Families and Love

Love is a serious issue and special care is needed to cultivate it and to keep it growing

The Mother-in Law/Daughter-in-Law Relationship. Part 2

Mother-in-Law/Daughter-in-Law Relationship

She is Your Daughter-in-Law, Not Your Daughter.

It May Not be The Relationship we Expect it to be.

 

 

There is certainly a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship, however, it is not necessarily going to be relationship we expect it to be. The one significant thing I had to learn to understand, “she is not my daughter. She is my daughter-in-law, not my daughter. This is an adult woman and is her own person. Our lives have newly converged and her life was lived apart from mine. This woman has had her own experiences, her own family history, and her own ideas about how a family should perform.

Therefore I had to learn to be respectful of that fact. We may think our ways are better, and it may be so, however, it still isn’t out right to insist that she does things our way. As a result, there is no sense pouting about it, that will only going to create distance. And personally this is not what I would want. Besides, her way may be better than ours in the long run. My experience taught me to give my daughter-in-law what I was given, the ability to do things her way like I had with my own family.

Get Over Trying to Run the Show.

Get over trying to run the show, if you feel critical towards your daughter-in-law, just stop it right now. So you don’t like the way she treats your son, too bad, it was his choice to love and marry her, not yours. Get over it! You don’t like the way she is raising your grandchildren, too bad, they are her children. Get over it! You don’t like her style of clothing, cooking, cleaning, her religion, whatever it is – sorry- none of your business. Get over it! 
After all, how would you like to be judged in all of these ways? Think about it, stop being critical and don’t put her down to other family members, and especially not to her husband and her children. That is a really quick way to lose her respect and any influence you may have somewhere down the line, furthermore, you may just lose the respect of your son as well. This is the woman he loves, his life is with her now- not with you anymore. He is an adult and requires your respect too, so “get over it”.
If you feel there is abuse going on in the household see a professional about it before you jump in with both feet. You may be right, however, you may have things all out of proportion too! Tread carefully.

 

Some fantastic resources exist out there for teaching you tools to be a better mother-in-law, such as this one; 

http://www.wikihow.com/be-a-good-mother-in-law

 

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