deal with his mother and get her out of their house. Later, Grace said it was coming out of Rich’s paycheck to have the island replaced immediately, and that his mother would never house-sit for them again.
“I can’t say that I blame you,” Rich agreed.
How would you have reacted to what Regina did?
I write about the weird complexities of relationships to make a better life for me and my daughter through words. https://ko-fi.com/maryduncan
More from Mary Duncan
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission.*. The wildest thing that ever happened in my neighborhood growing up was when The Mercers painted their whole house matte black to mess with the neighbors who hated what they had done. All of the neighbors were beside themselves that the house was not only now a black eyesore but also had a full overgrown yard of wildflowers – not the neatly manicured grass of every other house on the block.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*. A few days ago I wrote about how my good friend Thea found out her husband was cheating on her while she was still in the maternity ward after having their second child.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*. I must admit that I never wanted to be a mother. My half-sister is twelve years younger than me, so I was old enough and mature enough when she was born and going through infancy and toddlerhood to know that I wanted nothing to do with parenting. She was only about six years old when I moved out of the family home, so we aren’t close, which is sad now, but I guess that is what happens when some siblings are born so far apart.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission.*. I recently learned that it took only sixty-six years to go from the Wright brothers making their first flight in an airplane to Neil Armstrong stepping out onto the Moon.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*. My friend Thea discovered that her husband was having an affair while she was still in the maternity ward after giving birth to their second child. Her husband, Ryan, had told Thea that he’d been called into work and would get paid double for coming in as they were so desperate, and since Thea and their new son Oliver were doing fine and supposed to go home the next day, she agreed. Thea’s reasoning was, even if Ryan had stayed in the hospital with her all night with their newborn he wouldn’t have gotten any sleep while she was up nursing the baby, and would be more useful to them both if he were making money instead.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission.*. I have two terrible memories of being in school, and both of them have led to anxieties that I have carried with me for all of my life.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission.*. For many years I worked at a very busy family-owned restaurant in town and made some great friends with the other waitresses while I was there.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. When I was growing up my family was close to our next-door neighbors, the Mercers. The Mercers were the bane of my neighborhood’s existence after they painted their house black to show off their lawn flamingos, but the Mercers were great to us and we loved their company. We would often have picnics with them in the summer, exchange gifts on holidays and birthdays, and of course, I got free use of their pool any time I wanted.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*. When I was a teenager I started experimenting with hair color without my parent’s permission. When I was a junior in high school and only sixteen years old at the time, I got my first job and had my first paycheck that I could spend or save for anything I wanted. It didn’t take me long to go and find myself the perfect shade of fire-engine red to dye my blondish hair.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. When I was in my early thirties I had a bit of a mental breakdown and ended up in what my local psychiatric hospital calls their “Intensive Outpatient Program” or, IOP. The IOP required me to attend in-person group and personal therapy sessions that went from 9 am to 1 pm for five days a week, for six weeks. I was lucky to be unemployed at this time or else I never would have been able to complete the program, despite the fact that the unemployment is partially what got me there in the first place.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission.*. After one of my best friends Terry and his husband Doug had finally been legally married in our state, something that was very important to them and they waited for a very long time, they decided that it was time to bring a child into their family.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*. For all of my adult life, I have been a strong, independent woman who has not relied on a man’s support or income to sustain me or my teenage daughter, Tori. For the first time in my life, I’m living with a man, my boyfriend of three years, and I’m currently in a position where I make and contribute more money than he does.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*. I’m no professional when it comes to childhood development, so I am not sure where or when children learn to lie to their parents, siblings, or others. The first time I remember my daughter Tori telling a whopper of a lie was when she was about five years old.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. This past fall my little sister Grace got married to my new brother-in-law, Rich. I was surprised and offended that more than one person asked whether it bothered me that my little sister was getting married before me. The fact was, it did and it didn’t bother me.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. In almost all of the cases of infidelity I’ve ever heard about, and it’s so sadly common, I’ve heard an awful lot of stories, it’s most often the cheating man who moves out of the house when his dalliances are exposed.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*. When I was younger and my daughter Tori was in elementary school, I was laid off from my office job and luckily was able to collect unemployment until I was able to get back on my feet again. At the time Tori and I were living alone together in a trailer park and when I lost my job I was terrified of what might happen to us. I quickly budgeted out all of my money, cut back on all of my expenses, and applied for every bit of aid I qualified for to ensure that we could stay where we lived so Tori could stay in her school district.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*. I think we can all agree that infidelity in relationships is a downright terrible thing. The general consensus seems to be, if you are going to cheat, if you want to cheat, you should just leave the person you are with first. If you don’t leave them or tell them first, you aren’t giving your partner a chance to have a say in what goes on in their relationship. Unknowingly, the cheated-on partner has another person to contend with in their lives, and they are at a terrible disadvantage.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*. When I was a kid my friend Caitlin found a baby raccoon abandoned in her backyard and brought it in inside the house to present to her father. Caitlin’s parents were on the verge of divorce at the time and her dad was in one of those modes where he would give in to any of Caitlin’s demands to keep her happy and wanting to see him. He took Caitlin to the pet store and bought what he thought was necessary to take care of a baby raccoon, and they began feeding it from a little bottle and nurturing it to health.
*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.*. It’s rather hard being a single mom, but all things considered, I have been very lucky when it comes to the man I have to co-parent my daughter Tori with. Tori’s dad, James, is not someone who I get along with very well, and I never have. We have different political and religious beliefs, we do not share the same values or work ethics, and the way we’ve each raised Tori in our time with her has been very different. I always said James was great at taking care of a kid, but I wondered whether he would do a good job raising a young woman.
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