Difficult In-Laws:
How To Stop Controlling Behavior Without Confrontation
When In-laws Interfere
If you have been struggling to try to improve your relationship with a difficult in-law you know how painful having to put up with an overbearing or controlling extended family member can be. Although abusive in-laws can create terrible problems for adult children, those who control or manipulate in more subtle ways can have a very negative effect as well.
Because few people want to get into a confrontation with a disrespectful family member, they often feel helpless to try to create healthy changes in these relationships. But when adult children don’t put up the necessary boundaries that remind their in-laws that they are adults in their own right, they often find their in-law’s parental grip on them is too comfortable a pattern for them to let go of on their own.
What most people wish they had is a way to stop the controlling, manipulating or even abusive behaviors without risking the relationship. Although this may seem impossible to achieve, you are about to find out that there is a way to stop the negative behavior without disturbing your standing with your in-law.
The method you will be using is from the Nicola Method, which is a series of non-confrontational techniques that work to lower conflict in any relationship. You will be given language that has been developed to work behind the scenes to allow you to change your relationship with your in-law into a respectful one, even if your in-law has been acting out towards you for years.
But before you learn how to stop the negative behaviors of your in-law, let’s take a quick look at why they behave the way they do.
Can They Help It?
Many people wonder if their in-law could control themselves if they wanted to. This is not an easy question to answer. They could stop this behavior, but controlling other people is a psychologically addictive behavior. This means that once they start using control of others to make things go their way, they probably won’t stop on their own.
What Makes Them Do It?
Some people want to know why in-laws would want to treat them so poorly. Here are a few of the temptations controlling in-laws find so hard to resist:
1. It makes them feel strong and powerful.
2. They get to do things their way.
3. It makes their family life more comfortable for them.
4. It gives them better access to your spouse.
Although there are benefits, those who use control over others end up paying a high price. Trying to control someone is a surefire way to erase any goodwill and in many cases will destroy a relationship with a well-meaning daughter or son-in-law.
How Do They Do It?
Now let’s take a look at the method your in-law uses to try to control you. The way most in-laws control you is indirectly, by making comments that show they do not approve of your choices in hopes that you will do things their way instead.
Some in-laws control indirectly and some do it in very obvious ways. But there is one thing that all controlling in-laws have in common. They break rules of relationships by trying to get you to live life according to them. When an in-law tries to get you to live life according to their beliefs, here is the unspoken but very important rule that they are breaking.
How To Stop Controlling Behavior Using The Nicola Method
The technique you will be using to stop controlling behavior is from the Nicola Method, a series of techniques developed to give you language that takes you behind other peoples’ defenses. The sentences provided here are ones developed for use with controlling people. They have been modified slightly to work with controlling in-laws. Let’s take a look at one of these sentences.
In the following scenario, a mother-in-law is pretending to help her daughter-in-law but is really trying to get her to do things her way. The daughter feels that what her mother-in-law is implying is that she is not a very good cook.
She will use the sentence from the Nicola Method, “When you said that it seemed like you thought…” and then add the words, “I wasn’t a very good cook,” to the end of the sentence like this:
MOTHER-IN-LAW: When I bake those kind of cookies, I always keep them in the oven for three minutes longer. That way they don’t fall down in the middle like yours always do.
RESPONSE: When you said that it seemed like you thought I wasn’t a very good cook.
There are a few possible endings to this scenario. She will either take back the insult by telling her daughter-in-law she didn’t mean it that way or she may change the subject out of embarrassment. Either way she will have learned her lesson and will think twice before making a comment like that again.
Let’s go over that sentence one more time.
“When you said that it seemed like you thought…”
Then add what you think the real insult was,“I wasn’t a very good cook.”
It is very important that you say the first part of the sentence the way it is written here. You would not want to say, “Are you calling me a bad cook?” You also don’t want to say, “When you said that you were really saying I was a bad cook.” Both of these versions are confrontational and will cause conflict.
The exact sentence construction developed for just this situation when said in a casual tone of voice will stop the conflict and get your mother-in-law to take back the insult in a way that other sentences will not.
This simple sentence might not seem at first glance like it has enough power to stop controlling behavior, so to give you a better understanding, let’s take a closer look at how it does its job.
In order to zero in on the mechanics of this technique, we need to take a look at several types of controlling in-laws, each with a different motivation. We will be looking at three of the most common types to see how each of them reacts to the sentence you will be using to stop a subtle or indirectly controlling in-law.
The In-Law Who Just Can’t Resist
1. The mother-in-law who just can’t resist telling you what you should do was probably frustrated because she believes her cookies are good, and you should want yours to be good too. She knows she shouldn’t meddle, but she can’t help letting the comment slip out.
When you suggest she may have been thinking you were a bad cook, she will realize how her comment sounded from the outside and feel honestly remorseful. She will probably take back the insult or re-frame it in a more tactful way. When you use this sentence every time she slips, she will become more aware and learn to restrain herself from this type of behavior.
The Heat of the Moment In-Law
2. The mother-in-law who insulted you in the heat of the moment probably has issues of her own that affect how she feels about you. She may have insecurity and problems with self-esteem that leave her chronically irritated.
Let’s say she notices a small flaw in your cookies. Insecure people often turn against weakness in others in an attempt to distance themselves from their own weakness. However, she may just as easily have been in a foul mood and was simply taking it out on you.
When you use your sentence with the heat of the moment in-law you will simply be calling her on her rudeness. When you call her on it she will probably admit that you aren’t a bad cook. She may even tell you she was in a bad mood and didn’t mean anything by it.
The Monster-in-Law
3. The third in-law is a woman sometimes referred to as the monster-in-law. Although she may not be a monster, she does have some very serious issues. She may be involved in a conscious campaign to destroy your self-esteem and possibly your relationship with your spouse as well.
When you use the sentence with her, she will not want to expose her true motives to you. She will probably simply change the subject. However, when you use this sentence each time she tries to attack your self-esteem, she will abandon that particular tactic.
Here are a few more real-life scenarios that will show you how to use the sentence, “When you said that it seemed like you thought…” to stop controlling behavior of your in-law:
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Well, I see you decided to go for a “casual” look tonight.
RESPONSE: When you said that it seemed like you thought I didn’t know to dress myself appropriately for social occasions.
Again, the in-law who truly wants you to look as good as she does and can’t quite help saying a little something about it will realize that her comment was rude.
The in-law who was behaving in a condescending way due to insecurity will be called on her rudeness and will have to admit you didn’t deserve it.
The emotionally abusive in-law will not be willing to expose her real motives to you, and she will probably back away from the comment by changing the subject.
Here are a few more examples. This one is with a father-in-law.
FATHER-IN-LAW: I can see by your choice of jobs that money doesn’t matter to you.
RESPONSE: When you said that it seemed like you thought my profession might not be good enough to meet your standards.
People who use hidden insults are rarely brave enough stand behind them when they are brought out into the open. Chances are very high he will take it back.
Here is another one:
FATHER-IN-LAW: I see you are using that “free” child-raising style I have been hearing about.
RESPONSE: When you said that it seemed like you thought I wasn’t doing a good job disciplining my children.
Again, if you put them in a position where they have to admit to what they were implying, they will usually do some serious back-pedaling.
Here is another example with a mother-in-law.
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Wow, it looks like you used Shabby Chic to decorate in here.
RESPONSE: When you said that it seemed like you thought the furniture we bought makes us look poor.
She may have been thinking it, but she probably wouldn’t dare make that kind of insult to your face.
Getting Started
If your in-law is an indirect controller like the ones we have been discussing, you will use the sentence: “When you said that it seemed like you thought,” and then add on what you think she was really saying. The best way to get used to using this sentence is to write down your in-law’s past controlling comments to you and then for each insult figure out what they were really saying and write as the second half of your sentence.
When you have a sentence for each insult, you will have a blueprint for how to stop controlling behavior because most controlling in-laws use the same type of insults each time they control.
In order to help you with your sentence endings, here are some examples to get you started:
“When you said that it seemed like you thought…”
“I wasn’t a very good daughter-in-law.”
“I wasn’t doing a good job raising my son.”
“I didn’t have very good taste in party decorations.”
“I didn’t care about dressing my daughter warmly.”
“I didn’t know how to take care of my finances.”
“I am not a competent businessperson.”
“I am not a responsible person.”
“I don’t know how to take care of myself.”
“I am not very intelligent.”
“I am not a caring person.”
If you want a sentence that you can simply memorize and use while you are learning how to make your own, here is a fully formed catch-all phrase that will let you stop controlling behavior in almost any situation. In fact, you may very well find out that by the time you are ready to use your own sentences your in-law has stopped the controlling behavior entirely just with the use of this catch-all phrase.
Here is the sentence you can memorize and use by itself while you are learning how to make your own:
“When you said that it seemed like you thought I did something wrong.”
To show you how this sentence works, here are the same scenario we have already looked at. This time we will use the catch-all phrase, “When you said that it seemed like you thought I did something wrong.”
MOTHER-IN-LAW: When I bake those kind of cookies, I always keep them in the oven for three minutes longer. That way they don’t fall down in the middle like yours always do.
RESPONSE: When you said that it seemed like you thought I did something wrong.
You will find the catch-all sentence works perfectly well until you come up with your own phrases.
How To Stop A Controlling In-Law Who Plays Hardball
Although most in-laws use the indirect method to control, there are a few who are willing to control you outright. These in-laws don’t care if they are following the rules. Their type calls for a stronger type of sentence. If your in-law has no qualms about telling you directly that you are doing things wrong when you don’t do things their way, here is the sentence you will use. This sentence should only be used with the toughest in-laws, those who aren’t afraid to issue you a direct order:
“When you said that it seemed like you thought I should do things your way instead of mine.”
Be sure to try to say it very casually and only use it on these very aggressive types of controller. This sentence loses its power with indirect controllers and can cause conflict.
In-Laws Who Use Controlling Actions
The last type of in-law we will be discussing is the one that uses actions instead of words. When your in-law makes decisions for you that only you should be making, you can use this sentence. Here is the first part:
“It seems like you made the decision for me…”
Then end the sentence with whatever decision they made for you. Here are a few examples:
When your mother-in-law buys a present from you to your spouse you can say:
“It seems like you made the decision for me on what I should get my husband for his birthday.”
When your father-in-law gives your teen-aged son who just got his license a car without discussing it with you you can say:
“It seems like you made the decision for me as to whether my son should be driving his own car or not.”
If your in-law asked you where you wanted to go for your birthday and then took you to their favorite restaurant instead you can say:
“It seems like you made the decision for me which restaurant I should go to for my birthday.”
Now that you have been given a sentence for all of the types of in-law controllers, it is up to you to figure out which sentence is right to use with your in-law. To make it easier let’s go through a quick review that will show you which sentence is the right one for your situation.
How to Stop Controlling Behavior – Review
Take a moment to think about which type of controlling your in-law engages in. If they engage in more than one type of control, start with one and then move to the other after you have mastered the first sentence.
Is your in-law controlling you with:
1. Indirect comments that imply you should do things their way.
2. Direct comments to tell you outright you should do things their way.
3. Actions they take to try to force you to do things their way.
The Indirect Controller:If you chose the first type of in-law, the indirect controller who uses subtle put-downs, use this sentence and then add what you think they are implying.
Start with: “When you said that it seemed like you thought…”
Tack on to the end of the sentence whatever they were implying such as “When you said that it seemed like you thought I wasn’t a very good cook,” or, ”I wasn’t any good with money,” or, “I am not a responsible person.”
While you are learning how to make your own sentences use this pre-made one which you can memorize and say any time they make a controlling comment:
“When you said that it seemed like you thought I did something wrong.”
The Direct Controller
If your in-law tries to control you directly by telling you what to do, use this sentence each time they make a comment. Remember, this sentence is only for direct controllers:
“When you said that it seemed like you thought I should do things your way instead of mine.”
The Extreme Controller
If your in-law takes your decisions into their own hands as a way of controlling you, simply say:
“It seemed like you made the decision for me that…”
Then add what they decided for you such as, “It seemed like you made the decision for me to get my hair cut,” when they tell you they scheduled an appointment for you or, “It seemed like you made the decision for me that my daughter is responsible enough to own a dog,” when they show up with a live birthday present without discussing it with you.
Final Words
You now have all the tools you need to stop a controlling in-law in their tracks. The only guidelines you need to remember are do not use derogatory words in the second part of your sentence. In other words, make sure you don’t say, “When you said that it seemed like you thought I was a bum,” or a slob or stupid or a jerk. These highly-charged words can start conflict, and you do need to steer clear of them.
If your in-laws’ behavior goes beyond simply being controlling and you feel they may be abusive, please refer to the techniques shown in my four-part series Can We Stop Emotional Abuse.
Related Posts:
What The Emotional Abuser Knows That We Don’t And How It Can Hurt Us
How To Stop Emotional Abuse Through Learning The Games Abusers Play
Defense Mechanisms Part 2: How To Stop Defensive Behavior
Defense Mechanisms: When We Hurt Those We Care About
Disarming Defense Mechanisms Triggered By Shame
Defense Mechanisms Triggered By Humiliation
If you would like to learn the Nicola Method so you can put an end to the high conflict situations you may be experiencing, click on this link to the welcome page of this website where you will find the resources you need.
If you want to try out some of the basic techniques of this method for free to see if this method is right for your situation, you can learn them from an intro guide flip-book here or a PDF version of the intro guide here.
This was very insightful. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. I had tried this technique with my in laws. Mil implied I was selfish in a decision about moving. I replied, “it seems like you think that I’m an inconsiderate wife”. She then said confidently and proudly, “yes, I do”. I replied that it’s unpleasant to be around someone that thinks you’re inconsiderate. How would you handle someone that arrogant?
You certainly got your MIL to show her true colors and say what she was really feeling in a direct instead of a controlling and manipulative way. I think your response to her was very appropriate.
However, if you wanted to take things further with an in-law who is willing to be as outright insulting as your MIL seems to be, what you could do next is tell her that you have been thinking about your earlier conversation and because being a considerate wife is extremely important to you, you would like to know what it is that makes her feel you are inconsiderate.
Then encourage her to tell you her entire belief system of how wives should treat their spouse in this area, even if what she is telling you seems quite off the wall. But continue to treat her beliefs as perfectly valid and understandable. Continue to encourage her until you have gotten her to elaborate on her entire philosophy of how wives should treat their spouses in this area.
Then let her know you understand her beliefs on the subject and they make sense to you, but your beliefs are different. Then let her know your beliefs on why you think your behavior is considerate.
This reinforces the important understanding that she has every right to her opinions but the only person who will be deciding the appropriate way to behave in your life is you. If she tries to get you to go along with her belief system just say you will have to respectfully agree to disagree.
If she continues this behavior with you and you feel she is purposefully trying to hurt you, you can use the techniques I recommend in my blog series on stopping emotional abuse.
Joanna,
This read was very insightful. I have read several things over the Internet lately, but yours has been so direct to the point and practical.
I’ve been married for just over 6 months, but when I got engaged my MIL kept trying to control parts of the wedding planning. Eventually I stood up to her and explained she wasn’t paying for the wedding and the location would not accommodate all of her additional guests. From that point she would go through her son to try and convince me of her way. Things have improved since her son and I married and live on our own, but several times my MIL has went behind my back and spoken all these negative things to my husband via texts and phone calls. Some of which say I am being controlling, keeping him from his family, I run the show, etc. It’s gotten pretty ugly. When she wants to see her son, she contacts him directly and usually my husband is the one to come talk to me. She also texts him A LOT reminding him she loves him, he’s welcome any time to come to her house, and that he’s the light of their life. I’m just at a loss of words and dreading anything dealing with my in-laws. Any advice?
