The Complex Relationship of Mother-in-Law & Daughter-in-Law

Notes from this Episode:

Navigating Your Relationship with Your Daughter in Law

Cultivate a relationship with your daughter in law independent of your son.  Get to know her as a person – not just as your son’s wife.

Treat her as your own daughter, but you’ll never be her mom.  You’ll have a different relationship with her, and it can still be great.

Give her space to find her own way of doing things.  She may ask you for advice but be careful as she may not want to hear it – it’s difficult to hear a different approach to something that you’ve done all your live.

Find ways to compliment her and encourage her

Nurture your relationship with her.  You won’t have a strong, close bond overnight.  Relationships deepen with time and opportunity.

Your daughter in law was raised in a different environment than the home raised your own children in.

She will have patterns, habits, and routines of behavior that may be completely different from yours.

In most cases, unless we consciously choose to be something different, we grow up to be the kind of wife and mother our own mothers were.

       That’s not going to be the wife and mother you have been.

Let her be who she is.

Let her make her own choices about who she wants to become.

If her husband is happy, then you should be happy.  If her husband isn’t happy, then HE should be the one to work it out with her.

Let her love him.

Don’t:  Tell your son or daughter in law all your children’s faults  when you first meet them and don’t believe your children have no faults.

Respect Her as Your Son’s Wife and Your Grandchildren’s Mother

Her babies are not your babies.

Know your boundaries and keep them.  ASK if you can see them or visit – don’t just show up.

Honor their rules and requests if you’re watching her children.     

       Naptime schedule needs to be followed

       Eating schedule or selection of foods should be honor

       TV or non-TV preferences should be understood

You are Not the Fixer in Their Marriage – It really is none of your business

NEVER get between your son and his wife with your opinion or take sides in an argument. 

Be supportive in any way you can – which doesn’t mean be supportive always – they need to figure out their marriage relationship and then they need to figure out how their family life will go.  Step back and let them have the freedom and the space.

Do not insert yourself in your son and his wife’s personal choices.  You may think they’re making a mistake – and maybe they are – but it will be their mistake.

And by the way, so did you when you were their age.

What to Do if Your Children Come to Ask for Advice

If your children come to you with marriage disagreements, help them to see their spouse’s point of view.

Only give your opinion when asked and then be very charitable to all involved.

       I tell my adult children don’t ask for my opinion unless you’re sure you want to hear it – I don’t lie to make anyone feel better.

ALWAYS be charitable and nurturing rather than quick to point out who’s right or wrong.

Often, the best thing we can do is help them see their spouse’s perspective.

Being aware of “Manuals”

The most important component to a great relationship between a mother-in-law and a daughter in law is how we think about each other – and giving each other the benefit of the doubt.

It doesn’t cost us anything to choose a charitable thought instead of an easy negative one.

As a mother-in-law, you can choose to see faults, failings – all the negative aspects of your son’s wife.  And she can choose to see all your faults and failings.

       If we’re in competition with each other, that’s what we’ll do.

But when we choose to focus on the faults and failings, we choose NOT to see their gifts and talents.

And know that your daughter in law may have a manual for you on how you should act, what you should and shouldn’t do and probably a whole set of other expectations.

If we control our thoughts to choose only the ones that serve us rather than the easy ones of criticism or self-doubt

       We will nurture a relationship rather than sabotage it.

Choosing Thoughts to Make the Relationship Better

With my own mother-in-law, instead of choosing thoughts that didn’t serve either of us like, “She doesn’t like me, she doesn’t think I’m a good mother, she isn’t interested in a relationship with me.

If instead, I chose thoughts like, “It’s not me – this has nothing to do with me.  I’m a likable person – lots of people like me. She doesn’t want anyone to take her son away from her.  She’s not happy so there’s no way she’s going to be happy with me.” 

Those thoughts would have enabled me to be in the relationship without contributing to the ill will of the relationship.

AND I would have been freed up from the years and years of trying to “make her like me”.  I couldn’t make her do anything – and truth be told, I’m not even sure she didn’t like me – she was just unhappy with circumstances that had nothing to do with me.

I’m not suggesting you’re going to have happy thoughts all the time.

It is a Complex Relationship

I’m not even suggesting that relationships are going to be easy peasy with everyone happy.

Self-coaching – becoming aware of our thoughts – is not about having happy thoughts all the time – rainbows and unicorns.

Self-coaching is about revealing what our thoughts are and how they influence our feelings and actions.

The critical advice I can give on the mother-in-law/daughter in law relationship is don’t assume that because you think it, it is true.

Mothers, Let your son go – don’t put him in the middle of the “who do you love more” competition.

Daughters in law – know that she loves your husband, her son, with a full heart and be patient with her as your son becomes more and more detached from her. 

       You’ll understand how hard it is to have a son detach from his mother when your own son does it to you.

And yet is must be so.

Eph 5:31

“For this reason a man shall leave [his] father and [his] mother
    and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.”

Pray for your daughters in law. 

Pray that they grow in faith and bring Christ to the center of their lives. And if you have children who aren’t married yet, pray for their future spouse – that they will be healthy in body mind and spirit, that they will be generous and humble, and that they will love your children with their whole being