Problems with the in-laws – How to deal with a difficult daughter-in-law
The daughter-in-law… you’ve heard that old saying… ‘you can choose your friends, you can’t choose your family’ and it has never applied better than with the wife of your son, the mother of his grandchildren, it’s a shame , there have been times when he wished he had chosen ‘the girl’, however, his son found her, fell in love with her and married her, because he could!
You’ve heard or known of those daughters in law from hell ~ the too young, smug, evil, relentless, horrible, selfish little bastards who somehow managed to hold on to the people you love most, your children.
Too often you give and you give and they never seem to be glad to have received and received and turn all your good intentions into acts of ugliness for whatever reason.
The thing that always comes to mind when I hear about these selfish little fools is how the hell he chose her in the first place. You thought you raised him with sharper ‘picking the right girl’ skills, we all knew that.
If you are one of those very unlucky mothers who have inherited ‘the wrong daughter-in-law’, keep in mind that it is not your fault, it is not you who has to live with her (thank God), and try to take into account ‘what he goes, he comes back’, for his own peace of mind.
Try to keep an open line of communication between you and your son, always try to keep in touch with your grandchildren, they are the ones who will lose the most when they cannot see the grandparents who love them, and pray that one day the daughter-in-law will grow up and he will come to see the folly of his ways. Don’t hold your breath…
Perhaps the most important person to work with here is your son: he’s not going to choose sides and leave his wife (yet) just because he wishes he would or could. His knowledge that you are there is perhaps the most essential thing he needs to know.
Life choices and experience will usually win the day. If you’ve always been close to her son and soon discover that ‘the wife’ has caused him to lose all contact with her family members and is buried under hers, he will eventually wonder, ‘what the hell happened? ? ‘ In the event that the situation is serious – with total alienation and little or no contact – you could talk to a family therapist about intervening with the families, yours and hers. Especially if there are grandchildren who are prevented from meeting you: the intervention allows a safe place to calmly talk about real issues, your insecurities, your inability to control who your children can see and when.
If an intervention is totally out of the question, you may need to give your child time to accept the ugliness of their choices and move on with their life, if they refused and you have been trying and trying to keep a brave, cry from new and move on…if you have helped them financially in the past, STOP…don’t contact them or try to stay connected at this time.
Serious marital discord usually leads to serious problems down the road – when that happens, your child will have nowhere to turn when the proverbial ‘sh__ hits the fan’ and will, if it’s worth anything, always will, though it could take years. Often too much is going on: your child is being pulled in too many directions, and their judgments are cloudy and confused at best.
One suggestion in the meantime would be to keep a scrapbook of entries of your sense of loss and frustration with your situation, write a monthly entry expressing your love and prayers for a future relationship with him and his children (with or without his wife). Insert photos chronicling family events of him enjoying time with relatives and siblings that will be heartwarming when he comes to.
Once you have done everything in your power to have a peaceful and loving relationship with your daughter-in-law, back off, let your son come to you, he will if you had a close relationship before she came. Forgive her in your heart and pray for your son and grandchildren.