By Catie Powers

Copyright mamamia

When Clara* met Daniel* at a party, they hit it off instantly.It didn’t take long for the pair to start dating, and to introduce each other to their families.For the most part, Daniel’s family was “very welcoming” of Clara.But then she met his mother, Elaine* — and the pleasantries quickly stopped.”We didn’t really have too much of a relationship,” Clara told Mamamia. “And [Daniel] didn’t have much of a relationship with her when he was growing up. “She was always very much ‘You have a baby and by the time they’re two, they no longer need you, so you have another baby’.”Watch: What do you do when your child’s partner seems distant? Post continues after video.Video via MamamiaAs Clara and Daniel’s relationship progressed, they decided to move interstate with their kids. Here, they seldom interacted with Elaine. That was until they told her that they were engaged.”Come and get married on our property!” Elaine said over the phone.Clara and Daniel accepted the offer, and headed back interstate to tie the knot. But soon, cracks started to form.”I had a vision for the wedding, and it was completely different to what she envisioned,” Clara said.”She was very much in control.”Wanting to avoid a fight, Clara and Daniel acquiesced. But once they returned home, their contact with Elaine reverted to its rare state.That was until Daniel started receiving regular phone calls from his mother, telling him to leave his job.”She would get on the phone to [Daniel] and be like, ‘You shouldn’t be doing that’,” Clara recalled.Elaine said that Daniel and Clara could live on her property for free, so they could get on top of their debts.”She ended up convincing him that leaving his job was the best thing for him. And that we should move up and take on her family business,” Clara explained. Clara, however, wasn’t convinced. Then she received a call from her mother-in-law.”In all the years leading up to that particular phone call, she’d never called me or texted me directly,” Clara said. “It took her three hours on the phone telling me that I should be looking at how happy my husband was with the decision, and that I should be making sure that I’m submissive to my husband and his needs.”She said, ‘At the end of the day, your role is to be a mum… You’re not being a good mum by working full-time. You’ve got to make sure [Daniel’s] mental health is the first thing that you’re looking after here’. That was how she convinced me.”So, Daniel and Clara sold their home and all of their possessions and, along with their kids, moved in. From the very first day, Clara knew she’d made a mistake.”I pinpointed her gaslighting, which then transformed into narcissistic tendencies,” she said.According to Clara, when they arrived, Elaine pulled Daniel aside and told her son “that her real intention was for him, alone, to take on the family business.”And that plan didn’t involve Clara. “Everything here is for you. Clara has got nothing here,” Elaine allegedly told her son. “This is about rebuilding your future. Clara is to stay in the house and homeschool the kids.”She then dropped another bombshell. “She was like, ‘We need to make arrangements on how you’re going to pay your rent’,” Clara recalled.”We were like, ‘What the hell? You told us to come and stay here and start over. None of this stuff was discussed. What’s going on?’.”That night, Clara took her husband aside and said, “We’ve made a mistake.”But Daniel argued that it was just an adjustment period.”He was like, ‘I think we just need to work through this, because it’s all new’,” Clara recalled. As the weeks progressed, however, Elaine’s alleged resentment for Clara intensified.”She would say things like, ‘Why are you here? This is your husband’s business. You don’t need to know any of this. This has got nothing to do with you,” Clara claimed. “You don’t need to be involved in this. I don’t need to have these conversations with you. Your place is in the house. You’re the homemaker. You need to go and stay at home with your kids.”A month into the arrangement, Clara had had enough. “I just completely lost it at [Daniel] and his mum stood outside smiling and listening to our conversation,” Clara said. “It nearly cost us our marriage.”Then, out of the blue, Elaine invited Clara for lunch alone.But when Clara arrived, there was no food in sight. “Take a seat,” Elaine told her daughter-in-law. “We just want to make sure that we’re clear on the expectations.” According to Clara, her husband’s mother then told her she was behind on payments, and owed over $10,000.”I was like, ‘I beg your pardon? There is no agreement for any of this’,” Clara said.”And she was like, ‘Well, you need to go back and talk to [Daniel] about it, because he is well aware’.”But Clara fought back, replying, “I’m not paying anything more for rent, and I’m not paying anything extra. You’re just simply not getting that.”When they left the “lunch”, Elaine marched straight to Daniel, claimed Clara, telling him that his wife was no longer welcome on her property.”She said I was disrespectful, I was rude, that there was no space, that I was never invited, and that I had to leave,” Clara said.Daniel told his mother, “that’s not happening.””You can’t make my wife [leave] and separate us,” he said.But Elaine was adamant. She also allegedly confronted Clara by “screaming in [her] face”.Meanwhile, Clara left the property to stay with her family.While she was gone, Daniel tried to reason with his mum, but it fell on flat ears.”He was sitting down with her every day trying to have discussions about it all,” Clara remembered.Two weeks later, Clara returned for a prior commitment. And Elaine wasn’t happy.”When she found out I was coming back, that was it. She was not having a bar of me being on the property, and she gave us 24 hours notice to find a rental property and leave,” Clara said. Luckily, the couple and their children were able to stay with Clara’s family, and Daniel managed to get a new job within weeks so they could start their new life.Though Elaine has tried to get in contact with her son and daughter-in-law over the years, Daniel and Clara always ignore her.Three years on, after a lot of counselling, Clara is in a much better place.”It still rears its head, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “It’s constantly the next layer of healing.”In spite of it all, Clara believes in forgiveness.”If I can’t forgive her for her sins, which I know is really hard, then it’s a weight that I’m going to keep carrying on my heart, and it’s going to make me bitter,” she said.”It’s made me very strong in boundaries, but it’s also given me that perspective of empathy,” she added. “I think that is a really big part of it now, because I can hold space for other people quite easily.”Feature Image: Getty (Stock image for illustrative purposes only).*All names have been changed for privacy reasons.