DEAR EMILY,
When I married my husband 20 years ago, he was the breadwinner of his family. Ninety percent of his salary went to them because his father was jobless. We were in love, so I accepted the situation.
He has an older brother, a househusband who, because of his situation, is not expected to contribute to my in-laws’ expenses at all. My mother-in-law doesn’t ask even a single centavo from him.
They act deaf and dumb when there are emergency expenses, like when my father-in-law passed away.
They promised to contribute but it never happened. But he has a wife who earns very well!
I augment our income by working in my own family’s business. For the sake of my marriage, I’ve kept quiet all these years. But now that my children are growing up, their needs are not met because their grandmother comes first.
I cannot complain knowing how selfish, one-track-minded and hot-headed my brother-in-law is. I choose not to rock the boat and mess up with him and his wife, who is as ruthless. I suffer, and my children suffer.
My mother-in-law knows our financial situation, because one time she asked my husband if “Kasya ba ang income kasi lumalaki na si eldest?” My husband, being a mama’s boy, said nothing.
I hate them! I cannot understand why my brother-in-law is exempted from the mother’s expenses.
They continue to live comfortably, while my children have to adjust and suffer for the sake of their grandmother. What I do not understand is how this brother cannot care about his mother’s needs. To quote his mother, “Kahit singkong duling, wala!”
I wonder if he has a conscience. He goes to his mother’s house only to park his car on odd-even days. He brings food about to expire that his own family cannot finish, and disposes their old clothes, shoes and books through my mother-in-law. Kapal talaga.
I am to blame for being quiet to a fault. I never thought that they will abuse our kindness.
ANNOYED
Why is this in-law exempt from contributing even a cent? Is he physically disabled? Intellectually challenged?
You’re finally huffing and puffing at the inequities after all these 20 years. But by not telling your appalling relatives how unfair the situation is, aren’t you being hypocritical yourselves?
You never complained at how this jobless but well-cushioned, remorseless brother-in-law’s family continued their business as usual while your side of the family footed the bills? Truly had enough?
How much is being incurred anyway by this widowed mother? What are her expenses that would justify 90 percent of your husband’s salary going her way? Besides the expenses for water, electricity, groceries, toiletries and maids, is the mother a shopaholic for clothes and jewelry and shoes that she is impoverishing your family bitterly?
Unless she is undergoing a major medical procedure like dialysis and tens of thousands of pesos for her medicine, it is unimaginable where this dire flow of money is going. What adjustments and suffering are your own children going through because of their grandmother’s expenses?
By just gritting your teeth and never verbalizing your anger, are you expecting an immediate seating beside St. Peter’s chair for all your filial piety? Perish the thought!
You have a nagging problem to be solved now—not by you but by your husband and his mother. If this mother can utter a cryptic “Kahit singkong duling, wala!” surely she’s aware of the trouble brewing in her family.
Let her lay down the financial responsibilities squarely between her sons. Even if this jobless bum has no perceived income, he can certainly, at the very least, ask his well-paid wife to dole out a few bob for his mother’s monthly utilities. That wouldn’t drive his family to the poorhouse.
Some people just have to be prodded and be made to hear and see the whole sordid scenario. Harsh realities have to be rammed down their throats! You cannot whine and whimper and curse under your breath to affect change. Speak out softly, say your grievance— or forever hold your peace.
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