'My Mum Thinks My MIL Is A Fake!'

In any cliched family-based drama serial, you might see some character stereotypes such as the nasty mother-in-law (MIL) and the overly protective mother. Luckily for me, when I married into Tom’s* family, my in-laws and my parents got on fabulously.

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In fact, my mother, Sara*, and my mother-in-law, Linda*, hung out with each other every weekend to have tea or go shopping together! But underneath their seemingly affectionate gestures were less-than kind intentions...

My MIL is one of the nicest a newlywed could hope to have: She would cook Peranakan food for us and give my husband and I time, space and independence to do what we wanted despite living under her roof. She invited my mother to come over every weekend, as she knew how worried my mum was about her only daughter (me).

Slowly, the visits became overnight stays with the ladies having their own “Golden Girls’ night”, watching Korean dramas, and gossiping in the kitchen about everything. But then I discovered something which totally surprised me…

On one such weekend when my mother was staying over, I came across her mobile phone, which she had left in my bathroom. My eyes widened when I saw a message sent from my Auntie Joan*. It read: “So how are you and that fake L getting along?” Did “L” refer to Linda, my MIL? As my mother never bothered to password-protect her phone, I decided to scroll through her thread of messages.