I hear from a lot of daughters-in-law who say they started out having a good relationship with their husband’s mom and then all hell broke loose. Some word. Some incident. Some action. And snap – any friendship between the two women collapsed. But is it really over?
Not necessarily.
After reading and commenting on It’s Either Her or Me, Cindy at www.themommaven.com says she had gotten along great with her mother-in-law for years until, in her words, “…one very dark January day I saw the truth, the curtain was lifted and all of the ugliness exposed. It was so bad my marriage almost ended and to this day, our relationship with my husband’s family is strained and untrusting.”
Like I said, it doesn’t take much for this relationship to crumple.
Amy, who I interviewed in the book, had an experience similar to Cindy’s. Despite initially getting off on the right foot with her mother-in-law, once Amy had kids the relationship between the two women became very tense. So much so that not only did she and her mother-in-law stop talking to each other but her marriage nearly dissolved. Ultimately, she and her husband reached an agreement that in order to save their marriage, which they did, he would visit his family without her. This lasted 10 years.
Then Amy’s own son got married and she reluctantly invited her mother-in-law to the wedding. Somehow in the haze of the wedding bliss, all bad feelings melted away and Amy and her mother-in-law reconciled. It’s now two years later and they are still getting along.
I understand that Cindy cannot imagine liking her mother-in-law again. And in fact, these two women may never recover what they once had. But no daughter-in-law should rule out the possibility that one day the relationship may improve. It may take time – lots of it – and a life-changing event, like a wedding or a funeral, for these two women to let bygones be bygones. But the possibility does exist.
As the mother of two teenage sons, Cindy has a vested interest in learning from her own mother-in-law’s mistakes and one day becoming a great mother-in-law herself. It happens all the time. Honestly!