There may not be too much I can suggest. You did a great job in setting your boundaries, not an easy thing to do with a controlling in-law. But confrontation often means fallout, which is what you are dealing with now. The non-confrontational method I teach was developed in order to set boundaries while still preserving this very delicate relationship. As you have found out, when controlling people are stopped from using defensive tactics through confrontation, they get extremely uncomfortable. But her new tactics show clearly the securities driving her behavior. She is afraid you are taking her son away from her, a very normal fear.
You have some options to ease the tension. You can start a campaign to make her a part of your lives. This means calling frequently just to see how she is, acting friendly even if she is not, inviting her for meals or lunches out, and basically treating her like she is the mother-in-law that you would want. This way you never have to talk about the incident itself. Or you could have a sit down with her and you tell her that your relationship with her is very important to you, and you want to make sure that she feels like she is a part of your lives. You may want to tell her you regret you getting off on the wrong foot initially. Be sure this is not an apology but just that you wish those interactions hadn’t caused difficulty between you. It may take some work on your part before her insecurity about you taking her son away from her eases.
Is your MIL married? I do not get why these controlling narcissistic people don’t find satisfaction in their own life and their own spouse. My mother did not do any of this, and I wasn’t the light of her life. My dad was the light of her life. Geeze! Can someone, or a narcissist, answer why this happens? These controlling people seem to have nothing better to do with their time. Go love your own spouse, please!!
Thank you!!! Amen!!! Like get a life of your own!!! Especially if you’re an empty nester (kids are all out of the house)…this tine should be used to get to the next chapter of your lives!!! Which is focusing on you and your husband and retirement and planning cruises and getting close and intimate with your spouse becasue you have both spent majority of your lives tending to children…i dont get why parents dont do this!!! They ezpect thwir adult or married children tonbe responsible for their happiness!! Like get a hobby!!! And focus your energy on yourself!! Uuugh!!
Hi,
My PIL are very controlling and abusive and come to the conclusion that I will never win them over.
I have known them for over 12 years and to this day have never been to our house for lunch, dinner, brunch even a cup of tea while I am home. They live only 500m away !
They have sworn in front of the kids to me, talked badly about me behind my back and hate my whole family, even though they have met them probably twice.
If I knew why I would tell you though I don’t really know except that my family was not high enough in the social/wealth ladder that they would have hoped for. They are extremely reclusive with no friends and never go away on holidays even they are retired with no financial restrictions.
My wife takes them to their house most mornings and afternoons from school to do music. She grew up under a very strict regime of playing violin for 4 hours a day. This is how they want all my kids to grow up, even though they aren’t necessarily suited personality wise to this activity. My boys are very active and love sport yet is not encouraged. Even their school work takes a very distant back seat to their instruments. If I go to see my family, my wife goes into meltdown for about a fortnight, even though her parents see the kids the whole time.
It is extremely stressful. I once managed to convince my wife to see a counsellor who immediately commented that her parents are controlling and abusive after hearing the whole history. That was the last time my wife went and will no longer see a third party.
We have 3 lovely kids that I adore. I am a good Dad and fear that if I am not around her parents will take over and poison them. I forgot to add that they lived in another city before we had kids so didn’t know that they would be like this. I could see they were different though nothing like this…..
What do I do ?
David, because your in-laws are being controlling in a roundabout way through your wife, it is actually your wife that you need to work with to help you set appropriate boundaries with your in-laws.
You would need to have a discussion about why she thinks that much music is important for children who are not interested. You also need to get your wife to agree it’s very important for the kids to see your family as well as her family. Because she is very sensitive about it, you would need to keep the focus of the discussion off her parents. The discussions should only be around what you both think is good for the kids. You will probably need to use the techniques from the Introduction to the Nicola Method on my website to make sure these discussions with your wife remain conflict-free and don’t result in any more melt-downs.
If your in-laws do badmouth you again, you can use the techniques in this blog post to get them to take back the insults if you can get them to sit down with you after the fact.
Hi Nicola
Thank you for the help. I am a 31 year old woman with a man my own age. His mother has successfully chased off five other woman and I recently went to spend time in their hometown with them and realized I have the dreaded monster in law. I was engaged to my partner whom I have dated for a while and been friends with for four years prior to that and I love him deeply. She has made his life and mine so miserable by giving him the choice between him or me. I honestly do not know what I did to upset her. Upon contacting the other girls on Facebook it seemed as though they had EXACTLY the same thing the difference being he let his mother ruin those relationships but she has made this happy time for us a competition. His father warned me when we were alone that she is destructive, abusive and controlling to the point they can only keep plastic cups and plates in the home as she has thrown them all on the family during fits of irrational rage when she does not get her own way. Her children are terrified of her next move and her husband, who is so emotionally damaged by now, goes with the flow to keep the peace. She cannot produce anything concrete as to what is wrong with me but has manipulated the father and sibling to her plight against me.the family has him at the point he was ready to take his own life. And it just seems like they are trying to do everything possible to stop the wedding to the point she threatened to cause such a scene at the wedding she will make sure we don’t marry. I gave his the ring back and said I cannot live with your family. He responded by cutting them off totally but I will not be engaged until he can make the terrible choice his family, who claim to be outstanding Christians, have given him. They punish him by name calling both of us, cutting us off, I was recently fired from my job as an anonymous caller called with false allegations and the company said they cannot take the risk.
When he was visiting them I spoke to his father about an ailment he has and she reacted so violently treating to drive off a cliff.
I have arranged therapy for us both as a couple and as individuals and have sent endless contacts apologizing for any wring doing they felt I did. I realize this is not my fault but the fault of a control freak. She went through my belongings when I was there, called me by his ex girlfriends name you name it. Now she has set her sights on her poor son whom she has isolated his entire life. He asked her if she is not willing to try and make peace for his sake and she told him in strong language that she would rather see him dead than that.
I am a nice young girl who has never been disliked by anyone so this has come as a real shock to the system. But I am also a strong character and I feel she perhaps felt I am taking her son away.
Nichola, at this point I don’t know if I should walk away from the man I truly love as I am breaking under the stress to the point I have had a miscarriage or if I should continue as now I am his only lifeline. I have a bad feeling about this and cannot foresee a happily ever after with this woman being around if he buckles and allows her back. It is abuse and he has lived with this his whole life. My family feel that she will become more destructive once marriage and babies re in the picture
What do I do?
Cecile, you are in a difficult position, and I am glad to hear you have a supportive family to help you get through this and more importantly that you are seeing a therapist. Although you may be a very strong person, this situation is truly more than anyone could handle by themselves. In cases like this of extreme abuse it’s very important that you rely on the guidance of a therapist.
I just have to say if you are still young enough to have children and marry a different man, you might want to leave. Can you imagine the awful situation you are going to be in if you have children with this toxic woman as your mother in law? If you decide not to have children, it will be easier to be in the marriage as you simply stay home and your husband can visit his parents alone. I understand you love your husband. But this is a very, very toxic situation.
Hello, I found your article be very insightful. I am confused on which category my controlling and abusive MIL( although it is really whole family in law) would be. It seems her behavior jumps between 1,2 and 3. His family constantly calls him complaining that I have hurt them, I hate them, that I won’t let them see my daughter enough (they rarely come to us to see her.) It cause him a great deal of pain and neither one of us sleep much now. The latest event that has put me over the edge is that my MIL has told us that if we have our daughter 1st birthday party on her birthday we will single handedly cause a “rift in the family” because they have a church picnic that day and refuse to miss it to come to our daughters birthday. I feel trapped, like I am not allowed to make decisions for my family without “destroying” his. Now my baby hs to suffer by not being able to celebrate her birthday on her special day. When I suggested having 2 parties one on her bday and one that they can make it to she shut that down as well claiming that I am trying to isolate her family that way. I am confused in this situation which phrase to use with her. Thanks!
You are dealing with a pretty extreme situation here. Since your husband’s family is limiting their communication to your husband you aren’t going to be able to diffuse these situations with non-confrontational language from the blog post.
But you do have some choices on how to proceed. The conventional choice is for you to learn how to set boundaries for yourself and to live the way you think is right for your family without letting these threats influence your decisions.
Your husband’s family does not play by the accepted social rules. Because you play fair, it allows them to run the entire show. So you would need to stop playing nice and practice ignoring their threats and manipulation in the same way you would with a young child. Not giving in to threats over time trains them that they can’t use these tactics with you.
If she does communicate with you the kind of language you would use against threats or attempts at control would be, “I’m sorry you feel that way. I respect your opinion but I am going to be taking care of my families needs in the way that I think is right.” You can advise your husband to just tell her that he’s very sorry she feels that way. This method is somewhat confrontational. But if they are willing to cut your family off over a child’s birthday party, you really never had a chance in the first place.
If you want to proceed in a non-confrontational way, my second recommendation is to ask for a one-on-one discussion where you and your MIL sit down for a formal talk. The talk would consist of you telling her you are very concerned that she thinks that you might keep her away from her son and grandchild.
You would then tell her that it’s very important to you that you keep the extended family in your lives and you would be very upset if you found out you had been excluding them. Then you would ask her to tell you what it is that is making her feel that way.
You can then listen to everything she says and keep asking her to tell you more. If she accuses you of ridiculous things, simply ask her how she feels you should have behaved instead. You will be interviewing her for her opinions on how you should behave in as thorough a way as you can.
When she has told you all of her beliefs, you thank her for telling you and let her know that you respect her beliefs about how a daughter in law should behave. You then tell her how you think a daughter in law should behave. This is your opportunity to state all of your beliefs about how a daughter in law should treat extended family with emphasis on the fact that although you will never exclude them, you believe that the immediate family should always come first and any other thoughts you have on this matter.
If she wants to tell you why that’s wrong or bad, switch back to interviewing her until she gets all of her opinions out. Then when she is done, again thank her for letting you know, tell her you respect her opinion, and then once again tell her what your beliefs are in those areas.
This will set the groundwork for the lesson she must learn which is that she has the right to have any belief that she wants about how you should behave, but that you have your beliefs as well and when it comes to your family, you will be following what you believe.
Hello Joanna,
I really appreciate your article. Unfortunately, I may have found it too late. I’ve been married a year now and throughout this time my mother in law has tried everything she can to control myself and my husband’s lives. She has secret conversations with my husband in which she will tell him how I make terrible decisions regarding our finances, my home decor, my weight, my encouraging my husband to pursue a career outside of the state into an area with more opportunity and even our travels. I didn’t know she was tearing me apart in these meetings as my husband, the ever peacemaker, filtered what she said to make her appear pleasant. However, a lot of what she says has come to light since with time and she’s becoming more pushy and open with how she feels. One instance: she pushes old furniture they keep in storage ( It’s from a family member’s passing) on us because she doesn’t like my own decor as it’s “too uncomfortable.” I mentioned just wanting to save up for something new and she told my spouse I always want to buy new things and I waste money. Once in a meal we mentioned going to visit my family 7 hours away and she told us she thought we shouldn’t go see them because we spend money. (We have always paid our bills and never asked them for help.) They pushed us to move into their rent house right beside them that’s in a bad area and where they were actively trying to move out of until they decided to push us to move in my them (thankfully we had to wait for alot of remodeling so we haven’t moved in yet). After enduring comments such as these for almost a year, I finally confronted her after my husband came home from one such “secret” meeting. But as I was sick with a stomach bug at the time, I sent it in a text message. Basically I laid out the things my husband had said she said and told her why I felt like she was wrong. Example: As for the sofas in storage, I honestly don’t like them and we don’t have room for them right now.
I told her it hurt me they had secret meetings about me and anything she had to tell my husband she could tell me. Her response was “Fine. I’ll tell you but you may not like me very well in the future. There’s a reason they are for my son’s ears only! ” She then sent me text after text telling me how I waste our money, how we spend our time, how they bought stuff for us but won’t do something in return for said things (they were gifts.) how I only want to help my family but never hers etc etc. My husband finally came to my rescue and kindly explained to her how what she said hurt us. She told my husband she didn’t take kindly to being “reprimanded by a young person”. And she only kept attacking until we quit responding. After 3 days of total silence, my husband and I decided to have a meeting with them to try and lay out some boundaries and to forgive and move on. The meeting was a disaster. First off, my husband (the peacemaker) thought it’d be best for his mother and I to hug it out. So when we all arrived he pulled us together to hug. From there, I let him talk as I’d already made a mess of things with my confronting text. With every boundary he tried to lay out, she had a sarcastic remark to make fun of them. Example: Husband: “Mother, we really appreciate everything you guys have done for us but we really need to learn how to make it on our own.” MIL: “Ok. Fine! I won’t tell y’all how to save money. So y’all won’t be moving in right next to me, now, huh? So I can’t always be in y’alls business! *sarcastic laugh* That’s fine. I figured you wouldn’t anyway.” She sat through the entire meeting either making rude comments, telling me how she ran things for my husband or glaring at us with her arms crossed. My FIL kept telling us we were being very disrespectful and he wasn’t taking kindly to us talking to his wife that way especially since she has cancer. (She does have cancer but she’s been feeling great and the Dr’s say it hasn’t grown for a year now.) The entire meeting we were made to feel terrible for our boundaries and for telling our MIL to please back off because she was sick or because she and my husband have always been so close. My husband has spent his entire life doing absolutely everything his mother wanted and told him to do. And if he dared do anything different, she’d try a manipulation tactic. It’s been his job to keep her happy 24/7 and heed her every beck and call. He even felt like he had to call on our honeymoon so they could keep tabs on us.
I just don’t understand how to handle this. We haven’t spoken to my in laws since the meeting 4 days ago. I feel like, no matter what we say or do, she won’t allow my husband to be a grown up. My husband is an only child and his mother had him at 40 so he spent most of his life very spoiled. He can’t pursue the job he wants where he wants, he can’t spend or use his own money, he can’t have a savings account on his own without their all seeing eyes, he just now got insurance in his name separate from his parents he can barely use the computer without his mother leaning over him, every time we come over she spends a while hugging on him and kissing him but when I do she tells us to stop, he still has a card with their personal bank account they gave him just in case he needs money (I’ve told him to please never use it) and he’s still on their phone contract. I’m just so confused/stunned how to handle this.
Any help you can shed on this matter will really help. Thank you so much for reading this.
One more thing I failed to mention, I’ve tried to make sure we spend at least 1 day a week at my in laws. But we usually try to push for more as my MIL always complained about not seeing my husband enough. I tried to encourage my husband to take her out sometime on a special mother/son date and even sent her roses “just because” but it seems like no matter what, I am the enemy and I won’t allow my husband to see her more.
Julie, you and your husband have both done a fantastic job dealing with you mother-in-law. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you have established strong, clear and firm boundaries with her. Your text to her was exactly the move I would have recommended you make. And the next step you took to ask her to tell you when she had a problem instead of her husband is the step I would have recommended after that, including you then telling her your belief as to how you want to take care of your family, so well done.
Her behavior towards you is to be expected given her previous relationship with your husband. And you are both right on time in starting to set the necessary boundaries. My prediction is if you both continue to treat her well, keeping up weekly visits and having your husband continue to do special things for her that she will slowly calm down and accept her son’s new place in her life without any more confrontational episodes. Most people do not have the strength to stand up to a confrontational mother in law, but you two are doing a beautiful job making a united front to protect your marriage.
