'We live five minutes away from my in-laws, but we haven't spoken in months. It started with a lamb.'

Christina* had given up on finding love in the age of modern dating when she came across Mike's* profile online.

She'd scrolled past his smiling face many times before, but the 300km distance had always been a deterrent.

He was a farmer, living a three-hour drive away. But at this point, what did she have to lose by having a friendly conversation?

"I thought there's something about his face, he seems so nice," she told Mamamia.

The next thing Christina knew, a few messages turned into lengthy exchanges and easy laughter.

A few weeks later, Mike drove to the city to meet her.

Her gut feeling was right.

"It was coffee, which turned into lunch, which turned into afternoon, which turned into an invitation to the farm the following weekend to stay," she said.

"I went home and I said to my parents, 'I've met him. I met the one.' I just felt it. It was so comfortable, so easy. It was like we'd always been together."

If only his parents were as easy.

Watch: Holly Wainwright discusses a mother-in-law dilemma on MID. Post continues below.

Things only blossomed between Christina and Mike. They spent six months taking turns driving to spend the weekend together before Mike popped the question.

"I'd love for you to move to the farm with me."

Farm life was something Christina had never considered before. Yet here was the chance to take a leap of faith.

At first, Mike's family were welcoming as she adjusted to the newfound sense of isolation that came with living so far from her friends and family.

When the pandemic hit, "the ugliness started to surface."

Mike's family, who owned a farm just up the road, adopted a "country versus city people" attitude.

Christina struggled with being separated from her loved ones during lockdown. When her family could finally visit, Mike's parents made the reunion far from joyful.

"They almost treated my family like they had leprosy," she said.

The snide comments were endless.

At first, Mike brushed Christina's concerns off as overreacting.

His family were just joking. They didn't really mean it.

The constant comments ate away at Christina's mental health to the point where a slight sniffle would send her anxiety skyrocketing.

"I kept imagining they were going to be chasing me down the street with pitchforks," she said.

"It was that kind of fear and anxiety and that's when I actually ended up starting to get so incredibly anxious and depressed that I ended up on medication."

The pandemic 'jokes' seemed to open the door for Mike's mother, Mary*, to more widely criticise Christina.

She'd be judged for not helping more on the farm, despite being at work.

"It was petty, but it was constant," Christina said.

"She'd show up and be like, 'I've baked a cake for Mike, this is for Mike'.

"I'm sitting there and thought, 'Okay. I take it. I'm not allowed to eat this.'"

Then there were the constant questions directed only at Mike.

"I'd be sitting there thinking, 'Am I here? Hello?'"

The lamb incident.

Their relationship reached a breaking point over, of all things, two motherless lambs.

For Christina, who cannot have children, bottle-feeding a rejected lamb Mike had given her became "everything." It wasn't just farm work; it was a deep, emotional bond.

"My partner didn't think there was anything wrong with it," Christina said. "He thought it was great that I got to have this, my baby. But she was very funny about all that."

The tension exploded when Mike's family asked them to mind two more lambs while they went away. Christina poured her heart into them, but when the in-laws returned, the tone shifted from gratitude to accusation.

"Next thing we know, they came to our place, and she was carrying on that we stole the lambs," Christina said.

"It just turned into an absolute pathetic mess."

Listen to Jessie's great big mother-in-law dilemma on Mamamia Out Loud. Post continues below.

It was the catalyst Christina needed to finally speak up. She "spewed" years of suppressed hurt at Mike, pointing out the narcissistic patterns she was seeing. At the time, she thought they could move on — it was just sheep, after all.

But by Christmas, it was clear: the lambs weren't the problem. They were the excuse Mary had been waiting for.

For eight years, Mary had given a gift to both Mike and Christina, but this year was different.

"She said, 'This is for you, Mike' … I normally used to get Christmas gifts and this gift was all stuff for him, nothing for me."

After the Christmas snub, something shifted.

Mike finally clued on to his mother's behaviour and stood up for Christina, a move that put him on the outs with his parents.

But as the couple talked it through, the pieces started to fit together. This wasn't just about Christina, the COVID jokes or the lambs.

"He started to piece together that she's probably been responsible for the breakup of his other relationships," Christina said.

"It's sort of like something's come off his eyes. Now it was very, very clear that this has been going on for years."

Silence and snubs.

With the truth out in the open, Christina and Mike felt stronger than ever. Just two months later, they got engaged.

They hoped their family could put aside their differences to celebrate their future. They were wrong.

"No response, no congratulations, nothing."

Christina tried her best to keep it out of her mind, but it ate away. Eventually, she just couldn't take it anymore and called one of Mike's sisters in tears, saying, "I feel like they don't want me as their daughter."

Her response was gut wrenching.

"To tell you the truth, they don't."

Despite the silence and the snubs, Mike and Christina decided to be the bigger people. They sent an invitation to his parents, hoping a wedding might be the thing that could bring them all together.

The reply didn't come until a week before the big day.

On the day, Mike's extended family were "lovely." Everyone congratulated the happy couple — except Mike's parents.

They couldn't even manage polite silence for the sake of the ceremony.

As Christina made her way toward Mike, the moment she had dreamed of was punctured by a whisper from the pews.

"I was told by a good friend of ours, as I was coming down the aisle she turned around and said, 'I'm not very happy about this'," Christina said.

Luckily, Christina remained blissfully unaware until after her big day.

"I had a wonderful day," she said.

The key to that? "I didn't go anywhere near them."

Six months on, the silence has become permanent.

While Mike visits to "keep the peace", Christina has set a firm boundary.

"For my safety, my mental health, I'm not going anywhere near them," she said.

As a self-described people-pleaser, the rejection still stings.

"It's been very, very hard for me to accept it because I keep thinking, well, what did I do? Sometimes I get very angry. Sometimes I'll cry when I go over it because of the stupidity of it all."

Ultimately, Christina knows it wasn't really about her, and it certainly wasn't about the lambs.

"She found an avenue to pick on," she said. "It would have been something else."

While they live just five minutes down the road from the people who refused to celebrate them, Christina is no longer looking for their approval. She's found something better.

"For a horrible thing to have happened, it's made us so strong," she said.

"He's been even more of a rock for me and I was also that rock for him."

Feature image: Canva.