Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mindmetoo]

My GF related this one, that happened to a friend. She got married, her mother-in-law despised her. Once they were getting ready to go on a picnic. The daughter in law was the last to exit the apartment. By the time she got down to parking lot the whole family had left, leaving her. The woman eventually divorced and moved to Vancouver.

[yingwenlaoshi]

[cheeseface]

[ladron]

I had a student tell me stories about her mother's mother in law and how horrible she was (to the mother). When she died, the mother told her (the student), "Now I'm free." The mother also told her (the student) never to marry a Korean man.

[OneWayTraffic]

[Faunaki]

I love my MIL but I heard a bad story from a friend and actually it's also a bad husband story.

The newly weds were living in small town Korea when the husband got a job suddenly and left for Seoul, leaving his wife, who couldn't speak Korean and who had just had a baby alone with his mother. The MIL couldn't speak English either. So basically they couldn't communicate. One day the MIL got angry about how the woman was feeding her baby, but no one could communicate properly about it. Every time a friend or family member came over, the MIL would yell about this problem, the woman could understand enough to know it was about her and the baby.

Also there was no cable, only Korean TV, there were no pizza joints, western food, nothing. The woman didn't know a soul. Just the MIL.

So the woman started to cry all the time but she wasn't allowed to go home until her baby turned 100 days. To pacify the crying woman, the MIL would hit her and yell, don't cry con't cry. You know ajumma style.

Anyway on the baby's 100th day, the woman packed up and went back to her home country. She did come back to Korea but in the end she divorced her husband.

I guess it's not really the MILs fault is it? But the MIL could of just let her be about feeding her baby, you know.

[mindmetoo]

[mindmetoo]

[crusher_of_heads]

[EricaSmile84]

Nothing yet but I'm sure something's brewing now that I'm engaged to her son and not "just friends" with him.

[livinginkunsan]

[mindmetoo]

[suadente]

My mother in law is great. At this past Chuseok, I was the only one that she hugged. It's something that I brought into the family. I'm the only one who initiates hugs.

Though, I think it's different, as I am the only son of my family, as is my father, and his father, and his father, and she's happy that my wife isn't required to lead family rituals as she was, as she was the wife of the oldest son, for several generations. That was something that she was actually concerned about when my wife and I were dating, and was shocked that my status as the only person who holds my family name for almost a century means nothing to me.

It's probably very different for foreign wives married into Korean families.

[Captain Corea]

My MIL is great - no complaints.

[Faunaki]