When Your Partner’s Family Turns on You: Why In-Law Conflict Hurts More Than We Realize

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Welcome to Dear Dr. Tracy, the podcast that dives deep into the messy, beautiful world of relationships. I'm Dr. Tracy, clinical psychologist, relationship expert, and your go to guide for navigating Relationships, Boundaries in Laws, and everything in between. Whether you're striving to rekindle the spark, set healthy limits, or build deeper connections, we this is the space where real talk meets expert advice. Together we'll tackle the tough questions, untangle the sticky situations, and uncover the small shifts that lead to big transformations in your relationships. So grab a coffee, settle in, and let's rewrite the stories you tell yourself. This is Dear Dr. Tracy, your guide to creating relationships that feel good.

Hey, it's Dr. Tracy and today we're going to about talk. Talk about something I see so often, far more than people even realize. And that's what happens when you walk into your partner's family with an open heart. When you're ready to help, you're ready to belong. And then suddenly the rules change. Maybe you felt this before. You are welcomed in. You build relationships. You show up, you care deeply, you give and you give and then almost overnight, you're treated like an outsider. It's confusing, it's painful. You don't know how to move forward. And it just feels like anything you do, it just keeps spiraling. This week, a listener sent in a story that captures this experience so powerfully. And I want to share the heart of it with you because I know so many of you are going to hear pieces of yourself in this story. And then we're going to talk about really actionable steps forward. If you want to submit your questions, do so. I've got the link in the show notes. I love answering your questions here. And it's such a great way for us to build community, but also for you to have some steps forward. And I take this moment to remind you that this is not psychotherapy. This is your Dear Dr. Tracy advice column. But. But it's also this way for you to hear how others experience things. It's also to normalize the struggles that we have. So send me your questions. Give as much or as little detail as you like. I always say to people, more detail is better because then I can get in there and do some more work. So got the link in the show notes. Go do that. I love hearing from you. Okay, so the listener story is this. She became deeply involved with her husband's family. She was caring for a sick grandmother. She was supporting her sister in law who has small special needs. She was loving her nieces and nephews. She joined in on the traditions. They were even vacationing together. She truly became woven into the fabric of their family. And then when she became a mother herself, everything shifted. And for those listening, if you can relate to that experience, I just want you to know I get it, I see it. And I know so many people struggle with this. And this is exactly why I wrote my book. You, your husband and his mother. Because it's not for when you then feel like you're at the point of cutting people off to actually help you with those transitions with keeping relationships feeling good with so that you're not falling into this pleasing and over giving mode. And I just wish that every couple getting married or having a child would have this because I know so many women have this experience where they become a mother and then everything changes. And of course it does because you've changed. And also too, I know I've just derailed ourselves from the question, but I just can't help but pause right here in this moment to say this. You're all in this role for the time first, first time together, you all have likely never done this before or never even done it with this combination of people. So even if your mother in law is already a grandmother, she has never been a grandmother to your child, or if this is the second child in the family, you've never had her be a grandmother to the two kids. And so when we start thinking about how you're all showing up to these rules with this sense of newness, it really does bring a sense of compassion and you need real tools and strategies in terms of how you can then move forward. So let's go forward further in. So here's what ended up happening. A sister in law then. So one of the sister in laws began seeing her as competition. So seeing the listener, the OP so long standing, closeness was suddenly labeled as overstepping. Oh, that negative bias right there. And then viewing these things like you're not real family, you shouldn't have done these things. When in fact she was asked, she was asked and invited in to do these things. And now sister in law is coming back and attacking her, saying these things were never okay. The family closed ranks and she went from embraced to being pushed out. And the most painful part is there was a letter sent to the entire family criticizing her character, accusing her that she was taking their son away, and a request to move on without any acknowledgment of harm. And I think this is the real painful piece here, is that oftentimes one person allows or insists, demands that they get airtime. They're I want to tell you my hurts. I want to tell you the things that you've done wrong. And that's not real healing and forgiveness. And when we think about the forgiveness model and the research around it, what is so important when it comes to moving forward, ownership, apologies, repair, is that you have two people and one person says, here are all the things that hurt me. I mean, it doesn't help to list things, but we want to go deeper. What was the car feeling in here? What was the deep pain? And then the job is, and if you've been with me for a while, this is my go to analogy, is that you are on two sides of the bridge. And in these hard moments, the job is to cross over the bridge and live in that person's experience and to say, I see what it's like to be you, this is so painful. I can imagine that that happened. Doesn't mean that you're the bad person, but it means I'm going to be over in your experience and understand that. So if someone sent a Letter, that's