If things do not calm down, my next recommendation would be that you simply take her up again on your invitation to tell you all the things she thinks you are doing wrong. This is most easily accomplished in a formal sit down meeting with just you and your MIL where you ask her to tell you her beliefs on how a person should run their life. Keep encouraging her until she gets every last bit out of her system. Once she is finished telling you exactly what you should be doing, you thank her for letting you know her beliefs on how a daughter in law should behave. And then you do exactly what you did in your text to her the last time. Tell her in just as much detail how you believe your life should be run and why. This teaches her that everybody gets to have their opinions, but when it comes to your life, you will run it according to your beliefs. You may need to repeat this process over and over in a shortened less formal version where when she starts to criticize you personally or through your husband, you encourage her to get it all out, thank her, and then tell her your beliefs.
I truly appreciate your response Joanna. You’ve been an incredible help when I thought all hope was lost. Thank you so much for taking the time to read and response to my lengthy post!
Julie, I’m so glad I could help. Keep up the good work!
I would really appreciate some insight on my situation with my MIL. My husband and I have been together for a total of 9 years and married for 4 years. I am married to the oldest of her 3 boys. I have a very passive personality and tend to be a people pleaser, trying to avoid conflict, but now I have had it! My MIL is very controlling, manipulative and loves to be the center of attention. Every major milestone within my husband and my life has had drama created by my MIL. Examples: telling me that she “will be in the delivery room” when we first started dating (still no kids), a huge fight over the wedding guest list, when she wanted to invite his high school crush and her family and I said no, but then I had to give in to keep the peace…feeling unappreciated because she threw my bridal shower and I didn’t talk to her enough during the shower, decorating my house without my permission while I was at work and handing me a receipt for the things that she bought and getting her feelings hurt when I returned the items, going into our bedroom and going through my closet while I was at work and commenting how unorganized I am to my husband, reorganizing my kitchen and moving things to different areas without asking me, and setting aside a box of my duplicate cookware items to give to her other son without asking me first. Getting upset that I invited my friends to my graduation lunch, so she invited her friends to a dinner my parents planned without asking to get even. I constantly hear from my brother in law, who is currently living with us, the snide comments she makes about me. She nickels and dimes my husband and I for every family get together or outing that we attend, but she does not charge the other brothers. She calls my husband crying saying that she wants to be close with me, but I have found myself not wanting to have a relationship with her at all because I am so fed up with her behavior. My father in law will also lie for her to cover up. My husband says that she will not change and we have to accept her for who she is because she is set in her ways, and I have to try to be the better person, but I just can’t anymore. The whole family keeps her on a pedastool, and she always gets her way. I just can’t take it anymore and I am to the point where I do not want a relationship with her at all.
Irene, you do have options on how you want to deal with your controlling MIL. The methods I teach are for people who do not like confrontation, but certainly you could learn to set boundaries assertively which will over time “train” her to behave herself. I generally recommend non-confrontational methods because they let you preserve the relationship. Your MIL does what she does because no one ever says no to her. She is having a great time doing and saying whatever she wants, and will continue until someone calls her on her behavior.
Setting boundaries in a conventional way would mean assertively but calmly confronting her every time she oversteps. Non-confrontational setting of boundaries can be done using language that forces her to either admit to her wrongdoing or back off. I’m going to use the scenarios you have written to give you examples of how to word your response to her inappropriate behavior.
“It sounds like you think it’s appropriate for a person to be in the delivery room without being invited.”
She knows very well that this is socially unacceptable behavior and if she admits to it she will look like a bad person.
“It seems like you think it’s appropriate to invite someone to my wedding that I don’t feel comfortable having there.”
We all know it’s not okay. This forces her to admit to your face that she’s a bad person or to back off.
“It seems like you think it’s appropriate redecorate another person’s house and then hand them the bill for items they didn’t ask for.”
“It sounds like you think it’s appropriate to go through someone’s house when they’re not home and give away their things.”
“It sounds like you think it’s appropriate to invite strangers to an event my parents are hosting without asking first.”
“It seems like you think it’s appropriate to make negative comments about me to your relatives.”
If you use this type of language every time she acts out, she will soon stop her controlling behavior.
If she is stubborn and tries to take it further by snapping back at you that, yes, she thinks these things are perfectly appropriate, then you simply take it even farther than she did: “Really, so you don’t think a daughter in law should have any say in her own life?” Keep going as far with it as she is willing to take it. “So you’re saying you don’t feel that I should have any rights in own home?” If it gets to the point that she actually tells you directly that everyone in the family should obey her at all times, you can still take it further.
Call a meeting with your husband’s family including her and tell them that you have just found out that in their family the mother is supposed to make all of the decisions for all of the family members. Pretend to be serious and tell them that that you have never heard of this custom and that you want to learn about it. Eventually she will finally fold and tell you what she really means which will probably sound like, “Well, maybe you don’t have to completely obey me, but I think I should at least have some consideration.” Controlling people have a strong aversion to stating their needs. The possibility that others might say no makes them feel too vulnerable, so they try to get their needs fulfilled by force.
Thank you so very much for your insight, advice and quick reply. I really appreciate it. I have been practicing your method in private, and plan to try it out with my MIL, in order to preserve our relationship while still establishing boundaries for my home and family.
You are welcome, Irene. Best of luck with the method and feel free to e-mail me with any questions or problem that might come up.
Change the locks and don’t gave her the keys. Thatcwill stop her to you house while you are out. No has a right to go to your house when owner or not there.
This is a very interesting article. I have been unconsciously using these tactics on my MIL simply because calling her out is the only way she will back off.
I actually think my MIL is a lovely woman. She has a nice comfortable life for her age (her own condo, car, heading into retirement, and she teaches cake-baking classes part time.) When I first met her, I thought we were getting along great and we even hung out from time to time.
Things were not perfect, and there were times when we would have it out. Before I had my daughter I suppose I was clueless to her controlling behavior in the beginning. I would say no or call her out quite bluntly and she would get upset and not speak to me for a spell. The funny part was I had no clue she was even upset that I set a boundary LOL! Eventually, MIL would come back around and we would get along as we did before. Ha!
Oh how after a baby so many things have changed. It’s such a sad feeling because the woman I knew before is not the woman I know now. While I was pregnant, MIL turned into a bully on an INSANE level. She demanded details from prenatal appointments, screamed at me and my husband in a grocery store because I wanted a soda (she felt I shouldn’t be drinking soda while pregnant), threatened to sue me for grandparents rights as I expressed the would have as much of a relationship with her unborn grandchild as she wanted. Also, resorting to holiday outburst, threatening how she would come to my home and force me to do things her way if she found out I had stepped a toe out of line and threatening to take my child to Disney World regardless whether I liked it or not. Did I mention my daughter was not born while this behavior was going on?
I voiced my concerns to my husband and he was dismissive, stating that we should just agree with her and do what we wanted because “that’s just how she is.” I tried things his way,but her behavior continued. When my 4-month ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby came forth, she yelled at me stating that she did not want to know. I made the announcement on Facebook, but told her before had that I was doing so and gave her the opportunity to unfriend me if she did not want to know. She kept me as a friend and when I made the announcement, she went into a rant on the comments threatening me on how she had clearly stated she did not want to know and that I should have just messaged personally from my inbox. All of my family members, friends, and colleagues were floored and began personally letting me know that my MIL was going to be a serious problem.
I put my foot down that day and my husband finally had words with her in a text message. She ignored him and then just showed up at his job to confront him. The had words and she apologized to me via text that she was “sorry for embarrassing me”. After that, she ignored me for the rest of my pregnancy. My husband asked me to extend an olive branch and she became catty and dismissive.
Then my daughter was born. Still, I tried to work things out with her and invited her to the birth. I ended up with a c-section and invited her to be there to meet her grandchild for the first time. While I was stuck in bed, barely able to move, the hospital contracted a photographer to take my daughters first pictures. I was stuck alone with MIL as my husband told me he need to go home and feed our cat. While there, she pressed for me to go ahead and have the pictures taken. I had an outfit already set for this moment, but MIL pulled out her own and looked at me and said these words “I’m just going to be selfish and put her in what I want her to wear.” Well, she did and I sat their like a fool and let MIL control the entire moment. MIL even purchased over $100.00 in prints and had them mailed to my house for herself.
My daughter had jaundice and had to sit under lights for the first five days. I could only hold her for short periods and MIL took total control over that. When we finally got home, MIL did not even let us get in the door before she pulled up, snatched my daughter from my husband and told us that my daughter was bonding with “grandma”. My MIL was horrible for the first year after he birth of my daughter and she did not fully back off until I lost my cool and told her that she can stop trying to control my house, my child, and I don’t trust someone who treats the mother of her grandchild so poorly to be alone with my daughter.
MIL has backed off my daughter is almost two now, but I cannot say things between us are better. My MIL made my life hell last year and I told myself I would not have it happen again this year. Long and behold MIL begins with controlling our entire summer, literally sending us a calendar of how we were to spend our time personally and with her. I said exactly what you have quoted “It sounds like you have our summer all planned out for us, we can’t seem to do a thing right unless you control every step of it.” MIL ignored my response, but that calendar was suddenly canceled and I have barely seen her this summer! Can I say AMEN?
To give a little background on my MIL, she is known through her entire family and friends as being very strong willed and somewhat a BULLY. My husband and even her best friend have told me they fear her and they just ignore her because she doesn’t back down. I will admit that those warnings too put some fear in me, but I cannot live my life the exact what she wants because she is only truly happy if she is in full control.
My MIL is also a widow-never remarried and has 4 other grandchildren that she stopped seeing, giving cards to, Christmas gives, or even calling 3 years ago, right when I found out I was pregnant. Her oldest son and daughter in law have had the same problems with boundaries if not worse and they have been the perfect united front. I have been utterly alone in this. My husband will not stand up to his mother, so I defend my home as I see fit.
I know she’s lonely, she’s even resorted to adopting a cat. We have barely seen her this summer and while I’m happy because I don’t have to deal with her controlling ways, it also hurts to see her so lonely and shutting everyone out of her life. I really wish I knew what to do here, I can’t have my daughter see us go through such a rift, but I will not give up and let this woman control my home. If you can give any advice I would be so grateful.
Jennifer, you have done what very few people can do, stand up to an extremely overbearing mother in law. It’s wonderful that you have the strength to do this. If you wanted to resume a relationship with her you would need to use my method very strictly and consistently. For example, you did a great job using the first part of the sentence, “It sounds like you have (our summer all planned out)…” But when you add “we can’t seem to do a thing right unless you control every step of it,” you are straying from the method, and using language that is quite confrontational. This is fine if you want to simply defend your boundaries. But if you want to learn to use language in order to stop her from controlling your lives without her becoming offended, a more strict adherence to the method is needed.
Here are some helpful phrases to get you on track:
“It seems like you think it’s your place to get involved with my prenatal appointments.” She’s very tough and may say that she does think it’s her place. If she does, you ask her to explain why, encourage her to expound on all of her theories of how a mother-in-law should treat her daughter. After she is done telling you how she thinks it should go, you thank her and then tell her how you think it should go, telling her that you don’t believe it is a mother-in-law’s place and why. This reminds her that she can have all the opinions she wants but it’s your opinion that will rule when it comes to your family. This is a no-blame approach that she should not take offense to.
Here are some more phrases so you begin to get the idea of what non-confrontational language is about:
“It seems like you think your needs come before mine when it comes to my child.”
“It seems like you think it’s your place to decide what I eat during my pregnancy.”
“It seems like you think it’s your place to decide what my child wears for a photo session.”
Even if you have difficulty thinking on your feet to put these kinds of phrases together, any of these topics can be revisited by saying, “I was confused when you got upset with me in the store for getting a soda.” Then you can use the phrase you have already memorized in the past tense, “It seemed like you thought it was your place to decide what I eat during my pregnancy.” Using this method you can redo any past difficult scenario, establishing boundaries where you may have been too stunned by her audacity to respond appropriately the first time.
“I was confused when you took my baby from me on our first day home. It seemed like you thought your needs should come before mine when it comes to my child.”
“I was confused when you decided to put your clothes on my child for the photo session. It seemed like you thought it was your place to decide what my child should wear.”
You will find that with this non-confrontational type of language you will be able to single-handedly address anything that you don’t like about her behavior without her getting offended.
Please help me with my mil .
She has always gotten what she wants By just doing it and making out like she’s helping . For example she used to come and wake my newborn up but bring a meal round at the same time so I couldn’t tell her not to come. When I wasn’t getting any sleep she would come round and wake me up and then tel me how exhausted she was running round after everyone . She does things like this all the time at the most inconvenient times. It’s making my life hell as she doesn’t understand boundaries and making arrangement she will just turn up . Please help .
Rays, this situation is not easy, but it’s doable. My suggestion is that you use language that reflects her style. When she wakes the baby you can take the food and thank her for it. Then the way I would approach it is to say something like, “I can’t thank you enough for all you do for us. We are so exhausted with the new baby, and to have you cook a meal for us is incredibly thoughtful of you. And because you are so good to us I hate to bring up something so petty, but I was wondering if I could ask you to just give a call first so the baby doesn’t wake up. Like I said, I feel terrible criticizing you in any way after all you do for us.” This way she is forced to take the message and she can’t complain or feel unwanted because you have praised her so highly for her contribution in the same sentence or two. Hopefully this gives you an idea of how you could use the same technique with the other sneaky ways she tries to get her way.
Yes… very good advice!
Joanna,
I’ve really enjoyed reading your article and it is the best one yet that I’ve read about dealing with MIL’s. First off I’d like to say that I don’t think my MIL is a bad person, I’ve had some good moments with her and fun times. The problem is she takes advantage of my laid back personality and the fact that I’m a people pleaser. I’ve been engaged with my finance for over a year and been together total of 4 years. Over that time, I feel like I’ve made a big effort to be nice. I’ve gone to family events for every holiday, I always call and text my MIL back for the most part. Unless I’m at work or the gym. And I try to be respectful and friendly. I feel like all my efforts have given my MIL the wrong impression… I think she likes me but believes I’m pushover and will do whatever she wants. I should have nipped it in the butt when it first happened but I didn’t want to deal with the confrontation or the drama. But now I feel the manipulation has escalated and I really can’t let these things go anymore. She’s manipulated and coerced me into many situations that are uncomfortable, as well as decisions that I wasn’t happy with. She is also VERY self-centered and loves to be the center of attention. A few examples:
She insisted I couldn’t pick turquoise (my fav color) for my wedding, because the last wedding she went to was that color and it is “overdone”
She constantly makes snipes at my eating habits (I’m lactose intolerant and don’t eat gluten) saying that almond milk is weird and that her cousin is lactose intolerant but he still eats her fettuccine alfredo
We make it to most family events, but whenever we miss one she pressures us to figure out a way to go- even if we were just at her house last weekend! (she lives 2 hours away)
She buys my fiancé brand new shoes and clothes all the time. When we come over she’ll give them to him and then usually give me a bag of her old Good Will clothes and ask if I want them. I definitely don’t want her to buy me clothes, but the contrast of what she’s doing I find really offensive and I don’t know how to tell her so.
