My MIL’s biggest mistake was changing the locks and kicking me and my kids out when my husband passed away.

My husband’s death broke me. However, my mother-in-law made things worse two days after his death. She changed the locks, evicted my children and myself, and left us without a place to live. Though she was unaware that she was committing the biggest mistake of her life, she believed she had won.

I wasn’t gullible about Ryan’s mother when I married him two years ago. Margaret never bothered to conceal her contempt for me; whenever I walked into a room, her eyes would always narrow a little, as though I had brought a foul odor with me.

Ryan would squeeze my hand beneath the dining table and whisper, “She’ll come around, Cat,” while his mother questioned him—and him alone—about his day in a direct manner.

However, she never showed up. Not to me, and definitely not to my children from my former marriage, Liam (7) and Emma (5).

I heard her conversing with her buddy in the kitchen over a Sunday meal at her place.

Under Ryan’s tutelage, Emma and Liam flourished. Since their biological father left when Liam was still in diapers, he has never attempted to take his place. Rather, he developed his own bond with them, based on bedtime stories, Saturday morning pancakes, and pillow forts.

I remarked, “You’re doing the tucking in tonight,” as I leaned against Emma’s room’s doorframe and observed Ryan carefully placing her stuffed animals around her.