Dear Editor, 

I hate my in-laws, but particularly my mother-in-law. She’s awful. She is patronising and critical about everything I do – cooking, cleaning, raising my children. Even how I dress is not good enough for her! If she doesn’t butt out of my life soon, I am seriously taking my children and leaving.  HELP!

Dear reader,

Ah!  The in-law debacle.  One of those situations you hope will never arise, but for some of us, it can become our worst nightmare!

Marriage is about the merging of two people and two families and in-laws are always part of the deal. One in four women claim to ‘despise’ their mother-in-law, so when families blend, often friction walks in the door.  

There’s a belief by many that ‘the more positive vibes you send out to the universe, the same amount of positive vibes you get back.’ Much like if you are polite, respectful and kind to people, your life could be quite free of spats, conflict and arguments. That doesn’t mean they don’t happen – they will.

Behaviour begets behaviour. If you feel your in-laws are unkind and hurtful to you, doing that back to them is pointless. And anyway, you don’t want to have to stoop as low as that, do you?

Being a watcher of all things human over decades, I believe there are various reasons for unhelpful negative behaviour from your in-laws:

• They generally don’t believe that you are ‘good enough’ for their child. Who is, right?
• They are insecure and worried that you may ‘take their child’ away from them (to another state, country?) and so their fear appears as criticism and judgment.
• They have nothing to do with their lives but poke their noses elsewhere. Busy people don’t have the time to develop armies of criticism and rudeness. Often, we are too busy living our own best life and trying to thrive each day – and don’t have  time for unnecessary criticism.
• They were raised in a similar way – being critical and judgemental of others is ‘what we do in my family.’ What worked in their family, however, does not have to work in yours.

Some strategies you can try to work towards a good outcome:

• Respect that your in-laws have an attachment to your spouse
• Give it time to settle.  Let things calm down a bit
• Don’t expect to change your in-laws
• Watch your behaviour too.  Are you adding fuel to the fire?
• Call a meeting with your in-law (or laws).  Explain that you would like to have a positive relationship with them moving forward, and you would like to work out, together, and how do they think that can be achieved?
• Look for common ground 
• Don’t get heated or angry. Stay calm. Stay in control
• Let your spouse know where you are at with this issue – don’t block them out
• Work together to try and resolve the issue
• Agree to disagree and encourage them to speak freely
• Limit interactions if it gets heated or nasty
• Clarify expectations about your children regarding discipline and spoiling them, for example
• Prepare for the discussion. Work out beforehand on paper what you want to say to them. Have a beginning, middle and end, on a sheet of paper, and outline what you want to say in each. Start with a positive beginning, highlight the issues you would like to discuss (no more than two!) and use the assertive technique to position your message
• Keep your vocal tone calm. Don’t get angry. Never shrill
• Create circuit breakers to take ‘time out’ from the discussion. When it is getting heated, stop the conversation and have a break. Say something like ‘It feels like we could both do with a coffee so I’ll go and make some.’ That’s a circuit breaker

The Assertive Technique (I statement)

Use the technique below that is used around the world

The event: When you ….

The response …I feel…..

The outcome….. So please could you/we……

In the future…. What I would like is …..