If this is how you view your mother-in-law, your relationship might need some work.
(Hi Shirley! I promise this isn’t going to be about you!)
(Okay, maybe a little bit.)
I am lucky enough to have a fantastic mother-in-law – and I’m not just saying that because she reads my blog. But even in the best of circumstances, the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship can be tense.
Maybe your MIL is the only other woman whose opinion matters a lot to your spouse, and that feels a little too much like competition for your taste. Maybe he’s too attached to the way she made green bean casserole, and you prefer your own mother’s way. Maybe you’re annoyed because she always gets you red slippers for Christmas even though you prefer blue. Maybe you’re convinced that the fact that your spouse won’t ever, ever pick up his dirty socks is all her fault. Maybe she reminds you too much of your husband (and becomes a convenient scapegoat for issues you should probably take up with him). Maybe she reminds you a little too much of yourself.
One thing’s for sure: your mother-in-law has opinions of her own about parenting, marriage, and life…and no matter how tactful she tries to be, you’re probably gonna know what they are. I think this is especially hard in the early years of motherhood, when your confidence is so easily shaken and criticism – even perceived criticism – is hardest to deal with. I know that for me, when I was new as a mother and a wife, I had a hard time understanding my MIL and often felt judged, annoyed, or defensive around her. In retrospect it was pretty unfair of me, as she was also brand-new at being a grandmother and having a daughter-in-law and we were both just trying to figure out how to relate to “the other woman” in Jon’s life.
As time passes, however, I’ve found that I have much more in common with my mother-in-law than I ever thought back then, and that the more I’ve been able to let go of my own insecurity, the less threatened I am by her opinions – which, by the way, were earned from decades of motherhood, even if they don’t always jive with mine. (I have also come to realize, as a mother of teenagers, that the last thing I ever want is my sons’ future wives to blame me for their inability to pick up dirty socks. I swear, ladies, I tried.)
Here’s the thing about our mothers-in-law: the better a relationship we can have with them, the stronger our marriages will be and the happier and more relaxed we can be as moms. Think about it: would you rather grit your teeth through a holiday or find ways to relate, connect, and let small things go so you can enjoy yourself? Would you like to be able to turn to your MIL as an ally, as a vital person in your child’s life and an important part of your support system…or would you rather waste your time engaged in passive-aggressive battle over things that don’t really matter? (And let’s face it: so much of what we get really worked up about doesn’t, in the grand scheme of things, matter a bit.)
I hear what some of you are saying: “But my mother-in-law is awful!” And maybe you’re one of the small percentage of people for whom that’s true. I think most of us, however, just need to approach the mother-in-law relationship with some extra skill and thought, and a healthy dose of perspective.
Tomorrow (Thursday) I’ll be joining Judy Goldberg, Senior Editor of Parents magazine, for a live chat about improving relationships with our mothers-in-law over at The Motherhood from 1:00 – 1:30 PM EST. I hope you can join us, or even just click over and follow along with the conversation. Later I’ll write a recap post with some of the best tips gleaned from the chat, and share more of my own story about embracing the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship. For now, I want to hear from you: is your mother-in-law a friend or foe? Has your relationship changed over time? Are there things you could do to improve it?
I think the biggest roadblock is the language barrier. I speak English only, my MIL speaks mostly spanish and we have more than enough instances where we get confused by what the other is saying. Also culture differences. My husband grew up in a typical spanish family, where everyone is in everyone else’s business and you always include them and you never do anything differently you always take your families advice. I grew up in an atypical family. My mother is a career firefighter, she was gone over 24 hours. I am an only child and because of my mom’s career and my dad working full time as well I became very independent at an early age. We are also a very quiet family and we do not help unless help is asked for,we each have our own lives. So I often feel my MIL is very overbearing and nosy. My family is also very outspoken and if we have problems we don’t mind spatting words, my husbands family doesn’t ever do that you wouldn’t ever hurt anyone’s feelings. It has become even more interesting now that we are expecting the first grandchild and we live within a 5 hour drive of my husbands family.
I know for a fact that my mother-in-law doesn’t read my blog, and I will still say that she’s awesome! From time to time I will turn to Mr. Sandwich and say, “Please let your mother know how much she means to me.”
She’s just such a lovely, warm, generous person. I’m very lucky to have her in my life.
