Two Hard Truths Every Mother-in-Law Has to Hold

I got this question from a mother-in-law, and I know so many of you are going to relate to this experience. So I'm going to read her question here, and I'm going to make sure that I leave you with a few steps forward for how you can approach this difficult situation and what to do next time. So here's what came in: I definitely know that you are correct in the son mother-in-law explanation. So that is in response, I think, to my reel where I talked about how daughters-in-law often end up being the kinkeepers for their husband's family. And this ends up creating this sense of exhaustion for daughters-in-law. So she's saying, I think you're right on that. And then she says, but there is another side. Please explore this. The wife's side is the most important, bracket, holidays, et cetera. And the husband's side is treated very cordial and just checking the box. I have always treated daughter-in-law with loving open arms and love her, but I'm sad that her side takes priority. If you share this, please share it anonymously. All right. Hey, I want to first acknowledge that if you are showing up into the relationship with your daughter-in-law with love, care, respect, and mutuality, thank you. Thank you for being that person who is showing up in this relationship, even though you are having difficult feelings around this. I can't emphasize enough how many stories I hear from women who do not have that respect from their mother-in-law. And that's incredibly painful. And I also want to acknowledge this piece here, this piece here where there's this sense of sadness that shows up and the sadness that you had a desire for what that relationship would look like with your son and his family. And that's not here. And that sadness is real because it's a loss. And that is a really difficult piece to try to walk through. It tells me that you had expectations that are not being met in your family. And that is a real experience for so many people. I wanna talk about this idea around when our children leave the families. So oftentimes I hear this expression where we are welcoming a child to our family. We're welcoming a daughter-in-law, we're welcoming a son-in-law to our family. And a really interesting shift in our framework is that your child actually leaves and they go and start their own family. And so then you are on the outside, not abandoned, not excluded, but instead they're starting their own family, which means they're doing their own traditions and they're creating their own values together as a couple. That doesn't mean they abandon everything that you taught them, but instead it means that it's going to look different than the family you once had because the family you had was created by you and your partner and your children and the structure that you chose to live inside of that. I want to also acknowledge that you are all doing this for the first time. That means that even if you have other in-law children, that this is the first time that you are doing it with your son and this daughter-in-law. And this is the first time your daughter-in-law is doing this relationship with you. And because of that, there are going to be a lot of missteps. And there will be mistakes. And one of the most powerful things that you can learn to do is to truly learn how to repair and have really hard conversations, hard and honest conversations, and not to take things personally. I think one of the biggest mistakes in-laws or extended family make is that they end up taking everything personal. They make it about themselves. And the most powerful reframe for that is for you to then shift and to focus on their we and to focus on this is them as the couple. They have created their own new family structure. It's not personal to me and my lovability. And that's a powerful reframe. I want to emphasize here that I don't have information in your question when you said the husband's side is treated very cordial and just checking the box. I don't know what that means. I wish I had more information, but I think on one hand there is a belief here of what you expected from a daughter-in-law and what is not happening. And when our expectations are here and the reality is here, that disparity between the two is gonna create more tension inside of you. So here's what I wanna offer you in today's video. This idea of holding two truths. There's two truths in here. The first one is that there's a dynamic between your son and his wife that you are not privy to. There is a dynamic between your daughter-in-law and her family that you are also not privy to. And I want to emphasize that this is not your business. That couple dynamic is only their concern and it's nobody else's. What ends up happening is that oftentimes parents to adult children feel that they should be aware of and know everything that happens in the couple dynamic, and that is not your business. And I need to emphasize this point: we like to find the villain. You didn't say it in your question, and I know you respect your daughter-in-law, but in every story there's a villain. And unfortunately, in the dynamic between mothers-in-law, their son, and their daughter-in-law, oftentimes the daughter-in-law is the villain. We scapegoat that person. We say she's the problem. She's creating this cordialness. And it's really interesting if we just pull back and say, oh, isn't that interesting? Women are the ones who are often blamed for these things. And instead of understanding that there's a dynamic between your son and his wife that leads them to show up in the way that they do, and we don't know that. I think there's another element in here that perhaps maybe you don't know the previous commitments or maybe cultural components or family structures that exist between your daughter in-law and her family. And I think instead what I hear you doing though is that you make it personal and you say they commit there, but they don't instead do it to us in a certain way or in the same way. So I think my first piece here, the first truth that we are trying to hold, and the idea of holding two truths means that these ideas are in conflict and that they create discomfort inside of you, is the first one is that only your son and your daughter-in-law get to decide where family lands. Only they get to decide what it looks like for family commitments. If they've decided