She belittles my family events and acts like they’re not as important as hers. Example: My cousin (whom I’m very close with) college graduation party was the same day as my finance’s grandma’s 80th birthday party. I told my MIL we would go to both, but that we may be a little late to his grandma’s since we were going their 2nd and spending the night. She freaked out and said we had to be there RIGHT on time as grandma will probably go to bed at 9pm, etc etc. So we only stayed 1 hour for my cousin’s party, to make it on time for his grandma’s. But grandma didn’t go to bed at 9pm, she went to bed at 1pm… and the party wasn’t even over till 2pm! Which really upset me that we spent 1 hour at my cousin’s and 7 hours at his grandma’s. This type of stuff happens all the time!!
Lastly, the biggest blowout most recently that I can’t seem to get over…..
My MIL threw a bridal shower for me only a couple weeks after the one my maid of honor threw. When she asked me for permission she called it a small “bachelorette gathering” with a few of her friends and “no big deal.” I reluctantly agreed as I knew she was sad she wasn’t invited to my actual bachelorette, which was bridesmaids and close friends only (neither my mom or MIL was invited).
As soon as I agreed to it she changed it into a huge party without telling me. She bought a penis toss game, invited friends of hers that are rude to me, and bought/made food that I couldn’t eat. Since I was informed of this huge party late−a couple months after I agreed to a small gathering− I was upset and stunned. Not only did she change it without asking, but she was doing things I was uncomfortable with and making food at my own party I couldn’t even eat. I felt like the party was for her, and that she was doing it spitefully. Not only that but she also brought my sister in law into the planning whom I haven’t had any beef with yet. So I was completely at a loss of what to do. If I canceled it- all the people invited would be punished (including my sis in law) and they didn’t know what was going on.
To top it off, I had to explain to my mom/maid of honor that my MIL was throwing another (bigger) bridal shower right after theirs. They were both really upset, especially because they were not included in any planning and not even invited. AND my mom told me it made sense she was having another bridal shower since only 2 out of 30 people invited from their side were coming to the original bridal shower.
It finally came to a head when my dad called saying he was mad that my MIL hijacked the party my maid of honor/mom were throwing me. He said my mom had cried because she felt left out. She hadn’t been told about this other huge party and thought my finance’s family didn’t like her since she wasn’t invited..
All this time I had tried to keep my fiancé from the drama to avoid a fight but I broke down when he came home and told him everything. That was the worst decision I could have made. We got into a huge argument. My fiancé called his mom and told her everything that was going on and she feed him a ton of BS. How she was doing all this for me and she loved me and wanted to have a party to celebrate our marriage.
My MIL apologized profusely to my mom, maid of honor, and me. She told my mom that I didn’t want her to come because I thought she wouldn’t have fun. Definitely out of context! Originally I told my MIL she didn’t need to invite everyone since it was very small gathering. I don’t like my MIL’s friends they’re shallow and stuck up- hence why I didn’t invite my mom. We are very similar, and I thought I was saving her an uncomfortable 3 hours. Had I known it was going to be a huge party, of course my mom would have been invited. But my MIL twisted everything around to make me look like the bad guy.
She laid it on so thick my fiancé wouldn’t hear one word against her. To avoid more fighting between my fiancé and I we still had the party anyways…. Exactly how my MIL wanted it.
To make matters worse… 2 weeks before the party. I found out the theme, was a “white party.” Apparently that’s a party where everyone wears white. Not just the bride. I found that kind of offensive & really an excuse for my MIL to wear white too…
Do you have any advice on what I should have done in these circumstances? Your phrases are amazing and I believe they’ll work for me in a lot of my circumstances. But what about when the manipulation is so sneaky I don’t even know about it??
Rachelle, your MIL certainly is a handful! You have it right, she’s not a bad person, she is simply taking advantage of your good will. You’ve been doing a good job with her so far, but she will probably need to be reminded of her your boundaries consistently for a while before she learns how to contain herself. What’s really happening here is she is not bothering to use any filter in what she says to you. This is helpful because it means she is not going to insist on having it her way as we would see with a very controlling person. You can simply treat her unfiltered thoughts as what they are, just her opinion about things which you can listen to with interest and then happily ignore.
If she lectures you about how you should eat, treat it as a very interesting opinion, encourage her to tell you more, hear her out, thank her for her opinion and then tell her your opinion. But if she actually snipes at you, you can use language like, “When you say that it almost sounds like you disapprove of my eating choices.” This forces her to admit she is trying to tell you what to do. If she admits it and stands behind it gently tell her you respect her opinion, but you are more comfortable following your own eating plan, and drop the subject.
If she acts like your family is not important, gently confront her with, “When you say that it almost sounds like you think my family’s events aren’t as important as your family’s events.” This will force her to back down without risking confrontation.
I think you both handled the upset to your mom very well. Getting her to apologize was a big step for her, even though, as could be expected she tried to throw you under the bus in the process. In your situation it can take a while to gently train your MIL that you and your husband are a separate family with your own beliefs and opinions, but if you consistently give her these little reminders when she oversteps her boundaries she should come around.
Joanna, I really enjoyed your article and I am hoping I can have some direct advice on what to do with my PILs. My husband and I have been married for only 2 months, but we have been dating since 2011 and got engaged in August of last year. My FIL is a very arrogant man, always believing what he thinks is correct no matter what, and unfortunately always making suggestions to my husband (in front of me) about how we should be living our lives. For example, my FIL has been trying to convince my husband that he should take a job in NYC, although my husband and I want to stay in our hometown- in this, FIL acts as if I have absolutely no input in my husband’s life, or his career choices, etc., despite the fact that I am his wife. My FIL makes rude comments to me about my career choices among other decisions I make as well- example: when I was wanting to change my college major to elementary education, he said “Well, you better hope (your husband) makes good money then, because you won’t be making any.” My MIL is very manipulative in a different way. She always tries to make my husband feel guilty that we do not spend enough time with his family, that we don’t “include” his sister (his sister is 23 years old and MIL still thinks that we have to let her come with us on our dates or we are not “including” her- sometimes PILs ask my husband’s sister if she wants to come with us without even asking us); when we were planning the wedding, MIL invited guests that we did not approve of, and when I became upset, acted like she had the final say in the wedding planning and our opinions didn’t matter. I am getting truly fed up with all of this. Husband and I have only been married 2 months and I am already stressed out to the max about his parents.
Brooke, what you are experiencing is a common problem. It was not so long ago that your in-laws legitimately had complete authority over their son’s choices in life. You are witnessing their growing pains. Many in-laws won’t go down without a fight. But you don’t have to be confrontational about teaching them appropriate boundaries. To teach your father-in-law to keep his opinions to himself and to support rather than tear you both down, you can use non-confrontational language like, “When you say that it seems like you think there is something wrong with our staying in our home town.” His answer should be something like, “It’s not that I think it’s wrong, it’s just that you can’t make the kind of money you can make in a big city.” This is what he should have said in the first place.
But if he agrees and says something rude like, “You’ll never go anywhere if you stay here,” you can ask him to tell you more about his philosophy, whether it is about status or money or ambition. Then you can thank him for his opinion and tell him your opinions on the subject. If he acts as though he doesn’t like your thoughts on the matter, again, encourage him to voice all of his opinions on the subject, thank him for his perspective and then take your turn and tell him what you want for your family and why.
If there is a theme that he tends to harp on, like status or ambition or money, you can respond, “It seems like money (or status or ambition) is very important to you.” Encourage him to tell you why, listen intently, then tell him your values on what’s important to you. Any time in the future he makes a crack about these areas you can just say, “Yes, I understand that money (or status or ambition) is very important to you, and it makes sense that you would feel that way.” This reminds him that his opinions may be valid, but they don’t apply to anyone else but him.
You can try a different approach with your MIL. When she makes you feel guilty about not spending time with her side of the family, you can say you have noticed that she seems to be very worried that she and her daughter won’t be included in your lives as much as they should be. With worrier type MILs it can help to assure them that you and your husband’s relationship with them is very important to you and that you would never do anything to jeopardize that relationship. Once you establish this with her, if she makes a future comment about including her or your SIL or she invites her along, you can simply say, “I wanted to make sure that you aren’t worrying again that we won’t make your family a priority for us.” This kind of language will over time reverse her fear, and you can usually then say that just because you need special time alone with your husband doesn’t mean you care any less about her or your SIL.
I have had it with my wife’s passive aggressive controlling and overbearing parents! Help! I have been reading story after story of in-law problems and mostly from a female’s perspective. As a man, I need some guidance on what is normal and expected and what it is crossing the lines.
We’ve been married for 15 years and my wife’s parents have always been nice to me. They accepted me and were cordial to me. I am a quiet and reserved guy I don’t really speak unless spoken to and am not a conversationalist, regardless of topic. My wife is outgoing yet protected and her parents are negative Nancie’s. They truly see very little joy in life and tend to always focus on the negative side of everything. My FIL is the victim nothing ever goes his way and his sky is always falling. My MIL thinks she knows everything about everything and will offer he unsolicited advice every chance she can. So much that I have learned to say even less about my personal life to her because it doesn’t need fixing.
10 years ago we had our first child (their first grandchild), this is when things started to get out of control with them. They needed to be in the delivery room when my wife was labor, they smothered us every chance that they could, but we brushed it off as the joy of grand parenting. After the baby they would constantly stop over to our house uninvited, always under the guise of being “helpful” like bringing us a meal or help cleaning the house. From the outside it seems like they were just trying to be helpful, right? One day, my FIL sat me down and lectured me about how his grandson was playing with his toy car and said “I’m going to work like daddy”. My FIL let me know that work isn’t what life is about and that I need to spend more time with my child. I brushed off his parenting advice realizing that both of his children don’t really like or respect him as a father because he was always working and never around. (Mind you my FIL has a 33 yr old unemployed son living his basement)
The constant smothering continued and it got to a point where my wife had to have a conversation with her parents about giving us space as a family and that they were suffocating us. That conversation ended with her parents pouting and having hurt feelings. Their behavior didn’t change but their approach became more victim like, using little digs like “Well we would have stopped by but didn’t want to intrude” or “it would have been nice to know about the school program but we weren’t invited”. Constantly trying to make my wife and I feel guilty for not including them in every second of our lives.
We kept on putting up with them because we know that they love us and our family, unfortunately they just can’t seem to respect personal boundaries. Fast forward to a few years ago, my job was changing and we had the opportunity to be wherever we wanted to be. Ultimately, we chose to move about 1200 miles away from her parents (they weren’t the only reason we moved but they were certainly a very large part of it). We needed separation!
I guess we had no idea they would still manage to insert themselves into our lives and our kids’ daily lives. Constantly calling, emailing and checking in on the kids. Every single thing you can imagine, they had to be in the know on if my wife and I didn’t tell them they would ask the kids.
Then the visits began, oh the visits! They fly in and expect us to drop everything and go pick them up (3hrs roundtrip), yet don’t offer to pay for gas and heaven forbid they get a rental car. Insinuating that it is our fault that we moved away so we can be inconvenienced. They move into my son’s room and then the takeover begins. MIL instantly starts doing dishes and putting them away (in the wrong places), she is cleaning the house constantly putting things away and straightening up. I sound like a jerk complaining about the free help, right? I know. The problem is when we ask them not to something, they reply “oh it’s no big deal” and do it anyway. Laundry, for example, it makes me incredibly uncomfortable having my MIL even touch my underwear. She has been told very firmly multiple times by my wife to not to do our laundry, yet she continues to do it. Walks herself right into my closet and grabs my dirty clothes. Am I crazy for thinking that she should know that no means no? What kind of 63 year old woman doesn’t get that? Does she make herself feel like a better person because she “helping us out so much”? There are seemingly no personal boundaries with these two. Now my FIL is involved in the takeover and mows my yard every time he comes, and rearranges my tools in m garage. Maybe I am the jerk, but I would never mow another man’s yard unless I was asked to! Who does this?
The house takeover is one thing, but the crap they say to my kids another. I don’t know how to make it stop. They constantly say things like “If you still lived in Michigan we could play in the snow together, can’t do that here”. Or “We bought our house just for you kids to play in and then you moved away” Or “I bought the larger car so that we could all fit in when go places, when you guys used to live here”. Guilt tripping my kids for moving away? The worst part is I get those comments back from my 10 yr old when he is having a fit “if we still lived in Michigan… this wouldn’t happen”. When they visit they are getting in as many back handed comments as they can and controlling every aspect of our lives and completely take over the parenting duties. I have never experienced longer more frustrating weeks in my life.
The other night at dinner my MIL was rambling on about her day in her attention controlling ways and mentioned that they found a condo. Trying not to choke on my food, I tried to control my reaction as I looked in her direction my body began filling with emotion. My wife, who as surprised as I was, had the same reaction but was able to “work through it” began asking questions. Much to our surprise (although we shouldn’t be) they have decided spend several months a year in a condo just down the street from us! On the plus side they won’t be living under roof for those two months. I get it! They are grandparents and we are the keepers of their only grandchildren, they should get to be grandparents! What about the condo 30 minutes away near their best friends? We can still see them often, yet have some separation. NOPE! Have to be within 1 mile. Yes, that was actually a requirement for them, they took our kids with them to the showings to make sure that they gave the approval on which one to get.
We are freaking out at the thought that they will be here with no friends, no social activities and are going to completely smother my family until we can’t breathe. If we say no, they will go around our backs and straight to the kids to get their way and to constantly smother them. They will insist on taking the kids to school and picking them up every day, ask us over for dinner at least 3 times a week, want the kids to stay with them on the weekends. Attend every single practice, game, and school event, or special that our kids have. If we intentionally don’t share an event with them, they will look up the information online and attend without being invited (that happens a lot).
I’m scared, my 10 yr old is showing a lot of the negative personality traits of the two them combined and when he is with them they get worse. Good advice says that you need to set some rules and make it clear where the boundaries are. I feel like we are in a lose/lose situation. We can be miserable and let them continue to smother us or we can talk to them and let them pout (“Well, we got this condo just so we could spend more time with you guys, but I guess you don’t want to see us”) and still have them intrude on our lives this time with crappy comments being made. They feel like they are entitled as grandparents to be parents to my kids there is seemingly nothing that we can do to stop it.
My wife and I are completely freaking out and not sure what to do. We love her parents, we just need space. They have no concept of personal boundaries.
Kyle, I think I may need to create another category of in-laws called boundary violators to fit your situation. It sounds like your PILs are having the time of their life doing whatever they please when it comes to your family. People like this can’t possibly imagine that anyone would see things differently than they do. You and your wife are sensitive and they are outrageously insensitive. So the tactic I suggest will allow you to remain true to you and your wife’s personality.
I would suggest that you deal with invasive behaviors using only one tactic. Every time they overstep your boundaries you can simply announce that when they engage in that behavior it makes you or your wife uncomfortable. If it’s easier, your wife can do all of the talking to them outside of your earshot. If they say that’s ridiculous or nonsense, of course they will be doing it, you or your wife will tell them that no, you actually need them to stop doing it. But the only reason you will give is that it makes you uncomfortable. This way you never need to accuse them of bad behavior or defend your position. You will be basically framing all of your requests that they stop invading your life as you and your wife’s sensitivity, not their bad behavior.
They are still going to play the martyr and complain that you are not letting them be part of your lives, but they will no longer be able to insinuate that you and your wife are being mean to them. They will only be able to make comments about how “sensitive” you are, which is just fine because you are sensitive and there is nothing wrong with that.
You will probably need to tell them over and over like a broken record that what they’re doing makes you uncomfortable and you need them to stop, but if you are consistent they will learn to control themselves. If they insist on wanting to know more about why you are uncomfortable, your goal will be to make them uncomfortable by bringing up very heavy subjects. Here are a few possible responses if they ask why it makes you uncomfortable:
Always wanting to pick up the kids: It makes you feel like your role as parents are being compromised.
