My husband looked at his mother and said, “You need to stop saying that.” She stared at him because he had never corrected her in front of anyone before. She laughed and said she was only proud of him and that everyone knew she meant it affectionately. He told her that being proud of him didn’t require comparing his wife to an imaginary woman he supposedly should have married. The nurse suddenly became very interested in her paperwork.
His mother said she had never meant to insult me. My husband told her that intent wasn’t the issue anymore because she had been saying the same thing for twenty-six years. He reminded her that I had been the person driving her to appointments, sitting beside her during tests, and making sure she got home safely after the stroke. Then he said something that made her go completely quiet. He told her that if she really believed he would have been happier with someone else, she was insulting the life he had actually chosen.
I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know how. I had spent so many years pretending those comments didn’t hurt that hearing him defend me felt almost uncomfortable. His mother started crying and said she was only joking, but he told her he didn’t want another explanation. He wanted her to stop making me feel like I had somehow failed a test she had invented. Then he turned toward me and apologized for every time he had heard her say it and let it pass. I told him I didn’t need him to apologize for the past, but I needed him to mean what he had just said.
The nurse eventually came back into the room and asked whether we were ready for the appointment. My mother-in-law nodded, but before we left she took my hand. She said she had spent twenty-six years thinking she was complimenting her son. Then she admitted that she had never once stopped to consider what the compliment sounded like to me. I told her that was all I had ever wanted her to understand. And when we walked out of the hospital together, she didn’t mention the doctor she thought her son should have married.
