How to Prevent a Mother’s Day Fight in Your Relationship

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It's almost Mother's Day, and every year I hear some version of this: he celebrated his mother, but he didn't celebrate me. And mothers today end up feeling alone in the trenches and like they are not seen. And the challenging piece about this is it's not just about what's being done on the day to celebrate mom, to celebrate your partner. It's the cycle that follows it. It's the roles that you fall back into. It's the you becoming the peacekeeper, you becoming the good son, the doing everything to ensure that mom doesn't feel bad while your wife on the other side feels alone and unseen. And the most challenging piece is when she feels alone and unseen and he she says, well, you're not my mom, so why would I celebrate you? Or it's just a day, it's not a big deal, my mom wants this. That's the moment where she then slips into anger because she doesn't feel like she's important and she doesn't feel seen. And this is where your cycle starts. She gets angry, you get defensive, she ups the ante, and you shut down. And that cycle takes over. And here's the other piece that is so important about this: your children are watching. They're watching what it means to be a united team. They're watching what it means to be a couple, to celebrate each other. They're watching what it means in terms of how to honor a mother. And that is what we want to change, what we teach our children. Let's talk about how this Mother's Day could actually go differently for you. First, let's talk about who are we prioritizing? And here's the thing, this is not about abandoning your mother. But I want you to really slow this down and you need to understand something that you and your partner are a team. It's a we. It's not to exclude your family, but it's to first check in with each other. What is most important to both of us for this celebration, for this holiday? It doesn't matter if we're talking about Mother's Day, Easter, another holiday coming up, Christmas, Thanksgiving. It all comes back to this. It becomes a loyalty. Test. Where is he putting his loyalty and priorities? Does he focus on his chosen family, or does he go back into those old roles to please mom and to play the good boy? In my book, You, Your Husband, and His Mother, I outline 10 toxic family dynamics that lead couples to feel further apart. And in chapter 3, I outline 10 roles that we all slip into in our family systems so that you can identify what role you play and what role your partner falls back into as well when they're with their family. So here's what you can do differently now. Slow this down and ask yourself, who is most important in my life right now? Who do I need to be celebrating within the context of this holiday? So who are we prioritizing right now? I'm going to share my opinion with you. This is not a clinical opinion based on psychological research. This is me coming to you as a human, as a mother, as a daughter, as a daughter-in-law, as a friend. Here it is. Today we are prioritizing the mother who is in the trenches, the mother who is up in the middle of the night, the mother who has the meltdown happening at 8 PM when she is already torn apart from everything else that she had to do that day. Those are the people who we want to first acknowledge. Again, I have to emphasize this: we're not saying to abandon your mothers. We want to honor our mothers.

They're important.

And the first person we want to make sure we are helping to feel seen is the one who's up in the middle of the night, the one who is longer in the trenches, they can be honored and celebrated in other ways. Some of my community members have shared with me that they have these lovely traditions with their mothers and mothers-in-law. For example, they have a flower basket that they deliver and have brunch the weekend before Mother's Day, and then that way they can spend time with their kids and their partner. They get to have the day all for how they need it. The truth is this: couples today are exhausted, and the idea of having to pick up and travel to one person's house, the next person's house, and then to come back home. That's exhausting. And the reality is, for a lot of people, they don't want to celebrate Mother's Day that way. They want to have a slow day. They want to be connected and grounded with their family. And there is nothing wrong with that. The key piece here is you not falling back into old roles and being able to prioritize your chosen family. I have to add this here, okay? Who's responsible for what? Here's what we know about the history for women, is that women tend to be the kinkeepers. And today, actually, so many women are saying, I no longer want to kinkeep. Kinkeeping is the idea that it's a woman's job to maintain the relational and emotional aspects of all family, including her family and his family. And that is a heavy load that a lot of women today are saying, I don't want to do that. And on top of it, many women today are saying, if my mother-in-law treats me with such disrespect and she's not kind to me, I, on top of that, do not want to continue to carry the weight of holding all the families together. So this question is a really powerful one. Who's responsible for what? If you enjoy looking after your partner's mother, then go ahead and do that. And yet, if managing his family is his task, then that's for you to release it and to let it go. I'm thinking about Allison in chapter 3 of my book and how she talked about trying to find the perfect gift for her mother-in-law, and she had to acknowledge that she was taking on this role that first didn't feel good for her, second wasn't acknowledged for her, and then third, her and her husband had agreed that this was his role, his responsibility to own in their marriage. What does this mean for Mother's Day? It means if you've decided to be responsible for each of your families, then release that. And the way that your husband celebrates his mother is up to him, and the way you celebrate your mother is up to you. It's also complex, and I want to just pause here and acknowledge people who are grieving the loss of moms and how this feeling also comes up during this day. That's something I think about a lot. And so if this day also feels hard, you have permission to do whatever it is that you need to look after you. And then my last piece: what does the celebration actually look like? Something I used to get stuck in when it comes to days like Mother's Day or the Christmas holidays is I used to say to myself, what should I be doing? What's the right way to celebrate? Now, that is my perfectionism that loves to show up. And I've learned to really befriend this part of me, and I'm not so harsh to that inner perfectionist. But hey, here's the thing, you as an individual, you get to choose what feels best for you for how you want to celebrate something, which means there is no right or wrong. There are some women who want to absolutely be with their children the entire day, and there are some who are saying, this is a chance for me to go and be on my own and have nobody disturb me. A successful Mother's Day comes from you first as the mother slowing down and asking yourself, what would it mean to feel honored, recognized, and appreciated on this day? And listen to the first response that comes up. If it means I get to stay in bed, if it means there's a hand-drawn card from the kids that my partner helped them to make, whatever that looks like. Now it's your job to communicate it to your partner, because the other common thread that shows up around this is when couples come to my therapy office and and he says, I didn't know what to do. And so I actually did do X, but she wanted Y and I had no idea that she wanted Y. So in order for you to feel good for this day, it is your job to communicate what it is that you want and need. And now for partners, here's what I want you to remember. There is such a thing called decision fatigue. And so if you continue to go to your partner and you say, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want? That puts all of the load on them. I loved one Instagram reel that I can't remember his name, but he had talked about how he was renting his wife's brain space. So a tip for someone is that instead of going to your partner and making them plan out the whole day, you might go to your partner and say, hey, I was thinking about doing breakfast in bed, and you get to spend a nice slow morning reading your book. I've got the kids, we're gonna go out to the park, and I'm gonna do all the morning things. And then come lunchtime, we're gonna have lunch all together. Is there anything about that that you don't like? Right there, oh, that's you taking the decision fatigue off of her and initiating what this is. This all depends on the couple you are, on the relationship you have, where you are in the season with kids, etc. But to have a more successful celebration of Mom this year, start by considering asking that sort of question. Being able to slow things down and asking yourself, what does this day look like? And being able to communicate that with each other, that is how you ensure you both move through this celebration together. I want to say something else here. I get comments from mothers saying, it's so silly, but I'm upset about how my first Mother's Day went, or I still think about this and it's stupid that I do that. Here's the thing, it's not silly and it's not stupid because we all have this core need to be recognized, to feel like we are important, and to feel like we matter to those we love in our life. And so this year for Mother's Day, let's make sure you get that recognition and acknowledgment from the people who mean the most in your life. All right, let me know what you think of this one. I'd love to hear from you about your first Mother's Day. Was it a success? What did you learn from it? How did things go? Tell me in the comments. And I'm just so grateful that you clicked play, and I will see you next time. Remember, this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for the care from a licensed mental health care provider. See you next time.

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