The Wrong Belonging
*This is one of the most vulnerable things I have written — thank you for being here ❤
I’m not the kind of person who truly knows where they belong. I thought I had close friends once, but it turns out we were really only co-workers sharing the woes of our day like a repetitive slot machine, hoping we’d win the jackpot and go home early. “Hey,” we would say, “at least we had lunch in peace today.” And I would say, “Yeah, because we locked our doors.” And we would all chuckle, drinking our five-dollar margaritas before heading home to grade papers.
Still, I never felt like I quite fit. I remember starting my first real public school teaching job and being laughed at for wearing a pink peacoat. Then, I was assigned a classroom next to the copy machine with the roaches, and where many fights happened in the hallway. While my measly spaghetti arms tried to break up two high school girls holding each other’s hair, I just could not. Thankfully, the lacrosse coach had an English classroom across from me, and he often jumped in to save the day. I couldn’t be a superhero either.
I guess what shattered me into a thousand pieces was all the times I tried to belong to the wrong people. And it’s a waste of time. I didn’t know that. It becomes a lot more complicated when you love someone, and you’re just trying to be the right person for the wrong situation. While I’ve stayed with the love of my life, holding hands through rumbles together, I can honestly say now, 12 years in, that I never belonged in his family, not 2 years in and not 12 years later. I’d always heard that if you love something, you let it go, and if it comes back, it was always yours. I maybe took half of that advice. I think when you’re young, you think everything about love is simple. That things ‘should’ be easier.
When I was about to graduate from college, I remember getting a phone call through a wall of whale-like sobs. My boyfriend of 2 years couldn’t make out any words, just audible cries, and then his mother took over the conversation to tell me that he had a 2-year-old son from a one-night stand.
I guess 2 years in, I wanted to believe it would all work out. I loved him, and I truly wanted us to find our way together. But I think our first mistake was starting our real relationship with this news under his parents’ roof. A recipe for absolute disaster. This is where our relationship probably should’ve died. Instead, it was like a deer on the side of the road, hit by a car, not quite injured enough to exit. I was the deer limping around, hoping it didn’t happen again.
When I settled there, I guess we thought we could figure out our lives while saving some money. But time is funny, because regardless of how recently I had met his family, I was given days to suddenly become comfortable with the regime change. Meaning his mom became the organizer, the parent to his son almost immediately. How does this happen? I think if you’re indecisive, confused, or frozen, anyone can swoop in and start something you left to rot.
I also remember her forcefully swabbing my boyfriend’s mouth while he cried and tried to force it out. It felt like I had entered the Twilight Zone of the past. Then something bigger happened. His mom started to plan a dedication party, flying the son, the baby momma, and her family out to meet their entire family. It was all happening so fast, before I could swallow the chunks of soggy cereal I had stuffed in my cheek like a squirrel before winter hibernation. This experience of living inside something so wrong, twisted, and twirled my stomach daily. It all felt so seismic, like an earthquake that had become a natural disaster somewhere between what I needed to do to support my boyfriend at the time and letting him lead, and what felt completely wrong and made me want to work double shifts at my retail job and avoid family dinners.
I felt all of it. When the party did happen, and his mom hung a dress for me to wear on the door, I panicked. After I got dressed, I started crying. When I was led to the car, I started kicking the airbag holder. My body was saying out loud what my words couldn’t**,** and I let it finally speak after months of being silent. I let it collapse under the weight of the aftershocks, and I remember thinking, “Wait, you don’t have to go,” and then I said that. My boyfriend agreed, then told his mom, and she became a shattering 8.9-magnitude earthquake. We were threatened with guilt and pressure, and I was told all these things that she thought about me that I had been wondering about since I got there. Good thing I wasn’t a worrywart.
Looking back, I think my body understood something I was trying to negotiate with myself. If you’re ever on the fence about something, but your body is fighting against it, it’s worth asking whether you’re deciding for yourself or because someone else expects you to. That’s why you’re uncomfortable; there isn’t something wrong with you. That said, I’ve learned now, 12 years in, that you can’t make anyone happy but yourself. It’s hard to think back on all those years I feel like I wasted trying to gain approval or acceptance or belonging or whatever from people who never saw me to begin with. And there was a problem with everything: “How dare she show up to the birthday and be so nice and cordial?” “What’s wrong with her supporting her boyfriend so much?” “What kind of person can’t read someone else’s mind and fulfill impossible expectations telepathically?” I know.
For years I felt caught between two worlds: one where I supported my husband, showing up to family events that I felt very uncomfortable with, and trying to enjoy and pursue the life I wanted. Somehow I became the person who took my husband away from everything he was supposed to do. Somehow I became the bad guy. Granted, it’s not just his mom now, but regardless of the performance and kindness I gave, everything I have done from that time onward has generated a negative response.
This eats at me more now than it ever has. Because now I have had more experiences with having a child of my own that weren’t kind, and after enduring the hate mail all these years, I wonder if it’s worth re-entering. The dynamic that began when I first found out about my husband’s son never really stayed in the past. His mom had become a part of our relationship, and her decisions, behaviors, and actions were normalized by everyone. I was a bit thrown off by this.
