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I Told My Mother-in-Law, “When I Want Your Advice, I’ll Ask For It!” … I Regret It
Paying Attention To Our Regrets: What We Did and Didn’t Can Change Our Lives
Dueling opinions — an example
My mother-in-law was a lovely woman. She had unconditional love for her family. She was generous and empathic. She was easy to be with. When I heard the woes of other women and their husbands’ mothers, I felt lucky.
The only thing was that, like me, she was very opinionated. And she didn’t hold back. She had an opinion about everything, and didn’t hold back from saying it aloud.
Bad tidings
I didn’t make much of my decision to keep my name when I married 45 years ago. In fact, it was long ago, I didn’t know anyone who made that choice. I made that decision in childhood.
So, I got married and never said anything. If you think about it, people closest to you don’t have many situations in which they have to use your whole name.
Several years went by. My mother-in-law needed our signatures on a legal document. She showed us where to sign. My husband noticed that each place for signing had my first name and his surname.