The Other “Other Woman”
Learn to love your mother-in-law
April 30, 2008
By Elizabeth Heubeck
Illustration ©Pusicmario, Dreamstime.com
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The red-eye flight home from her honeymoon in Hawaii was harrowing, so when she and her new husband finally got back to Baltimore, Jenna Smith could think of nothing better than dropping her bags at the foot of the bed and crawling under the covers. To her horror, she discovered that her mother-in-law had beaten her to it. Yes, her mother-in-law was asleep in Jenna’s brand-new marital bed.
It’s an Oedipal tale for the books. Now married for three years, Smith says that her relationship with her mother-in-law is still stressful, but that things are better than before. Both women have made a transition, coming to understand the other’s roles, desires and boundaries within their new family dynamic.
This is not to sugarcoat Smith’s initial predicament or the issue in general. Relations between daughters- and mothers-in-law are fraught and have always been fraught. Cavewomen in-laws no doubt complained about each other around the campfire.
A survey of 53 daughter- and mother-in-law couples conducted by Deborah Merrill, PhD, a sociologist at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, showed the extent of the problem. While 30 percent of mothers- and daughters-in-law reported tight-knit relationships with little or no conflict, a whopping 23 percent characterized their relationship as “estranged,” with intense conflict, little to no affection and minimal contact. “Obligatory” is how 17 percent described their relations; 15 percent said they were cordial to their in-law but nothing more; and the remaining 15 percent reported a mix of affection and conflict.
Trouble from the Start
Mental health experts are not surprised at the extent of dysfunction between daughters- and mothers-in-law. Any time a family’s dynamics change there is the potential for tension, says Brian Carpenter, PhD, associate professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis.
“The conflict can come up when people want things the way they used to be,” he says. “Mothers may have been used to providing things for their sons. And daughters-in-law may not have fully appreciated the dynamics of the family until they’re married.”
Such was the case with Smith. She knew before she moved in with him that her future husband’s mother played a prominent role in his life. But Smith (not her real name) did not realize what she was up against until she got married and actually joined the family.
Sometimes, the claws come out as soon as mother- and daughter-in-law clap eyes on each other. “Many daughters-in-law feel they’re not accepted by their mothers-in-law,” Merrill says, in perhaps one of history’s greater understatements.
Likewise, many mothers-in-law are flummoxed by the behavior of their daughters-in-law, many of whom work outside the home and demand help with housework and childcare from their husbands. In the old days, a new wife bowed to the dictates of her mother-in-law — or at least that’s how many women remember it.
Ellen Bruger, 65, raised a houseful of boys and enjoyed control over her domain from the time her sons were infants until they got married. Then everything changed. Suddenly, she had three freethinking daughters-in-law who weren’t going to be told how to run a household. The shift was eye opening for Bruger (not her real name).
“I was intimidated by my mother-in-law,” the Towson resident says. “I wasn’t going to question her.”
While her own daughters-in-law aren’t so obeisant, Bruger has learned to adjust to their ways. “They can be a handful,” she says, “but I love them.”
Not all mothers-in-law adjust. Sarah Jane Cion was absolutely unnerved by her husband’s mother. “Everything she said to me, I would take personally,” says the New Yorker. “My husband would say, ‘That’s just how she is.’ He had learned to tune her out because he’d been hearing it his whole life.”
But Cion couldn’t stand it and the conflict began to undermine her marriage. “I would tell my husband how upset I was at his mother and he would say, ‘If you can’t find a way to get along with my mother, we should just call it quits.’”
Coping Mechanisms
Cion finally recognized that neither her husband nor her mother-in-law was going to change. She’d have to be the one. She worked up a series of coping strategies to respond to every situation in which her mother-in-law upset her. She relied on these formulated responses as a soldier does armor.
So numerous were the confrontations and so detailed were Cion’s responses that she turned them into a book, The Daughter-in-Law Rules: 101 Surefire Ways to Manage (and Make Friends With) Your Mother-in-Law, to be released in May.
Here’s Rule #57: Let your MIL (mother-in-law) one-up you. Say your MIL tells you during your pregnancy, “When I was nine months pregnant I was on my hands and knees scrubbing floors.” Instead of snapping at her, respond with, “I wish I had your energy and stamina!” So what if your MIL was 15 years your junior during her pregnancy, was not working outside the house and did not have a toddler to run after? Keep it to yourself.
If you don’t have the patience of a saint, experts suggest trying to find common ground. “I strongly urge daughters- and mothers-in-law to make a list of the five things they have in common,” says Susan Stiffelman, a family therapist who offers advice on www.grandparents.com. “It helps the two women see that, ultimately, they’re on the same side.”
Learning to put herself in her mother-in-law’s shoes has helped Jenna Smith soften toward her husband’s mother. Says Smith, “I now realize that she’s just an old lady who wants to see her son and grandson, and what’s so terrible about that?”