I felt that I was going crazy. I packed up my things after the party to reset at home with my parents. I was tired of holding it all together like a statue during the day, and then crying and blowing my nose like an imp in an immaculate clean room that smelled like lavender. It’s always been her way or conflict. Her way or blacklisted. Out of all the experiences, another one that stands out is the way his parents would FaceTime the baby momma randomly while we were all in the car, or sitting on a couch on Thanksgiving, forced to engage. I remember the one on Thanksgiving because I wasn’t in a moving car, so I could leave, which I did. And his mom just shook her head at me as I walked away and muttered to herself. 12 years later, all she “remembers” is that I didn’t help her in the kitchen or clean.
“I wonder why,” I’ve thought about on more than one occasion, toward people who treated me badly and didn’t think to see why I may have been avoiding the house. “The giveaway is that I was made to feel like I didn’t belong, so I didn’t and had fun with my friends instead, or worked a double shift instead.” I’d rather work another shift at Road Runner Sports than come back to the place I was staying. Yikes.
That wasn’t enough to elicit any sort of remorse or memory, though. Over the years, I tried my best to navigate these dynamics to support my husband; I jumped in to be magnetic, I analyzed my shadow, I read Carl Jung, I dabbled with mushroom tinctures, flower remedies, and I journaled every day. I thought that if I could find why this situation hurt, I could “heal” it and it wouldn’t bother me, and I’d be able to be around regardless.
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Just as we can never really tell what other people are thinking (truly), I will never know what was going through their minds over the years about me. But the problem was — from the beginning, I was told to abandon myself. And I wonder now: would I have befriended myself back then? Would I have believed in her? Probably not. There’s so much that goes into a performance like that. How many times have I “lied” or dismissed something because I didn’t find it normal? Or maybe I decided it was too terrible for words.
That’s the sort of brattiness that kept my younger self in performance mode. I honestly had no interest in being there. I felt like I had to be there to not lose my boyfriend. If something bothered you back then and it took you 12 years to finally set boundaries, say how you feel on more than one occasion, with the exception of that letter you left her, and take space? I’d say there’s a problem.
One thing that I might like is that this entire relationship, for me, has been a bit of a hero’s journey. Healing and diving into my own issues is something that’s always been interesting to me and is one of the reasons why I love Carl Jung. You could meet someone and within the first few minutes start to wonder what they’re afraid of. It’s the same for volatile reactions. Road rage, frustrations with opening a lid, untangling Christmas lights. It all points to the inner dialogue and pain we experience on a daily basis.
Anyway, as I’m now 14 months into postpartum with my first child, I’ve read a lot about mother-in-law and daughter-in-law dynamics. Then I dove deep into attachment theory, trying my hardest to put research to the claims that my head and heart knew years ago. Then I started to think about belonging. I think it can be great to have a support system around, but if it doesn’t bring out your best self and expects more than it gives, I wouldn’t call it a support system. Like, many of us have “support systems,” but are we really being supported? Chosen? Do we actually belong?
After I birthed my first child in the hospital, I had to deal with another mother-in-law conundrum. For me, I wanted my mom and my husband in the delivery room. That’s it. It didn’t seem like too much of a problem at the time. I wouldn’t have changed a thing. But it bothers me that when someone is in such a vulnerable place in their life, it’s wrong. I was having a baby in a hospital, and yet, I was the bitch for not allowing my mother-in-law to be in the delivery room. I made her “wait” in the waiting room. I was the one who kept her out. I made up rules about who the hospital allowed in.
Then there was triage. Even knowing this, I allowed them to visit to see the baby. His mom pushed my bed to the side to get to her**, then sat** on the opposite side of the room together with her son and our baby, while I couldn’t move from the pain in a hospital bed near the door. No check-in with me was given. No eye contact. No acknowledgment or congratulations. His mother hoarded our daughter and left without acknowledging that I was even in the room; at best it was vile, at worst it was bitter.
There’s a quote I think about quite often by Mary Oliver: “Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?” I like to think that when it’s all said and done, I know who I am and I wouldn’t compromise an inch if it meant compromising my happiness or values. But well into our adulthoods, we teeter and totter around, doting on each other until we decide to stay or leave. We talk, maybe not deeply; we spend time, but maybe not together. I just can’t see the truth in a space that’s occupied by performance and faux relationships. Yet, I bathe in it and sometimes feel shackled in it because of other people.
Anyway**,** after the hospital incident, I still honored my husband’s excitement of being a dad and agreed to have his parents come over when our baby was 5 weeks old. I didn’t know how to move the weight I felt in my chest, but who does when you’re confronted with this type of relationship? What is there to do? Like everyone else, I stumbled**,** trying to support someone I loved. Making mistakes and embarrassing myself by bending over backwards to people who didn’t like me could make me look like a fool. Newsflash: that’s not how you do it. You can’t force people to like you or even accept you, for that matter.
