A woman wrote to us to share her absolutely dramatic family story.
A 59-year-old woman, named Rosa, has recently written a letter to our editorial.
She started, saying, “Hi, I’m Rosa, and I have never thought I would do what I’ve done to my son’s family. But the circumstances were such, that I couldn’t remain passive and silent, and I really had to teach them all a good lesson. However, I don’t feel relieved after that, and I do need advice on whether I acted in a wrong way with them and if my verdict for them was too much.”
Rosa continued her story, saying, that she’s a widow, and she’s been living alone in a big country house, which was a heritage from her grandma. In that house her son, Nigel, 35, was born and raised, and to that very house he first brought his then-girlfriend and now-wife Helen.
Rosa says that she clearly remembers her first meeting with Helen, as if it was just yesterday. The woman gives more details about it, saying, “I somehow had this gut feeling, from the very start, that Helen and I will never be friends. From the beginning, she was acting like a snub, asking me about my education and my background, and I really felt like I was at a job interview rather than at a first meeting with my DIL.”
Rosa and Helen have never been in a peaceful relationship with one another.
Rosa goes on with her story, saying, that since their first meeting, Helen has barely changed her attitude to her. She was constantly poking fun at Rosa, who used to work as a cleaner in the past, that her job was “indecent”. She called her “illiterate” and advised her to read more books.
Rosa was swallowing those bitter pills, one after the other, for the sake of her son’s happiness. As it often happens, despite his wife’s character, Nigel loved Helen with all his heart, and they were building their own family together. So Rosa just wanted to see less of Helen in her house, but was always happy to see Nigel and her 2 grandchildren, Mike and Tommy.
When Nigel lost his job as a CEO of a huge multinational company, it was a stroke for the whole family, including Rosa. She was pretty aware of the fact that Nigel would be struggling to find a new job very fast, because by that time, he had earned not a very good reputation in the business. In the meantime, Nigel’s family needed to move out of their rented house, and they would have to look for something that would be cheaper to rent, as the family was running short of money.
Rosa stepped in, and made a huge decision. She bought a house for Nigel and his family, spending all her life savings and also the money that her late husband left after his passing. She bought it on her own name, and presented it like it was Nigel’s decision to purchase a home, and the money was his heritage.
Helen was unaware of Rosa’s huge income into their family.
Rosa goes on, saying, “I never wanted to tell Helen about who really bought that house for them. I went even further and, knowing that they all had a huge financial struggle, I started wiring pretty good amounts from the money I still had from my late husband, to Nigel’s account. He was against this help at the beginning, but he pretty much needed it when he continued looking for a decent job for himself.”
Rosa wrote that her relationship with Helen didn’t become any better with time. On the contrary, Helen was now even more insulting towards Rosa, because of the financial crisis their family was enduring.
Helen didn’t miss a chance to tell Rosa that she’s guilty in raising a son who’s totally not accommodated for life and who’s “so worthless that he can’t stand for himself during an interview.” She seemed to have forgotten how successful Nigel was at his previous job and how hard he had worked to achieve his former success.
The unhealthy situation reached its peak one day, during a family trip.
Rosa goes on with her story, saying, that she finally lost all her patience during an ordinary family trip with Helen, Nigel and her two grandsons. The woman confessed that she wasn’t quite willing to go to that trip together with Helen, but the kids wanted to see their granny and spend time with her so badly, that she finally joined them.
During the trip, Helen was behaving just rude. Rosa wrote, “She was throwing insults at me during all our trip. She called me an ‘old lady’ and advised that I’d better ‘stay home and clean’. This was really the last straw, and I made a painful decision.”
Rosa revealed, that her revenge was painful for her, too, but she just couldn’t stand this anymore. She says, “I returned home, silently. The first thing I did was I sold their house. It was bought under my name, I was a legitimate owner of it. So, I had put it for sale, and then I waited for Nigel and Helen to call me to announce them my decision. I wasn’t going to explain anything, I believed they would understand everything, because this all has been just too much, and they both must have realized it.”
Helen didn’t accept the bad news well.
Rosa wrote that that very same day when she put the house for sale, Helen and Nigel came to her, together with grandkids. Helen turned pale when she found out who actually bought that house for them and who was their supporter through all these uneasy times for their family.
She tried to manipulate, started mentioning grandkids and how they will be living in a rented house again, to which Rosa suggested taking their two sons to her house, so that they could live with her for some time. Helen was not satisfied with this suggestion, and she started insulting Rosa again and again, calling her names and saying that she’s the “worst grandmother on earth”.
Nigel was silent all this time, trying to make some shy remarks, but he was not heard by his wife, who was raging and fuming. Rosa said that at one moment she felt she was doing a wrong thing, but at the same time, she was so fed up with Helen’s attitude and constant offense.
The woman ended her letter, saying that she’s still hesitating if she wasn’t too austere with her son’s family and her grandchildren in particular, and she asked us and our readers for a sincere opinion on the whole subject.
We’d advise Rosa to listen to what her heart and mind tell her.
We’re very grateful to Rosa for her trust in our editorial and for sharing her story with us.
Yes, it does seem quite a dilemma and the decision may look really harsh at first sight. But we think Rosa should listen to her gut feeling again, like she did many years ago, when she had her first meeting with her DIL.
Probably, it’d be best for the woman to set some priorities for herself. What’s more important for her, her grandkids, who will still be living in decent conditions, but only in a rented apartment, or her own feelings, which have been deeply hurt by her DIL?
We tend to believe that people do change, and maybe for Helen this has been quite a good lesson that she can’t behave with people the way she had been doing with Rosa. Hoping that she’ll change, Rosa might give her one last chance and resume the sale of their house.
And here’s yet another dramatic life story of a woman, who had to kick her pregnant daughter out of the house, together with her 6 kids, because of a shocking reason. Read the article to find out more.
Preview photo credit Victor L. / Pexels
