“How to have a good relation with your mother in law” – Has this question been concerning you for a while? If yes, you’ve come to the right blog.
In order to achieve a good relationship with your mother in law, it is important that you stop going over the top. Also, stop expecting so much. Practice my highly recommended 9 suggestive secrets.
How to Have a Good Relation with Your Mother in Law?
With the world transforming rapidly, mindsets need to change as well. And so, it’s time to move past the stereotypes surrounding mothers in law and daughters in law.
Having a sound relationship with your mother in law isn’t as hard. What is hard is to accept that she and you can actually gel well as individuals.
Let me share with you 9 secrets that will help you bond well with your mother in law.
| 1. Present Yourself Exactly As You Are the First Time You Meet Your MIL.
She needs to accept you the way you are including your flaws because she has them as well. |
| 2. Stop Seeking Approval From Your Mother in Law
Seeking external validation from her will make her look down on you and then you won’t bond at all. |
| 3. Don’t Expect Your MIL to Be Your Mother
Accept your mother in law as your husband’s mom and not as your mother because she isn’t. |
| 4. Start Your Relationship With Your MIL As You Would With Any New Person
Stop pressurising yourself by going over the top to impress her. Stay you and let the bonding happen organically. |
| 5. Take Positive Advice From Your MIL Objectively
Not everything that your mother in law says is to demean you. So don’t overthink when she sincerely offers advice. |
| 6. Do Not Put Your Mother in Law Down Unnecessarily
Putting people down is never good and so why pin your husband’s mom unnecessarily and disrupt your bonding. |
| 7. Your Mother in Law’s Envy Towards You Should Be Handled By Her And Not You
If your mother in law is displaying signs of envy, she alone should deal with it and come out evolved so as to gel with you. |
| 8. Communicate Your Stance Better to Your MIL
It is better to have an average but respectable relationship with your mother in law by communicating your actual stance on things than to pretend to be best pals. |
| 9. Accept Your Husband’s Mother As a Normal Human Being
Trust me, if you do this you won’t burn yourself out and will understand her better. |
Let me elaborate all these points one by one.
Present Yourself Exactly As You Are the First Time You Meet Your MIL
As a woman, you are your own unique being. You have a distinct personality that should bloom with time. Now if you mask that personality just to impress your mother in law the first time you meet her, trust me you’re in for trouble.
Remember, it is better to have an average but respectful relationship with your mother in law than to pretend to get along and burn your own ‘self’ out.
Pretence is the worst thing to have between your mother in law and you. Just be the way you are because to mask your true personality just because a person who has ‘just’ entered your life is unfair to you.
If you mask your true self there will come a time when you will vent it all out to your mother in law. And that will be bitter and burn down your relationship. So start your relationship smoothly by being you.
I mean do you really feel that by changing yourself, you will bond with your mother in law? Hell no!!
Stop Seeking Approval From Your Mother in Law
The first secret to have a beautiful organic relation with your mother in law is to stop seeking validation. By doing so, you are digging a grave for yourself. Reason being, you are putting your own unique identity under the rug to ‘fit’ yourself well with her.
The words in an article below by Life Coach and Psychologist Sara Couch should ring a bell.
By trying to ‘fit in’ you will expect that she bonds with you but she won’t because you’ve given her the upper hand in your overall dynamic. You’ve let go off your own personality and have conformed. Never do this.
What you need to do is to allow her to accept you the way you are no matter how much time it takes.
You need to establish a dynamic with her that dwells on equality. Sounds hard ? Well it is because of societal conditioning. But you need to practice it anyway.
You decide whether you want to give up your unique personality just to fit in OR actually create an organic bond where you two might not be best friends but at least respectful.
Don’t Expect Your MIL to Be Your Mother
As harsh as this may sound but your mother in law is not your mother. Sure, you want to expect in an ideal world that she is but no she isn’t. And this is not something to criticise. This is a plain fact.
When I say your mother in law isn’t your mum, I don’t imply she’s bad. If you assumed that, well that is on you. What I implied was that can you really expect a person who has just entered your life to be your mother. Like really?
What about all the late nights your own mother has spent with you when you were ill?