Always wanting to clean your house: It makes you feel like you no longer have say so over how your home is run.
Always wanting to be part of family events: It makes you feel like your role as parents is being compromised.
Wanting to tell you how to parent: It makes you feel like your role as a parent is being questioned.
This should back them off, but if they tell you that’s nonsense or that’s ridiculous, simply hold your ground and say, “You may think it’s ridiculous but that’s how I feel.”
Here is a way to set boundaries for the future:
“I know this may sound strange to you, but it makes us uncomfortable when we don’t get to have regular dinners with just us and the kids. Would it be okay if we limit our get-togethers for Sunday dinners and special occasions?”
“I know this might not make sense to you, but it makes us uncomfortable when you plan your visits without first talking to us about how busy our schedule may be. Would it be okay if we all decide together when the best time for you to visit with us is?”
You can basically go through with your wife all the boundaries that would like to maintain and just start setting them one at a time using being uncomfortable as your excuse. As long as you frame these requests as your problem, your sensitivity, your special needs they will be forced to go along. If their complaining about your sensitivity becomes stressful for you, you can simply respond by saying how sorry you are that you are both so sensitive and that you know how hard it must be for them and that you wish you were as easygoing as they are.
Oh man Kyle, this is the story of my life at the moment! Your discussion about them ‘helping’ when it wasn’t asked for and being quite intrusive was particularly on point, as well as the sense of entitlement to their grandkids and acting like parents. I hope things have improved (realising this post is quite old now).
I would love an article on boundary violators – my PIL are certainly that! When we first got married they would visit every month (thank god we live 4 hours away) and it was mission ‘clean our house’, washing, laundry (it also makes me uncomfortable to have both of them touching all my clothes and underwear!) mowing the lawn, putting things away wrong, changing our bin system to be the same as theirs, pulling plants out of the garden they thought were weeds etc.
After we had kids everything ramped up to a thousand – my FIL is suddenly an expert on breastfeeding and confidently tells me how my son is ‘comfort sucking’ and didn’t really need forumla. I’d been really struggling with feeding my son who had a tongue tie (painful!) and was an insanely hungry baby who screamed and took 5 hours to feed and settle at night because he needed more milk than I could make. But FIL thought he knew better than me (a recurring theme). They are active grandparents and our kids love them (I wasn’t close to mine and I always thought that was a shame), so I’ve tried to overlook a lot of comments and controlling behaviour. My husband can see the issues in what is going on and supports me, but tends to want to go with the flow to keep the peace so we can have a good relationship, which is understandable but not always easy.
Since around the time my son turned 3 they started to really cross the line and involve themselves in how we parent and manage behaviour. They are not emotionally literate people and my husband and I have a very different style of parenting to them, focused on teaching our kids to be emotionally intelligent and have strategies to manage their big feelings. (We were both bullied in school at points because we were sensitive and had trouble managing big emotions, so it’s important to us). My PIL don’t seem to think feelings are a valid reason to do things (they are very logically driven) and clearly don’t understand or respect what we are doing and are constantly interfering. If I spoke to my son about something he did (yelling at me, acting out, throwing something etc) they would talk over the top of me and then use distraction techniques like whisking him off to do something fun outside. (In my opinion this was depriving us both of valuable opportunities for me to talk to him about his behaviour, discuss alternative things he could have done and consequences etc). If he got a ‘cool down’ in his bedroom, my MIL would track the time and say things like ‘I think it’s time he came out now’. He of course realises that when we’re at their house the rules are different, so his behaviour became terrible every time we were there. One trip I sent him to his room for a cool down so we could both cool off. I’d told him he could do some lego after dinner but he wanted to do it NOW. He called me a name, yelled at me, tried to hit me and threw something. My MIL started arguing with me on his behalf about how I had promised something and not done it (what?) – metres from his room so he can hear it and then starts yelling about how he hates mummy, because now he feels like it’s not a consequence of his behaviour but me doing it to him. (Thanks MIL!) I told her we had it under control and to leave us to it, my husband asks her to leave it, but minutes later she’s in the room with my son, with his baby sister on her arm, standing over him and talking to him. His sister is pointing at him and yelling in her baby voice ‘naughty boy’ over and over again. Things escalate and his time to cool off becomes a full scale rage session where he starts trashing the room. I walk in and find my MIL, daughter, FIL and BIL all in the room (my poor BIL had wandered in to ask FIL a question not realising what was going on). I tell them in no uncertain terms to leave right now. That was the final straw for me and the next morning my husband and I sit them down for a chat about boundaries and how difficult their interfering with our parenting has become for us. We barely get out a description of the issues we see when MIL goes on a 20 minute defensive rant about how she has 20+ years teaching experience and can deescalate any situation and is an expert at using diversion techniques with children (oblivious that her techniques in a classroom are totally irrelevant when it comes to us parenting our kids!) She then accuses me of a range of things, including interfering in situations where I am not required (referring to an incident where my FIL raised his voice at my son because he was throwing his train set and I stepped in to deescalate and ask my son to apologise). My FIL sits there, oblivious and says he doesn’t think he has done anything wrong (my MIL was the main offender that trip, but overall he is just as bad, if not worse). He’s your classic ‘thinks he is right, so that justifies everything he does’ kind of man.
The relationship has really deteriorated after a trip to the coast where they were unbearable. We rented a share house and there was a lot of controlling behaviour directed towards me – moving my push bike up onto the deck without asking (I deliberately left it on the ground so I didn’t have to bounce it down a set of steep steps every morning – I asked him not to, did it again anyway), putting two coasters under my water bottle or moving my bottle every time I left the room (10+ times a day, to save a very battered table with scratches and even the names of people carved into it), moving my cup of tea repeatedly, ordering the kids away from my cup of tea, lunging at my tea if they came within 3 metres of it, directing my son and I about where to play in the water, directions about whether to play in the sand or the water first, putting a life jacket on my daughter without asking when she was playing in knee high shallow water, constant reminders about stirring dinner (a meal I have made dozens of times and is designed to be left to cook on the stove for long periods – he was very anxious it would burn) just to name a few. I made it pretty clear that this wasn’t welcome, but it continued and even escalated. To the point where FIL was lunging at my tea cup because my daughter was near it (a situation I had under control and the tea was not hot) and then walked into the kitchen to audibly complain about me to MIL before leaving the house. I felt claustrophobic and like I was being constantly followed around by someone ‘fixing things I have done wrong’ and making me feel uncomfortable and upset.
On the last night we went out for dinner and my son asked me for a drink of water. I could feel FIL monitoring our conversation closely and before I could answer he jumped in and said he couldn’t have any. I began to speak to my husband about what I thought we should do (I personally don’t think it’s okay to deny a child water from 5.30pm until the next morning, especially after a salty meal. I also wasn’t keen to subject myself to hours of upset and complaints about water on the basis that FIL said so). In response, FIL snapped at us ‘well you can clean it up when he wets the bed next time’. This was news to me that he had even wet the bed (FIL took care of it and didn’t say anything) and I found it upsetting to be spoken to so rudely. I removed myself from the situation before I said something rude back and went for a walk. When I got back of course I was blamed for what happened, with comments to my husband about how I had ruined their plans for dinner and icecream afterwards.
Any suggestions you can make would be very appreciated!
You certainly have your hands full with your parents-in-law. They are behaving like children themselves and need to be treated as such. You are very strong and you’ve done a great job confronting them. You now need to make their lives less comfortable by turning the tables on them.
The way to do this is you can address every single annoying or controlling thing they do. If they move your cup, ask right away, is this table very valuable to you, and make sure you get an answer. Bring all of their insinuations out into the light. “Why did you move my bike when I asked you not to?” And make sure you get an answer.
Continue, as you have been doing so well, giving explicit instructions to them that you are going to be parenting your children and say that you expect them to support you in this. Tell them they must not take over your job. If there is anything they don’t like about your parenting, they must tell you privately.
They won’t want to talk with you privately, because they are simply enjoying controlling your lives. But in case they do start to criticize you privately, listen to whatever they have to say, and then tell them it makes sense, but you will be doing things your way when it comes to your family. The same message needs to be given to them over and over and over.
So every time they break the rules, you say, “I don’t want you taking over the parenting of my children. If you don’t like what I am doing you need to tell me privately.”
Again, realize they are behaving like children, doing whatever they want, not caring about you or your husband’s comfort and shocked when something happens that takes away their comfort. So now it’s your turn to make their lives uncomfortable by pointing out hundreds of times a day if necessary where they are disobeying your rules.
They will soon get tired of being confronted continually and they will stop their negative behaviors. Don’t forget when either of them tries to tell you their way is better, you say that you and your husband are going to parent the way you want to whether it is better or not and they must respect your parenting style.
This isn’t a technique I would give to everyone, but since you are fearless when it comes to confrontation and clear boundary setting, this method should work for you.
This is very insightful but I think primarily aimed at the discretely controlling in laws; those who can be reasoned with and could feel bad about their behavior in retrospect. My in laws are abusive, and not discrete at all. If I were to use those tactics they would just yell at me because frankly they couldn’t care less “how I feel.” I no longer have a relationship with them because my wife and I tried to enforce some basic boundaries, and that didn’t end well. So I guess I came here looking for advice because someday I would like to have a relationship with them again even though it will probably never happen unless they decide to treat me with some respect someday, but I ended up just venting. Thanks for listening anyway.
Joe, thanks for your comment. You are correct that this blog post only addresses controlling in-laws and not abusive ones. For techniques that stop emotional abuse you can refer to my four-part blog series Can We Stop Emotional Abuse. I have added this reference to the end of this blog post for others who are facing the same difficulty. I will also consider writing a blog post that deals directly with abusive in-laws in the near future as there are many people facing this problem.
hi i need someone advice i had a fight with my mother in law , beter to say she had a fight with me she can not stand me from
the biginin when we change cuntry we lived all together she turned all the faM. against me and throw me and my husband out off home i was 21 after 1 year she said im sorry becaus i was pregnant and she wants to be part off the fam. but all this tim i saw anger in her eyes like but i got mature i had so much in my life going on i had missccarige she was not there she didnt evan call me to chek up on, so 1 week ago my sister in law own a restoran she calld me pls can you come help us i said yes but indont know what to do with my kid she was take her to mom i was like i think she made clear that she is not babysiting her she said inwill call her so she refused i was like i will bring the kid and help you sooo when i got there it was full of ppl so i just stard helping her and in one time i saw my mother in law said i will take the kid i really wanted to say no because you sead no hours ago so but i remain quite to not make her angry so when i finished i got my massag chekd she sand me 4 a massage telling me that i didnt want to talk to her that im this and that so i got te her home and asked her whay are you acting like that she start sceraming in fort of my kid and i told her i didnt see you so she opend the door and told me get out i was are u sure you did this one time im not going back anymore she said get out i got out and start crying my sisters in law calld me at told me that thay are sorry my hubby wich allways stayd quite was very upset, i dont know what to do im feeling sooo down and sad i need your advice ladis how to close this story and move on with my life she made me sufer a loot😥😥😥
ps:sorry for my bad english
Suzana, I am sorry but I am having a little trouble following the story. Your mother in law should of course know that your relationship with her is very important because it is a link to her son. Without understanding the details of why she is so angry at you it’s hard to give advice. But if you get a chance take a look at my four-part blog post on stopping emotional abuse. It might help by giving you techniques to calm her down. Try to go to your sister in law to understand why your mother in law is treating you this way. There is always hope, so don’t give up.
the problem is just i dont know whay is she angry with me what did to her to treat me this way i made her clear so many times that i want to have a helthy relationship with her but more that im doing for her she becames more powerful off my emotion and she knows that, my sister in law also told me that she really dont know what she can do tho fix this and that she dont ubderstand her mother, im just so tired this thing is going on for 10 years i feel very anxius like she is killing my hapiness, for now after the thorw me away off her house for second time i just dont thing that i will talk to her ever again i dont think she diserve it i have to make peace with my self that she just hate ne and dont want to have nothing to do with me or my kid.
Suzana, this makes it a little more clear. You have it right that the more you do for her the more powerful she becomes. This is very tough to work with, and you may have to let the relationship go, which is very sad for you and your child. But I am assuming that you will still have contact with her unless your husband attends family functions without you. If this is the case then you should get your husband and sister in law to arrange a very serious sit-down talk with your mother in law where the only subject is what she believes you have done wrong. Have them ask her over and over why she is upset with you until she explains herself. This should eventually force her to admit you haven’t done any wrong and may work to take away her excuse to treat you so poorly.
I have a narcisstic mother in law who is used to getting her way. Luckily my husband’s loyalty is to his wife and family first. I needed to sit down and explain that to him when we first married. She would keep him on the phone for an hour each night. He put a stop to that. The biggest hurdle seems to be having your husband stand by you when you enforce boundaries with over bearing parents in law.
My mother in law gossips about me to the rest of the family. She tells people I’m an awful daughter in law. She makes up lies. I can’t stop her from doing that.
If she tries to stop over unannounced, I don’t answer the door. Once she tried to stop over on short notice with some friends thinking it would put me on the spot. I simply said “no”.
You can’t change anyone. If your mother in law insults you, you have two choices. Ignore it or say frankly, I am not going to take your crap. But constantly battling someone like this gets tiring. You have your basic rules set out, if parents in law cross those lines, you say no contact. You stick to the rules and be firm. I would say do not engage the mother in law who is looking for a fight. The best revenge against someone like a miserable mother in law is to ignore her and be happy. If she starts insulting you, look off in the distance and shake your head while laughing. For a miserable mother in law to know she has gotten to you is gold for her.
thank you for responding, i think to seat down and talk its very late now she humiliated by throwin me out of her house like i was nothing 2 times, my husband was waitng for her to come back form her vacation and talk to her and telling her that we are not kids anymore, that she has to stop beshing him with other sibilings and people, i dont see that me talking to her will change anything its hard for me but i think that i had to stop thinking about her yes i feel bad yes i would love if things turnd on diffrently but i can not try when she kep pushing me away its hard my i have to muve on with my life i still can not copy because i dont see any reason but maby she is very very oldfashion we came form diferent cultur she thinkd when she mary her son that i will wake at 5pm to make her coffe and be like a made to her because she was when she got maried but things change she cant belive that i just dont know how to muve on because i see my hubby its very uspeet so in our home its tensionnin the air at the and of the day i have my parent that love me and respect me and my fam. like thay are with me 100% so maby i need time 😏😏
Suzana, differences in tradition are very hard to navigate through. I understand your frustration, and things may have gone too far for change. But because others in your situation may be reading this, I am going to present my usual suggestion to a daughter or son-in-law of a traditional parent just in case they are still in the beginning stages of conflict.
My suggestion would be to sit down with a traditional mother or father-in-law and ask them to talk about exactly what they believe those traditions are, allowing them all the time they need to express why the traditions are so important while listening carefully and patiently. Then I suggest that the DIL or SIL carefully and respectfully brings up the fact that because you are of different generations you may be doing things a little differently, but at the same time assuring them that you in no way mean disrespect.
If you can end that conversation on a low conflict note, then in the future when the MIL or FIL takes offense to you not following their rules, the DIL or SIL can sincerely apologize and tell the in-law they truly are very sorry that they have different views but that in no way does their varying from tradition in this area mean they have any less respect.
