How to Deal with a Critical Mother-In-Law

Have you ever walked away from time with your mother in law feeling small, dismissed, or like you're carrying all the tension home with you? You're not alone. In my therapy room as a psychologist and couples therapist, I hear the same struggles again and again. And they don't just affect your relationship with her. They spill into your marriage, your parenting, and even how you feel about yourself. In this video, I'm breaking down one of the top five challenges women face with their mother in law and giving you insight and strategies you can start using today. So stay with me because understanding these patterns is the first step to changing them. The first pattern is constant criticism and judgment. So I'm going to tell you about Emily. Emily had just had her first baby. She was exhausted, trying to figure out feeding. She was doing her best to get some sleep. The story that so many parents can connect with. Her mother in law came over one afternoon, looked at the baby fussing and said, are you sure you're feeding her enough? She looks hungry. It was just one comment. And I know for so many of us we can experience those one or two comments comments and we can allow it to slide off of us. But over time, these comments became dozens of them. Remarks about the baby's clothes, about the cleanliness of the house, about whether Emily was making the correct dinners for her and her husband, and even Emily's appearance. Over time, Emily started to doubt herself. She stopped inviting her mother in law over. But the resentment she carried started to spill into the fights with her husband. Emily would go to her husband and he wouldn't acknowledge the struggle that she was having. I know so many people describe these moments as feeling like a paper cut and paper cuts sting. And when we look at this as one of the top challenges with mothers in law, I want us to consider something really important. Constant criticism is not a big bang moment. It's easy when your mother in law comes over, yells at you, degrades you, and your husband can then see it and say, whoa, this isn't okay. But the small criticisms, the judgments, they become these moments where it's so hard to even label what this actually is. And I know for many of us, what we say is, we even try to downplay our own experience. We'll say something like, well, it's not that bad, or I know she means well. And the truth is, though, is that this kind of behavior and pain does spill over into the other aspects of you, into the other aspects of your relationship. And even if we zoom out of this and take a look at what we know from the Gottman's research is that criticism is one of the first four horsemen of the apocalypse. And they call it this because it breaks down the health of a relationship. And so if one person is coming over and constantly criticizing you, it's going to erode your self esteem, your connection, and ultimately criticism from someone outside of you. When you and your partner can't be on the same page, it does end up dividing couples. One of my favorite parts of my book is the six types of mothers in law. And these detailed descriptions are here to help you identify who your mother in law is. Not as a way to shame, blame or diagnose. And I stay away from the word narcissism intentionally, but instead what this is for is to help you to understand who you are dealing with. It helps you label and identify a pattern of behavior because then it gives you the power and agency on how you want to respond. And that is really what's so important about this conversation that we're having here. We are not sitting here saying, here are all of these women, they're so awful, look at what they're doing. Not at all. Instead we're sitting here saying, I'm recognizing that I cannot control and change other people. How nice it would be to do that. I know that as well. Wouldn't it be nice if someone showed up the way you wanted them to and did the things you wanted them to? And yet it's challenging because we cannot control others. But instead this book and this work is really about identifying what's within your control, giving you a sense of agency, power and choice. And those are core needs that we all have. So if you do have a mother in law who is highly critical, she might be one of the external mothers in law. And there's two in that category, and that is the controller or the blamer. And when it comes to the book, I just want you to know this, that I'm going to walk you through what you'll notice in terms of these patterns of behavior. But throughout the book you're going to learn what is the best way to communicate with someone. How can I express boundaries to this person, given the type of mother in law that they are? Here's what I want you to know. If your mother in law steps into the criticism and judgment position. Criticism says more about the other person's anxiety or need for control than about you. But it doesn't make it less painful. I love the analogy. Around a gate that opens and closes. And this is around our boundaries. This is around how we protect ourselves. And one of my dear friends and I, we used to talk about wrapping ourselves in bubble wrap before going into hard meetings or hard experiences. And we put a bubble around each other to protect our energy. And in many ways, when it comes to someone who is highly controlling and judging, judgmental, it puts you in the position to then say, how do I want to respond to this? And I think the first reframe is for you when you close the gate because you're not letting this information in. The most powerful reframe to use is this isn't about my worth. Because when you close the gate and you're good behind the gate, guess what happens? That criticism is going to come in and it's going to bounce right off the gate. It's not coming into you completely, it's not entering your core because you already know that this is not about you. It's about her. It's about her need for control. It's about her anxiety and insecurity and desire for connection and that's what she's choosing to do. You can't control that. And instead my boundaries are what am I going to allow in and allow out. And the other piece too. And I talk about this more in the book, outlining how to do boundaries with your mother in law is how am I going to communicate this? Knowing who this person is, Is it worth saying something or does that lead to more of an uproar? Is she able to hear this feedback? And if not, then what is it that I want to do? Appreciating that I cannot control someone else. So a script that Emily ended up taking to her husband and they ended up practicing this together was, hey, thanks for your input. We're making it work our way. It was neutral, it was clear, and it really protected their confidence as parents.