It’s Either Her or Me is my third book that has to do with relationships, yet this one has been so anticipated, its presales were significant. But why? I like to think it’s because I have a loyal following (beyond my mom) but the real reason is that this is a subject most women are dying to talk about. Incognito.
Dozens of women have contacted me through email saying that, even if they have a pretty good relationship with the other woman, they still have unresolved “issues.” This feeling is so even sided, that when women write to me about HER, I have no idea if they are talking about their mother-in-law or their daughter-in-law.
And both would be mortified if the other one knew they were.
As a journalist, I interview men and women, and sometimes children, who are relevant to my topic. I love anecdotes, believing that we feel more connected when we hear and relate to what someone else is going through. The difference between the subjects in my first two books on single parents and dating, and those in It’s Either Her or Me, is that the former ones are perfectly fine being thanked in the acknowledgments by their real identities. (I change their identity elsewhere in the books). This time around very few of the women – moms or daughters – agreed to be acknowledged.
What’s different is that I am writing about ongoing relationships. I could comfortably write about the bad dates I had in Mom, There’s a Man in the Kitchen and He’s Wearing Your Robe, because I KNEW those relationships were over. But that may not be the case when I consider the significant others my son has had. Even ones from the past could at some point be in the present. I’m not going to risk saying or doing anything to him to forever destroy that relationship.
So I get it. Since a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law have to get along at least superficially, their identity is safe with me.
