My Daughter-in-law Treats Me Better Than My Own Daughters

(Minghui.org) Before practicing Falun Dafa, I suffered from all kinds of diseases. I needed to take pills every day, or the pain would be unbearable.

My daughter was young at that time, and my husband was barely home. My life was filled with unspeakable hardships.

I began to practice Falun Dafa in the spring of 1999. Without my being aware of it, my diseases all disappeared. It was such a joy to have good health.

My husband and daughter are both grateful to Falun Dafa and they thank Dafa’s Master for bringing us blessings. They support my cultivation practice.

I’d like to write about how I changed my relationship with my mother-in-law.

My husband has many siblings. It was his mother who made a proposition to my parents to have her eldest son and me enter into marriage.

I was unwilling, but reluctantly agreed to such an arrangement so my mother wouldn’t be angry with me.

The husband I was espoused to was away at that time serving in the army. Three years after the arranged marriage was agreed on, he had risen through the ranks.

His mother, all of a sudden and inexplicably, decided not to proceed with the marriage between her son and me. That created quite a scandalous uproar in our village.

My mother was in poor health. Her anger at that change of my mother-in-law’s mind was making her situation worse. So, I had to go to work, take care of my mother, and at the same time, try to maintain peace with my mother-in-law.

When my affianced husband came home for a visit and witnessed the discord between our two families, he agreed to break up with me in order not to upset his mother further.

I’ve always been a person who values honor and integrity. I refused to agree to a break up.

My mother was so angry, she said to me, "If you would behave as if you have no brain and insist on moving into his house, then leave. You are no longer my daughter.”

My espoused husband and I got along well and indeed felt strongly about each other, so we decided to go ahead and get married at the location where he was stationed.

I invited his mother to come with me, but she told me adamantly, "I’m not going. If you go, your marriage would still end up a failure.”

Indeed, she actually sent my family a telegram that effectively reiterated that my husband’s family would not recognize the upcoming wedding.

After I was officially married, my mother-in-law locked the door to her house and refused to let me enter my new home.

When my mother got news of that, she blew her top. She said I had shamed myself and shamed her.

The whole mess led to my miscarriage.

Our neighbors and friends were outraged for me. They all pitied me. They lamented that such a good person as I could run into such a big injustice. They advised me to stay alive and live well, because soon things would have to get better. I could have my revenge on my mother-in-law when she got old and useless.

When I gave birth to my daughter and had to follow tradition to be confined for a month, I was finally allowed to go to live in my husband’s family home.

But my mother-in-law continued to create problems for me. There’s nothing I could do that could please her.

I made sure to take care of everything at home so that my husband could come home to a peaceful environment and to try my best to please his mother, although my heart was not always at peace.

Since practicing Falun Gong, I understood that marrying my husband was due to an unfinished relationship in our past lives, and that the contradictions I experienced with my mother-in-law were merely means of settling the scores in our past lives. Everything was for the necessity of paying off debts.

Master says in Zhuan Falun:

“In cultivation practice, there may be two scenarios when dealing with specific conflicts or when others treat you badly. One is that you might have treated this person badly in your previous life. You feel in your heart that it is unfair, "How can this person treat me like this?" Then why did you treat this person that way in the past? You might claim that you actually did not know it at that time, and this life has nothing to do with the other life. That does not work.”

I thought, “I can’t hate her. She’s a good mother. What she did was out of love for her son. She just didn’t know how to do it the right way. Since I have become her daughter-in-law, I should take good care of her. Her life must not have been easy. She had her entire family to take care of all these years…”

Letting go of Resentment

I let go of my resentment. I concentrated on providing my mother-in-law the best and freshest food. I bought her new clothes.

Neighbors told me, “Your mother-in-law always praises you, saying that you’re so nice to her that she is embarrassed.”

I answered, "The past has passed. We are family. It’s nothing. Back then, I was young and inexperienced and didn’t always do things right, so had inadvertently created some discord between us."

My mind and heart nature has improved, my mental state has stabilized, and now my mother-in-law is like a different person. She discusses everything with me and seeks my opinion and advice.

She always says, “My eldest daughter-in-law (i.e. me) is an honest and upright person. She is fair and unselfish and does not take advantage of anyone.”

In the care of my mother-in-law, I never enter into any dispute with her daughters or other daughters-in-law. And so, during holidays and festivities, all 20 family members gather together in perfect harmony.

Neighbors all say, “You all get along so well. It’s all because you, as the wife of the eldest son, is behaving so well and being such a good influence.”

This year, my mother-in-law was sick, I took her to my house to stay with me for a while. I took full responsibility of cleaning her, bathing her, washing her clothes and bedding, and feeding her. Everyday, I would keep her company or take her for walks around the neighborhood for some fresh air and to look around.

My mother-in-law would tell everyone we met, "My daughter-in-law takes care of me and treats me better than any of my own daughters."

I know all our peace and harmony come from Master having helped to change me and by my diligently following everything that is required of a Dafa disciple.