I’m Hozumi, 40, a working mom. I live with my husband, Tomohiko, our 9th-grade daughter, and our 7th-grade son. We had plans to visit my late father-in-law’s grave with my mother-in-law, who lives nearby. However, right before the trip, I dented the car and was too shaken to drive. Since we only had a compact loaner car at the time, I asked my husband if just our immediate family could go and have his mother meet us there. But when the day came, he ditched me and took the kids and his mother to the cemetery without me.
My mother-in-law and I have been at each other’s throats since the day I got married. She has this bright, outgoing personality, and since she raised two boys all on her own, I really respected her as a fellow parent. But once we moved in together, her selfish, mean-spirited side came out, and it completely tore me apart. My husband, who’s a total mama’s boy, was really reluctant to end the cohabitation at first. But as I grew more withdrawn and finally broke down in tears, begging to leave, he realized we couldn’t keep living like that. We eventually moved out of her house and into a place nearby.