Tradition is so close to the heart of many people that this kind of language will not work to fix the relationship. However it will allow a DIL or SIL to show respect and validation for the traditional way of life while still acting according to their own beliefs. This keeps in-laws of another generation from being able to cast the full blame on the adult child when they don’t do things their way. It’s very hard to blame someone who apologizes and stays very respectful.
In this kind of situation the apology and respect should come from an honest place, as traditions certainly are a valuable part of our social fabric. As you go forward it can also help to take part in traditions of the in-law that do not go against your present-day beliefs as a way to show that you are not actually rejecting their way of life. Just as not following certain traditions can feel like a splash of cold water to them, the act of engaging in other traditions with them can create warm feelings of bonding.
Suzana, again, I’m sorry if these suggestions are too late for your situation.
thank you for responding but in my case i dont think it has chance for us to fix our things i have to muve on with my life
My FIL try to control everything… I am 38 weeks pregnant, he was so mad when we found out the sex of our baby, and when he learned I will pierce my baby girl’s ears…. Now because some issues I will probably need to be induce to labor if the baby doesn’t come out in a week… He is really mad… And worse, I want to have a natural birth(if no need to he induced) of course he is against… It’s hard… I try to be nice, but at this point I am loosing my marbles with him!!!
Hi I am in great depressing. My in-laws are always interefering in our lives. I have been married for almost 4 years and I do not want to leave the relationship. MIL always emotionally blackmails my husband and he runs to them leaving me all wounded and crying. We live far from them in vegas and we go once a month to visit them. She always does things to make me angry. On special occassions like religious holidays she will give me her daughter’s old clothes as gift just to show me how rich they are and what I am. My husband doesnt care about it but it hurts me. They always keep calling and bugging about their problems even when we are together and ultimately come to conclusion that I am the reason their son is away. I am so tired of taking the blame game. My husband has started going there more often and goes twice a week every month. When I refuse he says that missing my education or a class for a day is not going to make a difference. On one hand he wants be to have a career and no the other hand he doesn’t let me study. He won’t even have kids with me until I do my bachelors. We have a religious holiday on Monday so he took a day off. He is a teacher and kept bugging me to take off from class. He also wants to go next week again to California. I told him that I have assignments due and I won’t be able to go and told him that we will go together next week. But he doesn’t listen. He left and is enjoying the holiday with his family. I have no one here and I am alone. I have no family and rarely any friends. I even talked to his mom and she started saying mean things to me and when i answered he told me to apologize to him and his mom otherwise it is not going to work. I am disturbed emotionally and I can’t focus on anything. I work and I study and I take care of the house but it is not enough. I even pray to God to just kill me because I don’t like the person I am becoming. I don’t even cry anymore. He just doesn’t care. I don’t know what to do. If I leave him I don’t know how I will survive. I can’t go back to my country because my passport is expired. My cousin has told me to ignore him and concentrate on my life. It is very difficult because we live in the same house. I am 22 years old and I don’t know if this is the life I want. Please pray for me. I am heart broken.
Meg, dealing with difficult in-laws is very hard and very stressful for anyone, but for a young couple it is can be overwhelming. My long-term suggestion for you is to let your in-laws know that you are now a part of the family and that your opinions count. This means learning non-confrontational language to stop your MIL from being mean to you and using it every time she even thinks about being insulting. You can take a look at my free introduction guide on my homepage to learn these techniques. It will also mean learning how to treat your in-laws as though they are friends, not parents, by strongly stating your opinions to level the power difference between you.
But because you are studying right now, in the short term you will have to make schoolwork the priority. So to combat feelings of sadness when your husband leaves you need to take your cousin’s advice. You will want to find a network of people to rely on so you are not completely dependent on your husband. You might consider starting out by finding a study partner or joining social activities connected to your school or classes. Once you develop some independence you will give your husband the space he needs to see for himself that his parents are creating drama to get him to put their needs in front of the needs of his new family.
Hi
Please help. My in laws are driving a wedge between my husband and I and my husband just cant see it.
We migrated overseas almost ten years ago and have had regular visits from family over the years. When people stay for a month at a time its bearable even when its your in laws, because you know there is an end in sight and they will be back on a plane soon enough. But this time they have now migrated to where we live and are staying with us until they can move into a rental property which they have finally found after almost a month.
When they are here they are controlling and disrespectful of my opinion and my husband always seems to agree with them. An example is they would ask me if I would like them to do something, I say no thank you, and then they do it anyway. Instead of causing confrontation with them I will speak to my husband and ask that he addresses it with them but he just gets angry and cant see my point of view – in his eyes they can do no wrong and I am just a negative controlling person… I am at my wits end and cant deal with this. It has to stop. Little things like they will make my husband lunch to take to work but not me. Meanwhile I (and so I should)sort my own lunch for work and the kids lunches for school when I get home from working.
They do things under the pretence that they are here to help out but I don’t need them. They only person who gets help is my husband when he gets everything done for him and I still do everything as normal.
Another example is when I come home with the kids we will be chatting about our day with one another and they will interrupt speaking directly to my kids and if I say anything like “just a moment we are chatting about xyz” they will usually make me repeat myself by pretending they didn’t hear what I said or ask really dumb questions to create confusion instead of just being respectful of my request… I cant take the thought of it being this way forever. I am worried they will do the same with the kids and begin influencing them and alienating me from my own family.
Another example is yesterday evening, FIL mentioned that the MIL should show us “that thing you found online” and MIL quickly tried to hush hush him. When I said “pardon, what was that?” the MIL quickly said it was nothing and wouldn’t explain further. I knew this was because I was in the room. This evening after dinner MIL asked my husband over to her laptop to show him something and was speaking quietly in the hope that I wouldn’t be able to hear even though I was sat in the same room. She was trying to get my husband to agree to a bed that she wanted to buy our son for his birthday. Instead of showing both of us she intentionally and blatantly directed everything to my husband as if to make a point of putting me in my place, and when my husband (for once and probably cause I was there) said he’d chat about it with me, she continued to pressure him to make a decision on the spot. When he stuck to his decision about chatting about it with me she looked over and then asked me to look at the ad online.. but the intent was obvious, She was trying to engineer a situation between my husband and I cause marital upset… I just cant believe how disrespectful and obvious they are and yet my husband is blind to it and makes out I am the problem!!!!
Please help, I don’t know what else to do..
You are in a bit of a difficult situation. Your in-laws are not overtly controlling so there isn’t really anything to work with. However there are always strategies that can be used to shake up their behavior patterns. They are having a wonderful time meddling in you and your family’s life. And best of all, they still get to treat their son as if he was their child. They have no incentive to change their behavior. It actually takes quite a bit of restraint for an MIL or FIL to respect their adult children’s role as the head of their own family, and many won’t make the transition unless the adult children make the environment somewhat uncomfortable for them.
There is a non-confrontational strategy you can use for this type of in-laws, the ones that give unwanted help and those who want to overstep their boundaries with their grandchildren. Clearly they only do the kind of helping that they think is fun. But you can change their feelings about helping you by assigning them additional tasks that are not so fun and that will help you.
If they are making your husband’s lunch, thank them profusely, and then ask them if they wouldn’t mind making the children’s lunches as well. If that doesn’t back them off you could then ask them if they wouldn’t also mind shopping for lunch for your husband and the children as well as making the lunches every day because this would be so helpful to you.
If they act interested in purchasing things for the children, start to send them on errands to buy things the kids need. You can give them detailed lists of exactly what you want leaving them to do you bidding. If that doesn’t back them off, while continually praising them for being so helpful you can then start to ask them to do all kinds of errands for the family.
If they are coveting the children’s attention, you can tell them how happy you are that they are in the children’s lives and ask them to take the kids for the weekend and plan a getaway or romantic stay at home with your husband.
I think you will find when your in-laws can’t pick and choose what they want to do for your family that they will back off on their own. If they don’t you can start to increase the load by asking them to do chores for you, clean the kitchen, cook dinner for the family, pick up your dry-cleaning, take the kids to school. They will not enjoy being at your beck and call, and it shouldn’t be long before they tire of this. In the meantime you can take a nice break from the domestic aspect of family life.
Be sure to thank your husband for being so supportive of you every time he stands up for you. Because he is in a difficult spot caught in the middle or placed there by your MIL, he will respond better to positive reinforcement than criticism.
Hello,
My ex MIL called me to see when would be a good day to take my son for his birthday. I told her we were busy and had plans every day until the following Thursday(she called on Tuesday). She asked what we were doing that Thursday and I told her we were out of town and wasn’t sure when we would be back that night and that Friday we were doing a family birthday party (for my side, as she is my ex’s mother). She tried to call me, but I missed her call as I was in the middle of something. Instead of waiting for me to call her back (she didn’t even wait 30 minutes), she called my son’s cell and told him she was stopping by Friday (the day I’m having the party) after I already told her we were busy. She knew I would be at work at the time and didn’t follow up with me or even ask if that was ok with me. I feel like she went behind my back and bullied my son into complying to her benefit. She manipulates situations constantly. I’m currently 19 weeks pregnant with twins and I’m trying to stay stress free and feel that I really need to set boundaries with her. How would you recommend I address this with her?
Chellie, I could be wrong because I don’t have too many details of your situation, but my take on this is that your ex MIL is simply unable to control her urges when it comes to her extended family. I think in this case you can just be very direct with her. Arrange a time to discuss the situation face to face if you can and let her know you have noticed she isn’t respecting your wishes when it comes to your family. If it feels comfortable you can add that right now with the pregnancy you need to be able to manage your family in a way that puts minimal stress on you. If she feigns innocent or downplays your needs, you can bring up as an example that you told her she couldn’t see her grandson Friday, and she went directly against your wishes. Even if she continues to make excuses, keep the focus on your need for her to respect your wishes.
I usually recommend non-confrontational language in these situations, but it seems that you are not shy about setting strong boundaries, and your MIL isn’t being malicious but more likely has a problem with impulse control. So she may simply need a direct approach to remind her each time she goes against your wishes.
My Step Father in Law beat me in the street on Friday. This was at his home and in front of my wife and children. They (technically) have kidnapped our children with my wife’s support. They now live in an isolated farmhouse and blame me for all of the abuse I receive. They sent the police to the place I live to tell me that if I come to their property or attempt to contact my wife I will be put in jail. The abuse from my Mother in law has been constant gaslighting for thirteen years now. She has written lies to my parents, our church, and on public media. I have been made homeless for 13 months now, they have withheld access to my property, any money we had saved, and now our children. Over the last 12 months they have now spread rumours that our children are mentally ill, autistic, and suffering from maltreatment in the home. How do I stop this behavior and get the children to safety?
I would suggest you find a lawyer at this point, hopefully one who is experienced with high conflict divorces.
Hi I need help Me my husband are happily married we trust each other having two kids.my in laws are minuplative and my husband is under his brothers and mother influence they are dominating we are asians Pakistani. We are living in USA last 10 year and we are USA citizen my husbands brother start brain washing my husband your wife is this and that so 3 year of marriage was very deficult and my husband I fought a lot and after that 4 the year of marriage my husband was aware of his brother and mother sister sister in laws stratragy they are sweet poisin we had kids 4 year back and my brother in law said in text msg congrats but I didint like that because we had twin girls my husband replied you are free like or dislike. And he start abusing us my daughters and me and include my husband in front of all relatives and my mother is law was also not happy because we had girl child my husband stop talking to his brother he also stop talking to his parents and I told him you can’t ignore your parents you have to talk to your mother and father he said he is not talking to her from his heart only he call ask how are you how is weather and little talk .We send pictures they said they don’t look like my son they are not his kids and I start crying and told my husband I am not going to talk to them anymore he replied count me now we are hurt like hell and now they are forcing us to go to meat his brother and we have to say sorry and I ask sorry for what my MIL said because you give birth to girls not boy i am like want cry out loud they are my girls and I am not sorry to give brith girl chil so my husband we are happy like we got havean in earth. Now all family man bets and relatives are like villain they all stop talking us sister in law is abusing us they call us at there place and when we go no reason thy start tunting laughing on us help me how to ignore can we stop sending pictures or stop calling them?
Marena, you and your husband are handling a very difficult situation very well. Sadly, there is not too much you can do to stop people who are not embarrassed or ashamed to go to any length to hurt you. The best thing to do in your situation is outright ignore any inappropriate requests on their part. You may need to maintain very little contact with them until they realize that they cannot come between you. I am very sorry to hear the hurtful comments they are making about your family. Keeping your distance is probably the best tactic to use in a very unfortunate situation like this.
Hello,
My issue is with my boyfriend’s mother and I have been searching high and low to find similar examples and advise on how to deal with her. We have been together for 3½ years, and I feel it is getting worse.
My bf’s mother has a very soft spot for him and I see a lot of enmeshment but I am unsure if the enmeshment goes both ways to the same degree.
She is actually very sweet but there are some comments and behaviors that to me come across as a lack of respect and lack of acknowledging our relationship is and I am slowly getting the impression that in reality she may not be all that fond of me even if she mostly gives that appearance (I am not aware that she badmouths me behind my back, although she did make a few negative comments about me to bf in the early days).
Fairly early on in our relationship, we’d stay with his parents for days at a time, I’d stay with them at their house and bf would go to work and return in the evening. When bf came home from work, his mother was so eager to greet him with a hug and a kiss that she would literally step in front of me so I almost bumped into her to get to him first. I found the behavior strange but chose to retreat to another room and wait until his mother had greeted him.
One night I cooked, she didn’t particularly like it but my bf did so I suggested he take some leftovers with him to work to have for lunch. His mother opposed and I think she made him a packed lunch instead. The next day she cooked and when he came back from work, she called him over and spoon fed him the sauce she had made to check if he liked it. At the time I was amused by the jealousy, not so much any longer though.
Until recently, whenever we visited, I would sit on one side of bf, we’d be holding hands or I’d be caressing his back or him mine, but his mother would come sit on the other side of him, placing her hand on his thigh (a bit too close to his crotch for my liking), caressing his back or arm – and to me it looked more or less like a scene where my bf was seated between two rivaling mistresses. Bf never seemed to take any notice of this, but I have now asked him to make sure that we now don’t sit on the same sofa as it made me uncomfortable.
I have also seen her embrace him from behind, full body contact, hold her arms around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder and hold him like that while making content sounds – and me standing next to them silently debating with myself whether that is actually appropriate of her. Bf seems so used to it that he doesn’t notice it at all.
When she introduces me to other people, she will call me [boyfriend’s name’s] “friend”, not girlfriend.
She has made some critical comments to me, nothing particularly harsh, nothing really bad, but it’s only when my bf is out of hearing range so I’m not sure how innocent it is. When I later tell him about it, he usually tries to explain it away, that she probably didn’t mean it the way I saw it, and he has so far always sided with her and don’t see why I would get upset or need a bit of comfort from him.
Recently we attended a wedding in the family. Bf had briefly spoken with his mother outside the church, but when we arrived at the party less than three hours later, we had barely entered the building before his sister came over with the message “mother is asking for you”. I didn’t handle it gracefully but just said “go deal with your mother, I’ll get my own drink!” – and so he did. At the dinner, I was seated between bf and his mother. I tried to the best of my ability to be nice, charming, considerate, talkative – she mostly spoke to the person on the other side of her or she spoke “across” me and to my bf, leaning over towards him (across me) so much that I had to push my chair back from the table to give her space. She made no attempt at trying to include me in the conversation with her son. Before dessert I suggested to bf that we swap places so his mother could sit next to him! To me her behavior was pretty rude whereas bf sees it as a completely normal thing to do at a dinner party.