kind of that piece. You need that peace. But in a true forgiveness, relational peace, true repair, it then requires another person to cross over and live in that experience. And this right here is exactly what families miss, is that families miss being able to own this, to truly apologize and to go back and forth. Because oftentimes what happens is that one person says, this is how you have hurt me. And the other person says, I'm sorry, but. Oh, that is so painful. I'm sorry, but. And then all of the other things. And so that's not crossing over and living in someone's experience. So the letter. Let's talk about what happened here. So this is what Opie said. My husband wrote a letter to his mother describing why we feel hurt and uncomfortable, asking for resolution and explaining that this has affected our marriage significantly. And then mother in law responded by writing a five page typed letter rehashing every event of the past and pointing out everything she feels I've done wrong. She called me unconscionable, deplorable, gaslighting, manipulative, and said for the good of the family, she can no longer have a relationship with me. Oh, my goodness, this is so painful. Then she sent the letter to each of her daughters as well. So that, and I'm using quotation marks, we can all be part of the same reality. Oh, my word. I just had chills run up my body. Because here's the thing. Someone can be hurt, and that can be her lived experience. And you have a lived experience in here. You have your own set of what it was like to be you and your husband as well. Because that, that's the sibling. Right? That's the sibling piece here. So she told me I have taken away her son and grandchild and demanded I take responsibility for the ways I've hurt her. The conversation was heated and I ultimately got up and left when she began mocking me. Fast forward to almost a year. They finally sit down together. She told me that I've taken away her son and grandfather or grandson. Sorry. And demand I take responsibility for the ways I've hurt her. The conversation was heated and I ultimate got up and left when she began mocking me. I sent her a text the next day apologizing for how the meeting went. Ooh. So I just want to pause here because this apologizing piece, it's like you're almost having to like, constantly be set into the injurer role. You're the prosecutor, you're the bad one. And she's constantly the victim. That is A triangle right here. Right. So there's three positions in a triangle. You have an enabler, a prosecutor, and the victim. I talk about it in my book. I'm pointing behind me because it's on the shelf. But you have to recognize that triangle right there because the more you put yourself in that position to apologize, the more you enable her victimhood. And that's not to say we don't acknowledge harmful behavior. I'm still wondering what the harmful behavior was. I mean, that's one thing to get heated. Did you name call her? I don't know. I don't have that details. But her last message to me thanked me for my words, but offered no apology of her own. She now wants to let this go and begin rebuilding trust in our relationship. I am feeling so lost because I'm not sure I can handle forcing a relationship with someone who feels no remorse for what's happened. And I certainly don't want my daughter. Oh, sorry, grandchild, granddaughter. To grow up with this kind of dynamic around her. We're moving out of state in a few months to work for work obligations. And I'm thinking the timing couldn't be better. Any thoughts? Oh, my goodness. Let's just pause here for a moment and talk about why this hurts so much. And I want to name something so important, and that is that you invested yourself in a family system and so your attachment system becomes involved. You are in it. You cared for these people. You don't just care for someone that you don't love or respect. And you went in that and you were there for a sense of belonging, for a sense of purpose, and for a sense of identity. So having this relationship break, it feels like rejection, it feels like betrayal, it feels like a loss of community, maybe even abandonment, confusion, and most certainly grief. And that's where this is so painful. And I think this is why what I hear from so many people, this is not just an in law thing, it's about losing a sense of belonging. And with all of the reels and the jokes that go around on Instagram, you know, the funny reel of the monster in Law or the tropes around Monster in Laws, Monsters in Law, or the Reddit commentators, I think what so many of us miss is at the heart of this and that is really that at our heart we wanted to belong, we wanted a family, we wanted a village, a greater sense of belonging. And then when we have that initially, and then something shifts for us. So for this person, you had a daughter, you became a mother. And so then in A way it's like, well, this is so confusing because I thought we were this and I gave so much of that, that now that I have a need in the relationship. I know if you're watching, you' seeing me use my hands, I'm using my hands a lot. But it's like, you know, relationships are this back and forth. And so then as you are giving and giving and giving, you go to them for that belonging. And that belonging tells our brains that it's both end that I too get to have needs in this relationship. I too get to have boundaries and limits and desires and wishes. But as soon as you do that, then that's the disruption. Then that's the you withholding the grandkids. Then that's the you trying to control or overstep when that absolutely is not what it is. And it makes me think then in this family it worked when you were silent, it worked when they could control you. It sounds awful to say it that way because I, I truly believe that most family members don't go in and say I'm going to control my daughter in law or I'm going to control my brother's wife. Most families don't have that conscious system. It's an unconscious drive of how we create safety and security. All of this comes back to safety and security and belonging. And so in that family system, that sense of belonging and safety is really about you losing yourself underneath them. So let's talk first