that every Christmas Day is spent with her family, that's their decision. It's not because you're not loved. It's not because you're bad in some way or they don't want to treat you equally. That's a decision that they've made. That's the first really hard truth. And the second hard truth here, and I think it's one that a lot of people land in, but oftentimes we resist this because we just hope for things to be different. The second hard truth. So I'm holding these two truths. The second one is your grief, and you are grieving. You are grieving that you had an expectation of a daughter-in-law who would come in and be open and warm and deepen the relationship with you and share the hard things and turn towards you in times of need. And that's not who this woman is. And the more you try to hope that she gets that way, the more discomfort, tension, frustration, and anger you are going to feel. But instead, recognizing that this is who she is and she doesn't want that kind of relationship with me, and that's grief for me. And grief is sadness and acceptance. I think about a mother-in-law that I worked with where we really had to name this grief process. Maybe it's similar to yours, maybe not, but in this situation, this woman wanted to be the caregiver for her daughter-in-law. She didn't have a mother. She had all of these really hard experiences happening at the time after she was married. And the daughter-in-law didn't want that support. The daughter-in-law said, no, I'm good. No, thank you. And I helped this mother-in-law to depersonalize it and to say, this is not about you. And so my client then had to grieve. She had hoped to be the caregiver to this woman, and this woman didn't want that from her. But that doesn't mean that she's not a good mother-in-law. It doesn't mean she's not a good person. It just means they need to redefine what that relationship is going to look like. And a relationship is always made up of two people and what each of you need and want to co-create. Let's talk about how you can move forward. So if you can hold these two truths and acknowledge that they are both incredibly uncomfortable and they're hard to hold them together, because of course our brains love to find the solution, but I want to acknowledge something. Is that our brains like to create a confirmation bias, and that's often a negative bias. We build a story in our minds that is negative about the other person or the thing or the thing that they do. And from there, we then confirm it by only looking for that information. So for example, your daughter-in-law might text you, thank you. She might be the one that buys you the gifts. She might be the one that says to her husband, hey, have you called your mom recently? She might be the one who's sitting with you asking you questions about how so-and-so is doing in the family, but all you focus on is that I am not a priority. We are not a priority. We are being cordial. And so that confirmation bias then increases your anger and frustration and creates a greater divide between you and their family. And instead, then what's more helpful is for you to start looking for the other information that is building the bond. Because here's the thing, you always have a choice. You can choose to view what your daughter-in-law does, or you can choose to view what your son and daughter-in-law do as negative and about you not being prioritized, or you accept it and you view it in a completely different way and look for the other information. There's another piece in here that you need to do immediately, which is stop comparing your family to her family. The reality is you are not in their lived experience. You don't know what their closeness looks like, and that the way she shows up with you could be the way she shows up with her family. We just don't know that. That's not our business. But you comparing these two families is what's creating this hard feeling inside of you. So let's drop the comparisons. And instead, what you want to now shift into is you being able to focus on what's possible. What is it that you desire? What is it that you need? And just because you need something doesn't mean the other person can give you all of that, but instead it's a co-creation. Here's the biggest mistake I'm seeing of parents to adult children right now is that when something doesn't go their way or they're struggling with something or they have hurt feelings, you're allowed to have hurt feelings. But when it doesn't go your way or you feel hurt, you withdraw, you shut down, you say nothing. You say, okay, well, I'll just let them deal with it. No, because that backfires against you getting connection with them. And so instead, and I don't have an understanding of your relational patterns, but instead what's more helpful in these moments is for you to be able to express desires to your son and to say, hey, I would love for us to develop this tradition. And what would it look like to be able to do this? And is there's something that we can do together. But remember, it changes because while you and your family might have always had dinner on that celebration day, it might look different for them. And different doesn't necessarily mean bad, but instead focus on the connection, focus on the togetherness of when you are having that time. All right, if something landed for you, I'd love to hear from you. Leave me a comment below. Let me know, has this ever happened to you? Do you feel there's a comparison in families? Do you struggle with what feels fair or equal? All right, I'd love to hear from you. Let me know what you think of this one. Is this something you've experienced? Have you gotten stuck in the comparison trap? Do you feel like things are not fair in your family compared to maybe the other family? Have you struggled with your in-laws making comparisons with you? Thank you for clicking play. I look forward to seeing you next time. And if you have a question, send me a DM. I'm in my DMs. I'm social. Or leave me a comment below or submit a question through my podcast page. I love hearing from you and answering your questions here on the podcast. And don't forget to Click subscribe and I will see you next time. I have to remind you at the end of every episode that this is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for the care from a licensed mental health care provider. See you next time.