I am lucky to say that my MIL is mostly my ally. She seems to actually be perfect at everything domestic though, especially cleaning (which isn’t really my specialty) and I sometimes feel insecure-and she’s one of those brutally honest people and I’m totally NOT (I’m more if-you-don’t-have-anything-nice-to-say, don’t-say-anything-at-all), so that usually results in me feeling even more insecure as she points out all the things I’m doing wrong. Maybe I’ll swing by tomorrow!!
Did you notice I’m writing this as Anonymous? If you did, chances are you’d know that I’m not best friends with my MIL. She raised three boys and is the queen bee of her very-traditional family. I was raised by a single mom in an all-female family. This puts us at odds naturally. I’m capable of doing things myself and enjoy doing them myself as well. She waits for them to be done. Over the years I’ve mellowed and no longer bother trying to defend/explain my viewpoint. In fact, I do a lot of tongue biting when she’s around. While she might think the world revolves around her, it doesn’t actually. This has become more evident with the introduction of our kids. My husband now shows the annoyance that I no longer comment on. Not making the comments myself makes my life easier. I just focus on the good: She loves my husband, she loves our kids, she means well….
I think it’s smart to let your spouse be the one to handle the confrontations – after all, it’s HIS mom, so it’ll be taken in a completely different way than if you did it. Plus there’s something about being introduced as an adult to a different family that almost feels like you speak another language. He speaks her language. But with time you learn to speak it, too (and that’s probably part of why it feels like you’re mellowing…in reality, you’ve learned a lot, too.)
Great points. I hate it when women blame their MIL for every one of their husband’s failings, as if he wasn’t an adult who could learn better habits and as if the FIL is blameless!
I realize that I’m way too sensitive and react to my MIL’s comments and it’s not always fair.
I think it is much easier said than done. I have a mother in law who comes from a different culture, she is a bully and a narcissist. We do not see eye to eye at all.
I have tried to be the nice guy, grinning and baring it, bringing gracious gifts, writing thank you notes, inviting the family over for well planned dinners for holidays and other events as well as sending photo collages and including everyone in the extended family on lavish tickets and visiting them at their home. I am still treated with no respect and like an outsider. Before having a child this was of little worry but now that I have a son involved and there are grandchildren and she favors other grandchildren to my own child there are some very trying times and very complicated. It has caused strife to my marriage and is very annoying.
There is no easy way to deal with difficult people.
Very true Angela – in any group of people there is going to be a small percentage that are just difficult or abusive people, and it’s no different with mothers-in-law. Sounds like that is the case with you. But I do think that we live in a culture that really encourages us to dislike and distrust our in-laws (going both ways) and that’s not good for anyone. In MOST cases I think it’s more a case of being thrown together into a family with people you don’t know that well and don’t understand. You have shared interests but very different ways of caring for those interests. That’s going to cause tension, but it doesn’t HAVE to mean years of conflict as long as both parties are essentially reasonable people.
LOL..I can relate to this post…But thanks for the tips included here too…
I am also blessed with a very kind, helpful mother in law.
In fact, whenever she is visiting us (she lives across the country) she always does the dishes and sweeps the floor without being asked, I love it. The only conflict I had with my MIL was before I married my DH, when her traditional background differed from my own. I wanted to call her by her first name (like my father called my mother’s parents — my mother called my father’s parents Ma and Dad) not Mrs __. I felt that calling her by her last name was too formal and it didn’t reflect our close relationship. She felt uncomfortable with it at first because of her upbringing, but after I wrote her a letter about it, she came around to my point of view. We are still close, maybe even more so since my kids were born.
Ugh. This is a hard one for me. I can “get along with” my MIL fine because at a surface level we have plenty in common. However, on a deeper, what do you value and prioritize in life sort of way, we are very different and this causes deep strife. Part of this divide is the (lack of) value/ enjoyment/priority she feels for her grandchildren. That is very hurtful to my husband and I (and my sister-in-law and her family-so its not just us/personal). Anyhow, I don’t know how we get past that. It just makes me so sad really.
Your comment is interesting to me because part of my conflict with my in-laws is that they’re TOO interested in their grandchildren (which I see as interference). I already worry that when I’m a grandmother someday, I will either be too hands-off or too hands-on, as in you can’t win either way. Maybe some MIL don’t appear too involved because they want to not interfere? I’m not saying that’s the case in your situation but just a thought..