about can you move forward without an apology? And this was something that so many people ask. And I'm going to direct you also to my recent from the Couch episode around Do I wait out for that apology? Because I think something for us to remember is that you can actually move forward when the other person doesn't apologize. Because healing, healing is your work. It doesn't depend on them giving you an apology. I know we would like that. An apology signals acknowledgement, accountability and validation. And some people cannot give that to you. And that's often why, that's why the first step of my vault method is really about you and your husband identifying your values and what's really important, important to you. Because we don't get to change the other person. We only get to choose. Are we going to remain in connection with them, even given that they're not someone that can do that work with you. And I think what's so important is that when we think about repair, repair really is about changed behavior. Your boundaries, what are those new boundaries? And what's your clarity around roles and that's going to be really different than what you were doing before. Especially given the hurtful words from your sister in law. Especially given this, this five page letter of hurts. By the way, if you are someone who holds in all of these hurts like you have the list. Okay. And as a daughter in law, I know you probably have a list, I want you to know this, write that, write out the list for yourself. Not to give it as evidence to lawyer up with your partner, but so you can process it. Here's the event that happened. You don't have to like anger, fire it out, but list it out and talk about what's the core feeling here. This is another place. I love my book book which inside this is chapter four about relationship needs and then also connecting into boundaries. How does that boundary connect to the relationship need? Because when our boundaries come from our needs, there's so much more clarity around how you need to move forward. So I want you to be able to identify what's the core need that wasn't met here and then from going there you can process that you're not going to live give that laundry list to the in law or to a family member because that, that does not move people forward. And I know though, because we tell ourselves if they just understood this, but you have to know this. Not everybody is going to understand it. Not everybody wants to understand that. Not everybody wants to know you in that. That doesn't mean you can't find a way to move forward. So moving forward then is really less about waiting for them to take responsibility. And instead then the question is about asking yourself this. What do I need to feel emotionally safe?

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Now the next question is often this. Should you cut off contact? And I get it because it's like, wow, this is toxic, this isn't healthy. I've got this list, what do we do? And I want you to understand this. Distance is one tool, but it's not the only solution. Cutting someone off does not automatically create healing. So I think this is so important because if your nervous system is still activated, if you're still rehearsing the hurt internally, the cutoff alone is not going to solve the pain that you feel. So I want you to ask yourself this, is distance about protecting me or am I using it to punish and to try to control and ultimately what is going to support my well being and my marriage right now? How do we do this together? It's also why my vault method, the five steps in the book is really about finding that gray area together as a team. Because of all the hurts, because of the scenarios where you're standing there thinking, I can't believe my mother in law just did this, just said this and my husband didn't do anything. And then when I told him in the car, he said it's not a big deal, it's always mom. No, we need a system. We need to find that gray. And also recognizing that reshifting, reprioritizing, redefining what the relationship looks like is about moving forward, but it's still protecting you and your marriage. And this leads me to my next point which is it's so important that you are a strong team. And this listener mentioned something so crucial, which is this dynamic has impacted their marriage. And so for so many people it's this, this tug of war between choose me versus choose family. And that doesn't feel good. And I think it's so important for couples to recognize this. The goal is not to find who's right, who's wrong, or who someone is choosing, but instead the goal here, which is exactly what my book helps you to do. The goal here is to stay aligned as a team. How do we remain connected and strong in our marriage while also finding connection with family that feels good for us? I'm thinking of this listener's question and the move is interesting because it is a time to create that natural distance. You're not moving to punish her. You're not separating because you're like, we can't wait to get out of here and away from you. The move is because of work and at the same time we want to navigate that together because there are going to be a lot of feelings like what? What are visits going to look like going forward? Are you going to live in their house when you visit? Are you going to live in an sister in law's house when you visit? I would recommend not based on what you've shared me, but instead staying in a hotel space or an Airbnb and then being able to visit them when they come to visit you. Are they going to be staying in your place? You know that again is the decision for you and your husband to have these conversations and it is about before even opening that door to your in laws. It's about YouTube being that solid team. So first I want you to have private conversations. I want you to agree to agree on what you are willing to and what you are not willing to engage in and then you presenting as a united front. I'm almost imagining your husband going to mom and saying here's how we want to move forward and that he has that solid statement together based on what you two have decided. And this is the other piece too is can you really go to mom, to your mother