What about all the ups and downs that you’ve faced with your mum?
What about the years and years spent to establish rock solid bonding ?
And what about the thousands of sacrifices that she made just so that you can be ‘you’?
If the day comes when your mother in law actually does all these things for you and actually treats you as her child, then put her on the same pedestal as your own mother. Till then, don’t beat yourself up expecting her to be one.
Motherhood isn’t a role. It’s an instinct. So stop doing your own mom as well yourself a great disservice by making a new woman your mom.
Instead of trying to find your mother in your mother in law, just accept her for who she is as a woman. And you will bond with her appropriately.
Start Your Relationship With Your MIL As You Would With Any New Person
Has it ever occurred to you that had you bumped in your mother in law as a regular person in life, you two would never have an issue.
However, the fact that societal tags have been put alongside your identities (i.e mother in law and daughter in law) makes your relationship hard.
Therefore, start your relationship organically and don’t try extra hard to meet expectations. I mean what expectations are we talking about here anyways? The expectations put on women’s head by patriarchy or by societal stereotypes?
It is so ironical that society labels a relationship between two women as hard even though the same society tries to create all possible wedges.
And so, just start your relationship like you would with any normal being. Don’t make the ‘in law’ tag as pressuring on you.
Take Positive Advice From Your MIL Objectively
As a daughter in law, if you want your mother in law to bond with you then you can’t just expect her to be objective. You need to be an objective individual as well.
And in the light of this, whenever your mother in law suggests a quality piece of advice to you, take it. At least hear her out.
Do not assume that you’re being advised because your mother in law doubts your intelligence. She is just reaching out and actually trying to help.
So create a mental space where you accept quality advice just like you would from anyone else.
Do Not Put Your Mother in Law Down Unnecessarily
Putting people down isn’t a good habit to pursue. And surely not a good thing when it comes to addressing the question of how to have a good relation with your mother in law.
By putting your mother in law down on several aspects, you won’t come out as a winner yourself. On the contrary, you will create a gap between your mother in law and yourself.
And so, if you actually want to create a good dynamic, accept her and respect her as an individual. And she should do the same to you as well.
Your Mother in Law’s Envy Towards You Should Be Handled By Her And Not You
As sad as this may sound, many times mothers in law tend to get envious of daughters in law. This is disappointing. However, you as a daughter in law are not responsible for this behaviour.
Your mother in law will have to work this out on her own because she started it. By the way, there are 23 warning signs that are indicative of a mother in law being jealous.
Every time you feel envy from your mother in law, stop burning yourself out over her behaviour. She needs to handle this on her own and bridge all emotional gaps with you.
Communicate Your Stance Better to Your MIL
Whatever you feel or believe in should be shared by with your mother in law exactly as it is without filtering. The less you filter your stance, the more clearly she will understand you.
There might be a possibility that she rejects your stance. However is that so bad? I mean would you change your stance for anyone else in life? Then why her?
Give your relationship some time and she will understand one thing – She might not agree with you but she’ll respect your honesty.
Accept Your Husband’s Mother As a Normal Human Being
Last but not the least, an important point on how to have a good relation with your mother in law is to just accept her as a normal human being. Trust me, if you can do it, things will be a lot smoother between you two.
By tackling her differently just because she happens to be your husband’s mom, you are actually putting her on a pedestal and putting yourself down.
Also, you are unconsciously enabling the sort of psyche in her where she feels superior. This isn’t good for you two bonding because you won’t feel as equals.
Therefore, you’ve got to learn to accept her as a normal human being – with both strengths and weaknesses. Just because she is your MIL does’t make her either a monster or a saint.
Her actions alone will govern what she is as a person.
| Bonding with a mother in law and daughter in law doesn’t have to be hard. So please stop making it complex. And for heaven’s sake stop fixing things on your own alone as if everything is your fault.
The onus of a relationship lies on ALL people who are a part of it. Therefore, shift the onus to improvise the relationship to your mother in law as well. Let things plan out organically. |
Next time you encounter the question of how to have a good relation with your mother in law, just breathe. Assert yourself honestly and stop burning yourself out.
This relationship like all others needs to develop organically.