DANNII Minogue needed just one small anecdote in her new autobiography to demolish her former husband, Nip/Tuck star Julian McMahon.
And simultaneously get even with her late mother-in-law, Lady Sonia McMahon.
"I was never once allowed to visit the McMahon family house in Sydney," the singer writes.
"I had to sit in the car and wait for Julian while he visited his mother. She wanted nothing to do with me. I simply wasn't good enough."
What a wimp. What a mummy's boy. What a pathetic excuse for a man.
You made your wife, the woman you had chosen to spend your life with, wait in the car, Julian?
What if the marriage had lasted more than a year and you had had children?
Would they get to come in, too, or would they have to wait in the car with their mum because they were - shudder - half Minogue?
Of course, Lady McMahon isn't alive to defend herself, but it was obvious even at the wedding that she didn't think Dannii had what it took to become a McMahon, whatever that was. At the wedding she refused to be photographed for the media with the bride and groom.
"It was never made clear to me why things were taken out on me," Minogue has said.
"In my mind I'd done nothing against her. But simply being with Julian was, in her mind, the wrong thing to do."
Who knows what caused Lady McMahon's contempt for her daughter-in-law.
But you can understand why some mothers struggle to accept that the family they have spent decades nurturing has come to an end and their son is starting a new family, where their role is only one of outsider.
Or, at least, should be.
But isn't parenting all about preparing your children to become adults and lead their own lives?
I sure hope I'm mature enough to handle no longer being No. 1 woman to my sons. Even more, I hope my boys have the strength, loyalty and integrity to honour their wives, above all.
Please don't think I'm venting here. I've never had a mother-in-law myself, so I am certainly not speaking from experience.
It's just that I've seen so many awkward relationships between mothers and their daughters-in-law.
According to researchers at the universities of Cambridge and Essex, it's been going on for hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, they say this rivalry may be behind the evolution of menopause, which by making the older woman infertile removes at least one source of competition between them.
But not even nature has been able to solve the problem. Just ask Dannii, sitting alone in a car outside her mother-in-law's home.
Or ask British psychologist Dr Terri Apter, who says wives are programmed to dislike their partners' mothers from the start.
"As each tries to establish or protect her status, each feels threatened by the other," she says.
Still, it's the daughters-in-law - if they stick around - who get their revenge in the end. Minogue has her autobiography, while others, according to Japanese researchers, have more subtle ways.
A study for the journal BMC Geriatrics found that mothers cared for by their son's wife late in life were twice as likely to die in their care as are mothers who are cared for by their own daughter.
So be nice, mothers-in-law. The daughter-in-law you belittle today may be the person you will have to depend on as you near your end.
Fonte:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/the-wi...f-1225939867190