She was bereaved 1½ year ago and bf feels that it is only natural that she is not quite herself, stressed and a bit more needy. He is very conscious of visiting often and doing chores around the house for her, things she can’t do herself, but her youngest daughter and daughter’s husband and children live in the adjacent house, she sees her pretty much every day, and I am forever wondering why she still needs bf to make a 40 minute drive to fix a lock or replace a light bulb.
In my opinion her behavior didn’t start when she was bereaved but has been that way from the beginning of our relationship, two years before her husband passed away. I have become hesitant to go there, our visits are less frequent, and it causes friction between bf and I as he prefers going to visit for an entire weekend at the time whereas I try to keep it to half a day or less.
Bf and I are currently discussing the need for some boundaries, mainly him signaling to her who the girlfriend is, e.g. walking towards me first, actively including me in conversations that his mother leaves me out of like at the wedding, put his arm on my shoulder etc., basically small little gestures rather than a confrontation. He is afraid of upsetting her or hurting her feelings or really changing anything, I on the other hand have now said that without boundaries I am getting to the point where he will have to visit her alone whereas boundaries would possibly make me feel less concerned about going there and help me relax more. In part he also thinks that I am simply not used to the interactions in a close knit family, I however am not sure just how normal that interaction is though.
Charlotte, you mother-in-law’s behavior is unfortunately a common occurrence. Most women who engage in this type of behavior aren’t doing it on purpose to send you a message. They are simply reacting from strong emotions that come up when a daughter-in-law rightfully replaces them as their son’s primary caretaker. Although these behaviors certainly are inappropriate, we might say she can’t help herself.
Everything that you are doing in terms of your reaction to her behavior and you working with your husband are excellent choices to begin to change this behavior. Your husband should be willing to help you with this project if you emphasize that you will both work very slowly so as not to hurt her feelings.
You can at this stage begin to do a little bit more on your own. Because she is not being outright rude with you but is misbehaving indirectly, it’s best to respond indirectly if you can. The idea is to mirror her exaggerated urgency or need to be with her son. This allows you to call attention to her behavior without directly blaming her. For instance, any time she infringes on your physical connection with your husband, you can say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you needed some alone time with your son.”
This shines light directly on her inappropriate behavior and makes either own it or back off. She will probably be embarrassed and back off, but even if she says, yes, I do and takes advantage of your comment, your husband will most likely recognize the true inappropriateness and will be more willing to create better boundaries with her.
If she makes a fuss about needing her son at inappropriate times, such as sending the message at an event that she needs him right away, you can again mirror her exaggerated urgency by accompanying your husband and saying, “We got here as fast as we could. Are you okay? Is something wrong?” This forces her to either admit that there was no urgency or back off.
Everything else you are doing is spot on.
Hello. I also have some difficult in laws…They are trying to control every decision that we make. They (most of the time) don’t agree with us and just tell us their opinion repeatedly, every day, if they can. When my husband told them “thank you for your opinion, I heard you”, the answer was “so what if you heard us, just do it”. We are concerned about this kind of behavior in front of our children, too. We read a lot of parenting books, and we really try to give them the best education. Thei kind of discussions are not a good influence on them, and we don’t know how to stop them. They cannot stop inferfering in our lives and consider that they have to tell us every step that we need to take.
Is is very frustrating. Do you jave any suggestions regarding which on of you methods to use? Thank you so much.
Anna, I would suggest you use one of my non-confrontational technique. Since they won’t be embarrassed and are readily willing admit to trying to control your lives, the best bet is to ask them over for a serious sit-down discussion. You or your husband can start by letting them know that you have noticed that they seem to believe that they should be the ones directing your family’s decisions. With most in-laws this is enough embarrass them into backing them down, but yours seem very persistent so you need to be prepared for them to agree wholeheartedly.
At this point, you need to try with as little judgment as possible to find out exactly what their beliefs are using what we might call an interview style. Your goal should be to get them to express all of their beliefs about the subject. It’s best to use language that encourages them to give you more global beliefs about how parents should behave rather than personal ones relating to you as individuals. It might go like this:
“We’ve noticed recently that you both seem to feel that it is the parents’ role to make the decisions for adult children regarding their family.”
“Yes, we certainly do.”
Now you can start interviewing. Here are a few potential questions to give you an idea of how to guide the conversation:
“Is this something you’ve always believed in?”
“When did you come to this belief about who should make the decisions in a family’s life?
“Is there a reason why you feel that the parents should have more say than the adult children?”
“Is this something your parents did with you?”
“Do you feel that the adult children should have any say in the decisions for the family?”
Although their answers to these questions may strain credibility and may even be outright insulting, it’s important to stay in interview mode and limit your response to nodding thoughtfully or saying, “I see,” or, “I understand,” when you hear the answers. The more details you get from them the better this strategy will work.
Once they have explained their reasoning to you in great detail, you both can thank them for letting you know their beliefs on the subject. Then it is your turn to tell them your beliefs on the subject. You might begin with, “The way we feel about making family decisions is…”
Then spell out very clearly anything you believe, anything you have read in parenting books, referring to the title of the book if possible, and generally spell out all of your thoughts on the subject. If they interrupt and negate what you are saying, make sure that you stop and go right back into interviewing mode. Let them get all of their beliefs out in as much detail as you can. When they are exhausted continue with your turn, and if they interrupt again with their opinion, draw it all out of them and then continue with your turn until you are done.
End this conversation by again thanking them for letting you know how they feel. Then you can tell them that although you respect their feelings on the subject, you will be handling your family matters according to your beliefs. It can help smooth things over to let them know that you are always open to new ideas, and if they have any other thoughts on the matter they are welcome to let you know.
Chances are they will forget about the conversation and try to meddle again. When they do, turn the conversation into an interview again, asking why they believe you should do what they are suggesting. Then when they are finished, you can tell them your beliefs on why you are doing it your way, adding at the end something to smooth it over like, “But thanks for letting us know how you feel about it.”
Using this tactic allows you to set boundaries in a way they cannot complain about and reinforces the fact that we do as adults get to make our own decisions for our families.
I’m asian woman of 30 yrs old. I live with my in-laws who always try to abuse me mentally. They abuses me by criticizing my parents, me and always tells about their ex daughter in laws whose left my husband for them. My husband cannot protest and twice he did and things went worse that why he was supporting me. I cannot cook or eat as my taste either. I cook forthem as their taste. Usually they do not criticize or taunt me when my husband at home. Sometimes theydo also. How can istop them to tauntme orabusing me mentally?
Anthea, you are in a difficult position, but there are techniques you can use to stop their abusive behavior. Please take a look at my four-part blog series on emotional abuse for the techniques that will help you. Feel free to contact me by e-mail if you have any questions about these techniques or if you run into problems using them.
This is lovely and reminds me a great deal of the intentions behind Non-Violent Communication techniques as well. I have to be honest and share, though, that even using these techniques have not had the hoped for results for me with family. They simply have decided the boundaries I ask for our “silly” and not something family needs to have.That is very difficult – when those you love believe that family is about how the unit serves them individually rather than love and respect for each member in the way they need. I am “sensitive” or “dramatic” because I talk about family being kind and respectful towards one another. They do not see how they communicate as part of that. Often they continue to do the things I have kindly asked them not to until I have to ask more forcefully. Then they will pay attention but in return I am insulted or called “toxic.”
Here are a few examples of what has been said to me in response to using these techniques:
“Really why are you always thinking people are criticizing you? So sensitive!”
“Can we please just have a few moments together without you making it all about you psycho-ananlyzing every thing I say? It’s just alway my fault, is that it?”
“Really? Can we just enjoy the holiday please, without talking about what who thinks of whom?”
“I’m just trying to be helpful. Why is that a bad thing? I’m assuming you want the best outcome possible.”
Controlling people, IMHO, are often coming from a lack of inner feelings of confidence and joy. Imagine if you had to control everyone and everything to feel ok? So I’ve found that any kind of disruption to the desired outcome of their controlling communication – no matter what style or skills I use – is met with frustration and projection as a defense rather than embarrassment or a desire to really connect in a loving, respectful way. I think shame, contrition and apologies are not a known quantity to many of these folks – at least in my experience. Or even a curiosity about how we can get along better.
On email/social media I have gotten the following responses using these techniques:
“I find your questioning of my motives so passive -aggressive.”
“If you don’t like the way I talk to you why not just say it. Be direct. This is so passive aggressive, your pretending to be nice but being so sensitive and accusatory all the time!”
I think it’s important to recognize that for many controlling people, communication is not a bridge building, authentic connection exercise but rather also a controlling one in which they either win or lose.Their ideas and choices are validated or they are not by the people around them. People are meters, validators and reflectors of their worth – not loving connections.(For instance, in the cookie scenario my mother-in-law would simply say she was being helpful. Why not help you make better cookies?And she would be smiling and charming when she said it. That is her generations definition of “nice” as is the manipulative strategy. So anything you say would be seen as confrontational no matter how kind or in what way. even if you take 100% responsibility for your reaction.) Many people communicate in this constant self-involved win-lose scenario moment by moment, in conversation. I find that the folks trying to control my behavior in my life are not as interested in authentic connection or relationship or even “preserving relationship” as I am unless it’s merely preserving the status quo – no matter how it effects others. Or, to put it another way, they are not willing to change their communication style simply to preserve relationship because I’m the one whose boundaries are being crossed, not theirs. It is difficult when this desire goes only one way. Sad to say, I have gotten farther by really observing how other folks communicate and then using their own style to point out where it crosses my personal boundaries. And sometimes that’s confrontational, sadly.
Linnea, For in-laws who are very insensitive such as yours, you can add one more step that will get them to more directly take back an insult or insinuation.
Let’s say your mother-in-law says something rude, perhaps that insinuates you are ignorant. You will first use the techniques spelled out in this blog post to respond:
“When you said that it seemed like you thought I was an ignorant person.”
Your mother-in-law, in order to sidestep directly taking back the insult may say: “Really, why are you always thinking people are criticizing you? You are sensitive!”
At this point you can keep going until you get a more direct take-back of the original insult by saying:
“Yes, you’re right. I am a sensitive person. So you are saying you don’t think I am ignorant?”
She may answer with another attempt to sidestep, but keep asking this question until she says you aren’t ignorant or a bad mother or bad cook or whatever other insult she is throwing your way. Once she takes back the insult, even if it is with a bad attitude, you can then accept the take-back by responding, “Thanks for clearing that up” and drop the subject until the next time she insults you. Then repeat the process.
You also mentioned in the cookie scenario your mother-in-law would simply respond by saying she was being helpful and don’t you want to make a better cookie. Let’s look a little more closely at that scenario:
MOTHER-IN-LAW: When I bake those kind of cookies, I always keep them in the oven for three minutes longer. That way they don’t fall down in the middle like yours always do.
RESPONSE: When you said that it seemed like you thought I wasn’t a very good cook.
MOTHER IN LAW: I was just being helpful. What’s wrong with helping you make better cookies?
She is sidestepping taking responsibility for her hidden insult in her original comment. So once again, you would need to keep going until you get a more direct take-back of the hidden insult by saying something like:
“Oh, so you weren’t trying to say that I’m not a good cook?”
At this point she will have no choice but to answer that you are a good cook which is a more direct take-back of the insult. If she side-steps again by saying, “You’re always accusing me,” keep going and say something like, “Sounds like I might have taken your comment too personally. So you are not saying I am a bad cook?” Keep going until she admits you are not a bad cook.
These techniques do not heal the controlling person. They only stop the person from using their defense mechanisms on you. If you are consistent in not allowing them to get away with insults, insinuations or controlling behavior, they will stop trying. But chances are they will continue to use this behavior on those who don’t have the skills you have learned to stop this pattern of behavior.
Thanks a lot for your advise and imput.
Much appreciated. I wanted to send my concerns to you via email but couldn’t find a way and thought the only way you would see it is by posting publicly. Since you have read it and replied can you possibly please delete it for me as I cannot see an option to do so.
Many many thanks again for your help
Regards
Annon, they are deleted. Feel free to email me. The address is on my website.
Hi,many thanks for the advices. I’ve tried on few occasions and it helped the conversation.
But I have another type of problem…..father in-law is organising a surprise party for mother in-law so we decided that we will be part of the surprise. Father in-law calls my husband on his cell and suddenly I find out that I have a return ticket…when I ask why I didn’t choose my own time, my husband tells me that he tried to stop him but father is insisted…I didn’t even understand why he only got us the return ticket, so I’ve asked…apparently he wanted to buy us the return at least!
I am grateful that he is generous but I get furious when I am not asked whether how I would like to spend my time…now I have a set time schedule arranged by my father-in-law and I am angry. How can I deal with this situation?
Brenda, I am so glad to hear that these techniques have been working for you. When generosity and control are mixed together things can become very complicated. Generally speaking, stopping controlling behavior of in-laws is a process, and it can take some time.
Because of the complexity of this kind of control it may be best to try to put up with it as you stop the controlling behaviors in other areas with a goal of long-term appropriate behavior on your in-laws’ part. However, as long as your in-law is only controlling but not emotionally abusive to you, it can be done. A good way to handle generosity with strings attached is to be very gracious about the generosity but also ask for more independence the next time. Here is some language you might use:
“I wanted to thank you for generosity in getting me the tickets. I really appreciate the thought behind that. I hope you don’t take this as an insult, but I would be very grateful if the next time you are able to help me out this way you check in with me about the details so that it works with my schedule.”
Phrased this way your father-in-law can’t blame you for being ungrateful, and he would look foolish if he didn’t agree that you as an adult should be able to make plans according to your schedule. He certainly may conveniently forget this request the next time he is generous with strings, but if used consistently this type of language will ensure that he can no longer get away with this form of controlling behavior.
Hi, I was wondering if I could get some advice. My in laws never wanted their son to marry me, mostly because I am not the same religion, and they are controlling and I stand up for myself. As a result they kicked my husband out, did not attend our wedding and we did not have contact with them for 6 years. Last year after the birth of our second child they made contact with us begging to see their grandkids. I gave in and decided to start fresh in the hopes they would have changed. Now a year has passed and I see they have not changed. They are disrespectful to me in my own home, they ignore me when I speak, they talk over me in their own language so I cannot understand them, they blatantly disregard my wishes with my children for example giving a treat during mealtime, they do not eat any food I prepare for the meal but instead bring their own, and they have not once used our bathroom (this one is weird) even if they have been over for the day. The mom seems nice but really she makes very subtle patronizing comments like last time I made pasta and meat sauce for the meal and she said “oh that’s nice you tried to make a curry” and I just wait “it’s meat sauce”. When I go to their place, their extended family and friends give me mean looks and basically ignore me, so I know they have not been saying nice things about me. I am very polite to them, and try my best for my husband, but after their last visit they really were very rude, in their subtle ways so I spoke to my husband afterward. He does not see the problem and feels he doesn’t want to talk to them about it or rock the boat. I know they are not happy with me, I am nice to them but I also do not give in to some of their wishes. For example they wanted to do a blessing ceremony on our children ( kind of like a baptism I guess) and I said no to my husband and I will not budge when it comes to decisions like that. In my mind they were not around for 6 years so they have no say when it comes to our kids. Right now I have decided to limit contact with them for me and the kids to once a month. I’m not sure what else to do.
Melissa, this is a tough situation, but you are a tough adversary for your in-laws. And this is a good thing. You are describing a situation where a less tough individual may have endured years of misery because of the lack of gumption to stand up to them. I think it’s important that you decided to let them back in when they were begging for the chance. I hope you take them up on that opportunity if it arises again, even if they are once again go back to their controlling ways.