That’s a tough one. Does your husband feel that she was a more interested mother than she is a grandmother? Or, as he looks back, is this pretty much what she was like the whole time?
I was on the opposite side of this – my dad (before he died) was not really the warm doting grandpa type, and my in-laws were/are, which actually made me feel defensive about my dad and sometimes uncomfortable because I wasn’t accustomed to the level of concern they had in our adult lives, as I was the kid who left home at 18 and tried very hard to never ask for another favor afterward…just very different family dynamics.
I think that it’s normal to feel hurt over this, for sure. But at some point with my dad I had to learn to embrace the relationship we did have instead of focusing on what we didn’t. It wasn’t going to change and it wasn’t because of anything I did…it was just who he was, or who he was choosing to be.
Great post – and I know it stirs a lot response in your readers!
For me, my MIL is eccentric and has mental health issues. Visits are hard, and we are worlds apart in our view of the world as well. I had hoped that having kids would help, but it turns out she’s not the doting grandma. As an only child myself, I really wish we could have more in common and be closer. I would have loved to feel like I gained a new family when I married my husband. Unfortunately it’s not that way at all. They are very uninvolved in our lives (and us there’s, I shouldn’t place all the blame on them). BUT – I don’t get the opinions you mentioned in your post – so that, I am thankful for
I could have written this, word for word. Even down to the only child part!
Except I have gotten a few opinions thrown my way! Haha!
Ally. I have a wonderful MIL (and FIL). The grand/children have brought out some tensions, because as you say, the inlaws have some opinions. Would it help if we all pitched in our best coping mechanisms for when things aren’t quite how we’d like them? My all-purpose two are
1 – When unsolicited advice is presented, the response is “Thanks, we’ll consider that.” I’m not promising to agree with it, discuss/debate it, or even to consider it for very long, just to consider it. If there’s follow-up questioning, “We did consider it but chose a different way” or “We’re still considering it. We’ll get back to you if necessary.” I got this tip from my friend who pointed out that our parents sometimes just want/deserve to feel listened to, to feel that we still value their input.
2 – I tried to remember that I chose my husband, not his parents. I need to be compatible with HIM, it’s unreasonable to expect that I will consistently be compatible with THEM. It makes me feel lucky that I’m in any way (and even in many ways) compatible with THEM.
And for specifically for my MIL, who can WORRY.
1 – Her worries are mainly about her, not me or even the kids. (This one is really hard to believe sometimes. Because her WORRY leads her to treat us as incompetent.)
2 – They are on a need-to-know-basis only for medical information. Sharing information only feeds the WORRY.
I love your thoughts on #1…. SO TRUE!
These are GREAT tips Karen! My MIL is a worrier by nature (which she will readily admit) and after a while I realized that it wasn’t always doing her or myself a favor to share things. Sometimes it’s best for everyone involved if you only share information on a “need to know basis.”
This is a great topic. I have a wonderful MIL but I will say it has taken some work to adjust to personality differences over the last 5 years. I also have to be very careful not to compare my MIL to my own mother and the way I am used to interacting with my mom. Every time I fall into this trap it sets me up for unnecessary frustration. You are right that the majority of things we get worked up about don’t really matter in the grand scheme of life. Excited to learn/read more!
Every one said that I am the reflection of my mother, Because we have the same thoughts and the way we inter-act in every moment. Same as all.
If I may offer another perspective…
I tried for many many years to have a nice relationship with my MIL. My efforts were futile. This hurt my relationship with my husband. I was always trying my hardest and then facing emotions ranging from disappointment to anger at her responses. My kids tried their hardest to establish a close relationship. When their affections were not matched or even returned in small proportions, they took it very personally. It crushed them in many ways. It also crushed my husband. Instead of focussing on our relationships with one another, we often focussed on our relationships with her.
Once my husband convinced us that the best course is simply relationship maintenance (as opposed to trying to create a closeness where it was neither welcome nor would ever be returned), my relationship with him improved. The kids understand that not all grandmothers are warm and affectionate and attentive. It is not an ideal situation, but at least it is no longer a futile focal point for our family.
Also, now that we have stopped trying, we CAN focus on the positives my MIL brings to our lives — she is, for example, an excellent cook and a very generous gift-giver. When we were trying and failing to form a bond with her, EVERYTHING felt negative. Now we can wade through the relationship to grasp the positives.