in law and say we can't move forward until you acknowledge all these things? My sense is that she would never be able to do it and she'd probably come back to you with 10 other pages of hurts that you've done, which isn't productive. And that really is the work that you two then are going to do as a couple. Because I also want to acknowledge that your husband's in grief here too. He's grieving what he hoped the relationships would look like with his sisters, with extended family, with his own mom. And that's really tricky to navigate on your own but also as a couple. So sometimes it's helpful for men to go and do their own therapy work to do this grief around family. But I also think it's really important to find the couple's coach, find the couple's therapist that's trained in this family stuff. I really want to emphasize that so that it's not making it worse between the two of you. Okay, remember this protecting your bond. So I want you to remember this protecting your couple bond is so important. You are creating your own new family system so that you can break out of that old family system. I want to touch on this briefly because I do talk about it in the book and this is about why do families turn on a daughter in law? And I think this is so painful. We've already touched on it in terms of this piece around this need for control. But all families have a system in place. And for some of those families, those are unhealthy mechanisms like control or denial or there's this hierarchy or this competition for closeness. And it really makes it challenging because when there is enmeshment, when there's unresolved trauma, and it might not even be at the level of your husband, but even in previous generations that's been passed on, we know that impacts people. When there is this stuff in a family, it means that you being this outsider can pose as a threat. But I say this to all daughters in law, this system, although they can't see it this way because they're blaming you for the problem. This system was in place long before you joined the family. You are this disruptor. You're reflecting back how things are going to be different. And that's very threatening for them. That does not make what you desired, what you did and what you tried to facilitate as a connected family was wrong. Not at all. So I want to say this really clearly. This is about a family system that was trying to hold their glue together and they're repeating all of those things. But it's not about you doing something wrong. Wrong. Okay, let's talk about moving forward because this is really about building trust. And I think this is so difficult because now that your mother in law has had this chance to write her five pages of grievances to sit in front of you and tear you down a peg, now it's like, okay, let's let go and rebuild. And I think we need to understand what does rebuilding actually look like and what's possible. And for some people there could be this mutual accountability. So I mentioned it earlier already, this idea that both parties can live in each other's relationship experiences for a moment and work through that. If you can't, you have to decide how important it is to do that. Do you want to go into family therapy to facilitate that? Or can you then move forward? Because some people will never acknowledge their impact on you, and that's really painful. And then also too, it's when there's kind of this like repeated hurtful stuff to you, it's like, well, how do we move forward without that continuing to happen? So I think it's important then for you to ask yourself, how do I want to engage in this in a way that protects my emotional safety? And that might mean. I use this analogy with a client. Recently, we talked about pruning. Like prune your bushes. Instead of all of these branches reaching out to your family, prune them back. Maybe you're not sharing the struggle you're having at work. Maybe you don't go over and talk about your own mom and dad and how things are going in your family. Maybe you're not opening up emotionally to create that previous family system or things that can be used against you later on. Maybe you prune that back and you show up and you focus on the sliver of what is possible with them. How then does this family continue connection and passing of stories? You know, I think about grandparents and there's this really beautiful ability to share stories and family legacy. Not the like control and enmeshment stuff, but the, you know, remember when Grandpa was 8 years old and went camping by himself for a night or things like that. You know, the stories that come down. But that requires you to ask yourself, how do I protect myself? How do I not get lost into this? Now, the other piece here, I think is because you do have a child and the, the question really is about what do we do for her? And here's the thing. You don't want your child to grow up thinking that this disrespect is normal. That in order to belong, it has to be earned, right? To, like, keep giving and be the good girl. By the way, I talk about the three types of daughters in law inside my book book. It's such a good one. The link is in the show notes to grab the book. By the way, it's available in all formats. I personally love the hardcover because there's so many exercises in each chapter that are going to help you make real steps forward. But the good girl daughter in law is one of the styles so many women fall into. And of course, because you want to be liked. And so women end up performing, pleasing and perfecting. And that's so tricky because then you become a mother and then you're no longer going to do those things. But here you are. Okay, so what does protection look like? Like in the book, in step five of the Vault Method, I talk all about taking action. My three A's anticipate, act and adjust. Adjusting is really important because it's you and your partner coming back to be a same team. Talk about what you've done well together and how you want to move forward. But part of this process is when you acknowledge that they can't change your in laws. Then the process is about how do I support my kids? What are the questions I want to ask them? I'm going to ask them, how did it feel when grandma said