Somehow, I half-expected that V would not come back after her leave. Still, I was so mad that day when I received her message - how dare she played me out after I spent hundreds of dollars on her return documents! Moreover, she jolly well knew that I'm due to make a three-week trip to UK two weeks after she returned, and I'm relying on her to take care of Jayden during my absence. How dare she backed out!!! I thought I know her enough after almost five years to do this to me, but obviously, I overrated her.

The rest of my vent

But after thinking over, I'm not that furious anymore. But I don't even want to call her - I'm still upset. Since she had made the decision, I shall respect it. Well, at least she tried to call (though I missed it) and SMSed me before her scheduled return time instead of surprising us by not turning up at the airport. I trust that she didn't plan it - most of her stuff is still here.

KA and I treated her well. The kids liked her. She was better paid than her pals. Still she was unhappy. I couldn't know better was the cause - my mom-in-law.

I really fail to understand why on earth mom-in-law can never get along with any of our helpers. To date, 5 different helpers had worked with us for the past 7 years. She hated them all, every single one. She is not a mean person. For all the years we've been living together, she and I do not have any major row. And mind you, she is not one of those traditional stay-at-home woman. She worked as a school teacher before her retirement, and had helpers working for the family all the while. But somehow, she just could not see eye to eye with our domestic helpers. We had employed helpers of different sort : Indonesians, Filipinos, experienced ones, new ones, mature ones, young ones, part-timers ... you name it. We asked her to list her criteria. We even got her to choose herself. No matter what, it would always turn out to be the same. She would pick on them on the trivia, criticise their cooking, complain about their hygiene, tell them off when they are too slow, yell at them for disobeying her. I don't want to go any further, but, she's really ... harsh. Whenever we tried to reason things out, she would accuse us of siding the helper and start her crying episode. We could only back off. For countless times, KA got so worked up with his mom and I had to pull him aside and tell him, look, we can always change our helper but you only have one mother.

But things got really bad with V. She was smart and needed little supervision. Her independence, I guess, was what triggered mom-in-law's dislike for her. Why? Because she couldn't boss V around. Being with us for so long, V had long learnt to ignore mom-in-law, and it really got on her nerve. Day in day out, she would complain non-stop of V, scream at her, fabricate stories of how V ill-treat her, and repeat these tales to her relatives, friends, neighbours, and even my mom.

Come to think of it, only someone as tough as V is able to stand it for so long. But only this long.

It didn't really surprise me that our temporary helper Liza didn't want to extend her contract with us. She cited the same reason - mom-in-law.

So, here we are again, searching for a new helper. It's a vicious cycle, and God, how I hate it.

I feel very guilty to badmouth mom-in-law here, but if I don't vent it all out, I will go berserk. I really don't dislike her, it's just that I find it so hard to understand her, and I don't know how long I can put up with it. How I wish I can get a psychologist to analyse her mentality, get her a helper that she really really like, and let us all live happily ever after.

I'm very very very tired. I just want to go on with my life. But will I ever?