As I always say to those who have a close relationship with their in-laws, hug them! Hug them tightly and thank them for that.
I think there are always some situations in which distance, not more closeness, is the answer. It sounds like you tried really hard to make it work but are much happier this way – makes sense to me.
My MIL lives in a different country and doesn’t speak a word of English, so my contact with her is minimal. This is both good and bad…. we avoid a lot of the MIL issues but also miss out on having much of a relationship at all. She has visited and stayed with us a few times. She was here for 3 weeks when we had our wedding and it was wonderful. We then had her come for 4 weeks when our first son was born – she arrived when he was 2 weeks old. This was NOT a fun visit and I was definitely counting the days for her departure. I normally work full time but since I was home on leave – the 24/7 time with her was just too much. Instead of appreciating her help I felt like I was competing with her — for bonding with my new first baby, for my husband’s attention, etc. It sounds silly but when you are cooped up at home in those early weeks and your husband is constantly busy talking to his mother in a language you don’t understand – it was quite isolating. I was trying to find my feet as a new mother and I felt like she kept trying to take over. When I had our second son, we only had her come for two weeks, and it was a little better since there were now two kids to keep us all busy. The next and last time she has visited us we tried something different. She arrived the week I returned to work after having our 3rd child (my husband is the stay at home dad). This was a MUCH better scenario and we ended up having her stay with us for 3 months! It was a wonderful visit that time since I wasn’t in the house with her 24/7. Sadly, she is now too ill to travel the far distance. My husband goes to visit her and his sister once a year but it too expensive for the six of us (we now have four kids) to travel there together.
Wow, what a great discussion! I’m going to try to get back to this post and answer individual comments today, but I hope some of you will come to the Motherhood chat at 1 EST (in 25 minutes!) or check out the transcript later. Here’s the address: http://www.themotherhood.com/talk/show?id=62343
I can honestly say my MIL is my best friend. It didn’t start this way, but my pregnancy with my first was the turning point. It gave us something to bond over. Also, I think it took time for us both to appreciate and understand the other as we have very different personalities.
My in-laws are great, and without them we would never have free babysitting! We really appreciate them and trust them 100% with the kids.
The only thing I clash with MIL about is that she is REALLY into alternative medicine/homeopathy/crystals etc and I am an M.D., so we tend to have different opinions about the efficacy of various treatments. If we avoid discussing mystical health symptoms and odd remedies, we are fine.
My MIL is fantastic. I KNOW I’m blessed and I frequently let her know how much I appreciate her! We are alike in some ways and yet different in others. What’s really helpful is that she is very laid-back in her personality and NOT domineering at all. She (and FIL) have a good relationship with their son but not TOO close-feeling, you know? It’s just right. MIL/FIL are great with our daughter; wonderful, involved grandparents (even from halfway across the country) without being overly concerned about every little thing. I think my MIL does a great job of striking a nice balance and I tell her this often. I know I hit the MIL jackpot and I’m very blessed to have a good relationship with her! Truthfully, I often feel closer to my MIL than to my own mom. It feels a little weird to me to know that, but that is truly the way it is.
Great discussion and topc!
It has taken us years to get to the point where, I think we appreciate one another for the most part. It was hard. My parents-in-law were emotionally abusive of my husband (as were my parents, of me) and it took a long time for me to stop being angry at them for that. I would never blame them for his socks on the floor. But I would blame them for the ways he would fight with me when we had disagreements. Now that we are past the point where we don’t know what to do but emulate our parents, our relationship is in a better place (of course). And I can appreciate my MIL’s strengths even though they are very different from mine and my mother’s. The problem I have with her now (and with the rest of my in-laws) is the way they treat our son. We are trying very hard to treat him with respect and teach him that he deserves to be treated kindly at all times. My in-laws are totally not on board with treating anyone with respect at all times and while I can deal with it when it’s me, it feels really unfair for them to be unkind to the little man. Their son can’t yet stand up to them and I don’t know what I can reasonably do myself. We have to go up there in a few months and I literally do not know how I am going to handle the disrespect that will be coming our child’s way then.
I feel for you SIS! I hope you can find a way out of the trip, or at least out of the dysfunction. Do what you need to do to protect your family.