that thing? And then challenging those thoughts that are not really aligned with the values of your family, you might also model what those boundaries look like. So if something hurtful and disrespectful is said, you can say, that doesn't feel good. Please don't comment on my body. As an example, you might model boundaries in the sense of instead of getting engaged in the heated conversation of politics at the holiday table, you get up calmly and you go out for a walk. You take the kids and go for a walk and say, we don't engage in this kind of conversation. And then you go for a walk. Walk. So you are really modeling to your kids. And remember this, you are the parent, you have the most weight in helping your child build security and their beliefs about the world. Because after being with grandma or grandpa or the in law, they're going to come home. And then if they feel safe with you, they'll say, well, I heard grandma say this. And you can say, well, but did you think about that? And here's how we think about those kinds of things. Things. And that right there, that is so important instead of I know what parents tend to do today because I get it right, comes from fear. Fear of uncertainty, anxiety. We want to control everybody else. And so we say to people, don't talk about this at the table or don't bring this up with our kids. Instead of focusing on what you can control, which is helping your kid build resilience. Okay, so what does moving forward look like? I want you to consider these three things. One, align with your partner. That is the most important thing. Create a shared plan before going forward with family. What does that look like? How do you want to show up? What's on the table and what's off the table. Two, define what moving forward actually looks like. That for you is emotional safety first. And I can't tell you what that is, but I want you to know that not everybody goes to this place of cut off and estrangement maybe. And I, and you know, I've talked about this with many of my other colleagues around families. And what's healthy is that sometimes in families it is healthy to take a bit of space and distance. It's not estrangement, it's not cutting off. It's just saying things are really intense right now. We're going to take a bit of space, we're going to do some work on our own and then we look forward to coming back together. We're not doing that to cut off, to avoid, to never work through things, but instead we're in this like spiral and we're not getting anywhere. So let's take a bit of that emotional, emotional, physical distance and then we can come back together. And that's about trust building. And then I think the other thing too is within that, how are you defining the trust? What does that look like? Because they're not going to change. So what does it mean for you to actually build trust? Okay, and the last one is choose intentional contact. So maybe this is about meeting at restaurants, maybe it's about being at the park. And so that it's a limited visit, you're there, you bring snacks, it becomes the routine visit at the park and grandparent can be involved that way. There are all kinds of different ways to define family connection. And it is about finding what works for you and your husband and your family. And then I think too kind of what we've already shared in here is there is a lot of grief work in here. You gave so much to this family and your world has been turned upside down and I can only imagine how that feels. And so you are grieving that loss of connection, that loss of a secure family that you thought you had, you didn't do anything wrong. This is a family system that you've walked into and they were trying to maintain that system and it is so incredibly painful. This is aside but someone commented on a reel and I could tell it was a pain point for them because of another comment and they had said something like, well, daughters in law need to own the disrespectful things they say. My response back to this person with compassion was oh, she had this person. It was a she had said I've heard I'm not a mother in law. But I've heard stories of how daughters in law do these really hurtful things. And my comment back was with respect and compassion. You know, I I get the sense there might be some pain for you in this and also to recognizing that if you don't have the daughter in law's story then it's not for you to have a judgment about what's happened. Because here's what I always know. There are always two sides of the story and both people are allowed to hurt be in pain. But we don't come into these dynamics into families and blame and scapegoat people. Okay, if you haven't yet, go and check out my book. You, your husband and his mother. And I love the tagline because it really is the key piece. It's create a healthy relationship with your mother in law and your spouse in five simple steps. I've got the link for you right in the show notes for you to go check out. But also too, if you're finding yourself stuck in those stories and it's like showing up between you and your marriage, I strongly recommend downloading one of my free guides. And this is challenging the stories you get stuck in. I have 10 questions in there for you so that if you find yourself ruminating or you're in the future or you're in the past, you've got that there. I'll put that one in the show notes for you as well. And I just want you to remember this, that you do not have to force a relationship that harms you. You do not have to earn your place and you're allowed to protect your peace and your family. And that is the only place where you have choice and control. All right, thank you for being here. If anything resonates from you from today, share this with a Love Loved one. Be sure to check out my resources in the show notes and thank you for clicking play. And I'm going to remind you you are right where you need to be. You are doing this work. I see you and I know it is so hard. I have to remind you at the end of every episode that this information is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for the care from a licensed mental health care provider. Until next time, take care of you.

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