I’ll always be inclined to give second and third chances. In this case, it had been 12, and this was number 13. But, who’s counting? When they came over that day, it was another big dramatic event. The sort you relate to when you accidentally turn on the television at a hotel and are trying to find the right channel on the TV guide, but have to listen to the arguments and music in the background. It was the small things that led to the big things. My mother-in-law picked up our baby right from the bassinet, and she started crying — who wouldn’t? She’s only 5 weeks old, very securely attached and breastfed. And after lots of trying to get the baby to calm down herself, she said, “What’s wrong with this baby? All babies love me.” I just stared at her. It was much more difficult to sit there while my baby cried in someone’s arms that weren’t my own, newly postpartum. Anyway, she held onto her while she wailed for minutes, during which my husband, my husband’s dad**,** and I were all asking for my baby back. She wouldn’t let go. Finally, at the fourth plea from her husband, she handed our baby back to my husband before he handed her back to me. I probably expected that. But it hurt all the same.
First of all, that should’ve been a clue. After I was able to coo her to sleep, I even offered cues about what she liked so far and how to soothe her; none were taken. Of course, it wasn’t understood because not only was I told there was something wrong with my baby for crying, but then, I was being lectured on how she might be a bottle baby and breastfeeding probably wasn’t the way to go. My plan was simple: ignore it, move on, then take space. But, being newly postpartum, this experience hit me really, really hard. If that wasn’t enough, his parents found that our baby crying so much was evidence that she wasn’t eating (even though she was a perfect weight), and her growth continued to fly off the charts each month she was weighed at her growth appointments. I had a hard time dealing with this at all.
So, while this history just kept repeating itself, rearing its ugly head, I still kept my husband on my mind. No matter how uncomfortable or sad or upset I was, that was overridden to make him and his family comfortable once again. I was the one in therapy, trying to figure out a way to be in this family system. Also, while I’m at it, I’d like to mention that I not only did regular postpartum therapy but later, EMDR therapy too. It seems that it helped validate my feelings and build confidence in making decisions again, but of course, there was no magic wand wishing these dynamics away. It’s all well and good until you’re asked to play nice again, like everything is normal. My first therapist suggested that, instead of at the house, I meet them out with a time limit to help. It worked a little, but it still made me feel so awful because it was the same interaction over and over again, and I panicked and wondered if I had spent 12 years in this, what would the rest of my life look like? EMDR therapy helped me reclaim my life, which was life-saving, but the postpartum season alone was just as hard as when we found out about my husband’s son 12 years ago. As I stated before, these were a handful of experiences that were very difficult for me.
6 months into postpartum, the playing nice didn’t last. When his mom didn’t get what she wanted or plans changed, or I got brave enough to tell her how the hospital and 5-week visit really hurt me, I was blamed, guilted, and shamed for being the one separating the family, leaving her out of the delivery room, being the one breaking up the family. My husband initially tried to help the way he knew how, but it came out wrong. It was a fear of losing his family, so he over-explained everything, listened, and set his intentions with them. Someday, perhaps, the past might come back to haunt them. But for now, we haven’t really spoken in 7 months.
While his mom sent a very long apology text, the chill of her stuck to my clothes. With such deep feelings, it was hard to reconcile anything. Even worse, I’m torturing myself with it. By making a decision that’s good for me. Every time I choose what my body needs, I’m met with my racing thoughts: how does my husband feel? Oh, he’s upset. He needs this. Should I be compromising? Am I making a big deal? Is this postpartum depression? Who can validate me? I hold up a white flag sometimes, thinking that it will make others happy. I have to force it to stay down this time.
There are many days and nights I hear echoes of his family still saying, “But it’s your mom,” “You know how she is,” “She doesn’t know what she’s doing, she doesn’t mean it,” “She’s really hurting,” while I, the one who was hurt for doing so much as having a baby without her, got no recognition.
Not that I need it. I guess it’s been haunting me more than it’s haunting them. I haven’t known how to respond to her apology. At first, I wanted to throw my phone off a balcony and get off the grid as quickly as possible. Then, I resorted to ChatGPT because even after all this time, I still care what she thinks of me. That, and caring for a 14-month-old 24/7, has left me with no energy beyond singing “Badfish” to her for the fourth time before she falls asleep every night.
I’ve thought of her as this cold-blooded snake, slithering in weighted silence and off-putting comments that weren’t bad enough for others to step in, but were somehow always enough for everyone to say, “That’s just how she is.” She might be a slightly emotionally inexperienced type of person, but her timing was always off. And instead of seeing a grandmother, I see nothing to return to after her apology. Believe me, I’ve already called myself selfish. I hear the chatter: “You’re keeping family apart?” But I just don’t feel like any version of myself that I once knew right now. Not at all.
Even writing this vulnerable thing, I’m trying to declare that I’m choosing myself for the first time, but I’m still conflicted about how everyone else will feel. Where do my feelings go? Are they allowed here? I don’t know how I’ll ever feel about re-entering something I never belonged to in the first place. All I could do was believe that something could be different for myself, and that was enough for now.