My take on why they continued their negative behavior after you let them back in is that they probably have enough support from the rest of the extended family that they don’t need to change their ways with you. Once a month seems appropriate for now. The only other option is to use my non-confrontational methods to stop their behavior, but as long as the choice to limit contact doesn’t upset your husband, I see nothing wrong with it as a way to cope with the situation.
Hello Joanna
I found your article so helpful, thank you. I wonder if I could ask your advice. I have been married for 12 years, together for 14.
My in laws are very nice people on the surface, but over the years, our relationship has become more and more challenging. My MIL is very controlling, but not in a nasty way. She lives in Scotland and we are in the South of England, so visits are always for many days at a time. My husband is a musician, so for many years, I took our two children to visit them on my own, something that have both been incredibly grateful for.
The issue I have is that no matter where we are, my house or their house, my MIL takes over everything! Cooking, cleaning, deciding where we go out, where we eat, what we eat. I know the first part probably sounds great to some!! But it’s done with an air of what I call passive disapproval.
“Oh poor Mel, you’re so busy you don’t manage to get your ironing/cleaning/etc done”
She has replaced household items of mine without asking, buying far superior and much more expensive items as mine aren’t up to the job.
They once had a conversation in front of me about how they should go to the shop and buy new hub caps for my car because it looks so awful!
I’m fiercely independent, which does not mix well!! For many years, I just said, there’s really no need, thank you. But for the last few years, I am growing tired of the underlying judgement.
When they visit, I go shopping to get all the things in for meals. Without fail, every time, MIL brings lots of groceries and insists that hers get used. I’ve started to say in the last few years, I wish you had told me what you were intending to bring, I’ve shopped. Now this food will go to waste. This is brushed off and I end up feeling ungrateful.
Recently, I’ve given up and no longer shop, but this feel wrong to me. I don’t want it to be like this. I want to entertain visitors, I want to look after people that come to stay.
A few situations have occurred in the last year that I can’t seem to let go of. My son has a very mild lisp, it doesn’t affect his speech in any way and I don’t consider it to be an issue. He is a confident boy and doesn’t think it’s an issue, in fact, I think he’s quite unaware of it. She asked me when I would be taking him to speech therapy. I said I wouldn’t be! She continued to ask me on the next two visits, I finally told her it didn’t need discussing any further as I didn’t think it was an issue, to which she leant across the table, looked me sternly in the eye and said “I DO!!”
Secondly, my daughter is starting high school this year. My husband was privately educated, but we don’t have access to funds or scholarships as he was then. Therefore, our choices were grammar or state school. After much consideration, we decided together with Jasmine that a state school would suit her better. This was met with more disapproval, questioning every time I saw her, sending me articles and commenting, “Well I just hope she gets as good an education at Baddow High as she would as County.” I replied, well she won’t, but it will be good enough.
I know I reacted on both occasions and would love a better way of handling myself in these situations.
They take my children to the theatre every year and it is always mentioned that they must do this so they have some kind of culture! On one occasion, my FIL told me that my MIL is so happy to do this for the children because they know my parents could never afford to do so.
Finally, on several occasions, after a few too many whiskeys, my FIL has passed comment that he should stop spending his money because at some point they are going to have to bail us out, as there is no way we will ever repay our mortgage. Again, I always react and say – “we will be just fine thank you. and even if we hit hard times, what lessons could we possibly learn from life if you bailed us out? ” The final straw came this summer when he said it in front of my own Father, which I thought was incredibly disrespectful.
This is all coupled with a thick layer of sickly sweet niceness. They are over the top with compliments, ask me how things are, then after a few sentences, pat my leg and say “Yes, we’ll hear all about it later dear” and never continue the conversation. They are incredibly over bearing as well and it is very tiring being around them for days and weeks at a time!
I feel so lost and often feel that I need therapy to know how to deal with them, I blame myself for being ungrateful and uncaring because as soon as they arrive, my shackles go up and I am distant and cold with them. I can’t carry on being this way, I want to take control of the situation in a calm way and try to enjoy being around them.
Mel, you have been doing a beautiful job of handling these controlling in-laws. Your responses to them are spot on and show great restraint, respect and awareness on your part. The problem is your in-laws are masters at controlling behavior! I think you will find that all of the techniques that I list in my blog post should enable you, with consistent use, to put a stop to it. You may want to bring in a few techniques from my 4-part blog series on emotional abuse as well, although at this point they don’t fit into this category.
I’ll try to go down the line with each of your very reasonable complaints giving an example of how to use my techniques.
“Oh poor Mel, you’re so busy you don’t manage to get your ironing/cleaning/etc done.”
“When you say that it seems like you don’t think I am a good household manager.”
or
“I may be taking this too personally, but when you say that it seems like you don’t think I am a good household manager.”
She has replaced household items of yours without asking, buying far superior and much more expensive items.
“When you replace my things with more expensive versions it seems like you are embarrassed by our not being able to afford the things that you can.”
or
“It seems like you think it’s appropriate to replace my household items without asking me.” (If they say, “I thought you would be happy to have nicer things than you can afford.” You follow up with, “When you say that it seems like think I should be embarrassed for not having a lot money.”)
“Perhaps we should go to the shop and buy new hub caps for Mel’s car because it looks awful.”
“When you say that it seems like you think I should be embarrassed for not having an expensive-looking car.” (If they make any kind of comment such as, “Well, I would be embarrassed to be driving around in that,” you respond with, “What is it about not having a lot of money that you find shameful? Why would it be embarrassing for you?”)
No matter where you are, your house or their house, your MIL takes over everything, cooking, cleaning, deciding where you go out, where you eat, what you eat.
“When you say (do) that it seems like you think it’s appropriate when you are at my house for you to do the (cooking/cleaning/deciding where we will go/eat.”
You finally told her it didn’t need discussing any further as you didn’t think it was an issue, to which she leant across the table, looked you sternly in the eye and said “I DO!!”
“It seems like you think your opinion about how to raise my child should hold more weight than my opinion.”
or
“I’m getting the sense that you have very strong feelings about this issue. Why don’t you let me know your fears about what might happen if we don’t address his speech habits.” (This will force her to express her real feelings, which are that she is embarrassed at the possibility that he might lose status in society. Then you can ask her what is shameful about having a slight speech difference.)
When she brings extra groceries: “When you bring your own groceries to my house it seems like you don’t think I am a good enough shopper.”
“Well I just hope she gets as good an education at Baddow High as she would as County.”
“When you say that it seems like you think we should be ashamed at not having the money to give her a private education.”
“We must take the children to the theatre so they have some kind of culture since your parents can’t afford it.”
“When you say that it seems like you think my parents did a bad job of raising me.”
or
“I might be taking this too personally, but when you said that it seemed like you thought my parents did a bad job of raising me.”
There isn’t much you can do in front of your own parents, but I love your response at them believing they will have to bail you out of, “What lessons could we possibly learn from life if you bailed us out?” What a great choice of words!
The real problem here is your in-laws’ displeasure with their son, not with you. They are embarrassed that he is not making enough money to reflect well on their status in their community. Your husband, of course, has very smartly chosen someone to partner with who doesn’t care about status and the trappings of wealth. Unfortunately financial status can cause terrible insecurity in people who measure themselves by it. This insecurity is what is causing them to be controlling. The reason you are getting the brunt of it is because they for whatever reason don’t feel comfortable placing the blame on their son.
My mother in law has always been helpful. My husband and I discovered we were pregnant and since the pregnancy was unplanned, we basically had nothing. My mother in law stepped in, buying things, taking me to appointments when we only had one vehicle and my husband needed to work. However, 4 years and two more children later, I have discovered that her insistence to “help” is just a means of controlling how I raise my children. She still buys everything for us. Cribs, toys, clothes, etc. With no input from us. I still have never gotten the chance to decorate a nursery how I want. She even makes appointments for me, that I keep cancelling, to go to the health department and get birth control because we “don’t need anymore kids”. I am satisfied with the number of kids we have, but my husband wants more eventually and neither of us like birth control because my body is sensitive to the hormones. But still she won’t drop it. However, my latest concern is the fact that she doesn’t think I should do anything if someone else is not there to help me out. I have no one else, so that means her! She works at the court house, so I asked her to keep me updated on when the baby show was supposed to be so I could enter my children and she said she would. However, this morning some friends were telling me what their babies placed in the pageant, so I called and asked why she never said anything and she said it was because she had to work and couldn’t help out!!! I’m so angry. I can put them in next year, but I will never get this age in their lives back again… I could seriously cry…
Forgot to mention that we are well past standing on our own now and don’t need help financially. She frequently mentions how hard it must be on me to have 3 very small chikdren. She is always saying “poor Paige” when I go to the grocery store or anywhere else if she isnt able to be ther, like I can’t handle my kids or something. She also frequently mentions that I need to stop having babies so I can go back to college, which I do want to do someday, but not anytime soon…
Paige, your MIL certainly does need to have some boundaries set on her behavior.
This article was extremely insightful. I have been with my husband (middle child) for 10 years and married for 7.
My MIL has always been eccentric and over the top but her behavior went to the next level after my son was born (her first grandchild). She unloaded on me and preceded to scream and belittle me while my 3 month old son sat on my lap. I have never been so hurt or felt such betrayal. My husband was very upset with her and told her she was in the wrong- she apologized but was very insincere and basically denied she never said any of the hurtful things she had said and accused me of being mean. Since then, nothing has been the same. She complains that she never sees our kids or gets to spend time with them. She guilt trips my husband about it constantly and will cry in corners during parties or get togethers. Fact is: they all work together and my husband wants his own family time and a break from seeing them on the weekend. During my husbands adolescence, both parents worked long hours and were never home. He had Au Pairs raising him. I think that my MIL is now trying to make up for lost times and gain that mothering control back by guilt tripping her sons. Does my husband absolutely need to set his own boundaries, YES, but I understand that it’s his mom and he is such a people pleaser. He just wants everyone to be happy.
Since then, her first born who can do no wrong, impregnated his girlfriend of 2 months and now their married but my MIL constantly shows off how great of a relationship she has with her new daughter in law and treats that grandchild as their only grandchild.
I don’t think there is any possible way she can change. She is totally set in her ways.
Nikki, maybe she can’t change, but you have done a very good job standing up for yourself and your husband may be a people pleaser, but he is dealing with her fairly strongly as well. You are probably right that she gave up parenting to a care-giver and is now having a hard time coping with her misgivings.
Joanna, you are amazing for replying to everyone’s post. Keep up the caring nature!
Janie, thank you so much for your kind words.
Great article. I have tried lots of methods such as trying to reach out to my future MIL, writing letters etc – which went ignored. I suspect my MIL is possibly a narcissist and/or Borderline type. When I first met my partner more than two years ago, she was living with him in his house, so I would visit, but we would always be confined to his bedroom and the house was arranged and decorated with all of her stuff and there was nothing of my partners, except for in his bedroom. She was always very rude to me and when I would be in the bedroom with my partner, she would open the door without knocking. I asked my partner to get a new door handle with a lock put on the door as she would not respect these boundaries. One day we forgot to lock it and she was working, but she came home and we had forgotten to lock the door. We were being intimate and she opened the door to ask my partner where the washing powder was. She never apologised for this… and after this the interactions snowballed… my partner had a hard time sticking up for himself anyway… his confidence was eroded after years of her chipping away at his self esteem.
Long story short, he eventually asked her to move out (giving her about 6 months to actually find a new place) but she decided to move out as soon as she could and I later moved in to live with my partner. 12 days after living with him, my MIL attempted to have me investigated for something with a govt. agency (that she works for) and in the end her department wrote me an apology letter and the matter was closed. It was, in my view, a power game in her head and she was abusing her position because she was angry that her son had asked her to move out of his house to give him and I space.
After this my partners sister started to get wind of what a bad person I was from the mother I guess (and I didn’t know this sister and had met her once briefly) and anyway she was sending my partner abusive text messages about me, calling me such derogatory names.. and then I reached out to her on FB to tell her that I had no bad intentions, that I understood how important family was. She blamed me for being the reason why he hardly got in touch with them. I asked my partner this and he said it was untrue as he had always been “notoriously” bad at keeping in touch with them. On FB she started cyber-bullying me, calling me more derogatory names that I won’t repeat. I blocked her, and she blocked me even though I never stooped to her level.
Some time passed, and my partners birthday was coming up so I decided to invite them to the birthday to try and make something work as my partner and I were engaged by this stage and we wanted to try and repair things. The birthday started out okay but by the end of it the sister was blaming me for everything, I was crying and asking that we all talk together about this but she refused…then his mother was pushing me and some friends stopped her and then another friend took me into the bedroom and I shared with her some of the issues I had been through regarding his mum and sister.
Fast forward to more recent times…his mum came to the house unannounced saying that she wanted to “pay for the whole wedding” (we are eloping to save costs and avoid DRAMA and a few months after we are hosting a reception party for all family/friends). So at this point we had to tell her we are eloping and explained where we were thinking of having the post elopement party… she got very mad at the venue we had chosen and said that nobody in her family would be able to get there (its 40 minute drive from the city and her family are from the other end of the country so would have to be making a journey via a plane anyway if they decided to come). This discussion didn’t go well and she left. I got hold of her a day or two after this and we arranged for her to come by the house again to have another discussion and it was here that she and I addressed everything, the lack of boundaries in the beginning – opening doors without knocking, the govt. complaint/investigation, the behaviour at the birthday party… she basically said that on the boundary issue, that in her family they have no boundaries and that’s just how they are, that they open each other’s doors and this is fine. I said maybe when you’re dealing with KIDS but her son is an adult now…
Then she moved straight on to the govt complaint… (as I had written complaint about her breaching privacy, expecting that she will get maybe a warning) – she still works there. She denied any involvement but I have evidence that it came from her. So I ended up saying I am sorry for writing a complaint. Then on the birthday, she said that the only reason she pushed me is because I punched her (she claims that I left her covered in purple bruises) and I know I did not lay a finger on her. During the whole event I was crying, I was not angry – just distraught. I have researched a lot about narcissist techniques such as “gaslighting” (where they try and make you doubt your reality, claim that things that did happen didn’t actually happen, or that things they did to YOU, actually, YOU did to them…). So that is what I am dealing with and now to appease her my finance and I have said she can HELP with arranging the post elopement party but I fear she will try and take control as she is already calling the three of us the “hosts”. She also promises SHE won’t cause any drama at the party but said that she can’t make promises about my fiance’s sister… who is very prone to drama and public meltdowns.
What kind of method would you suggest using with the mum/sister in the future? I have read that it’s a good idea to go “grey rock” when dealing with these kinds of personalities, as in not engaging, going low contact, and responding simply with “I’m sorry you feel that way”.
Lulu, I think you have been handling this situation very well. Both your MIL and SIL are pushing all the boundaries with the hope that you will be intimidated and back off, letting them run the show. But you have done a beautiful job confronting them while never stooping to their level.
In this particular case I get the sense that your best tools are to do as you have been doing. You should continue to hold meetings or discussions with her and the SIL if you can get them to meet with you every time they misbehave. In those meetings you need to be completely blunt and honest, exactly as you have done. I think you should make it clear to your MIL that if your SIL acts out in any way at the reception she will be asked to leave. Your husband should be the one that monitors your SIL and if necessary escorts her out.
It may be uncomfortable for you to be this confrontational, but she may need this to keep her within her boundaries when it comes to your marriage.
Hi Joanna, thank you so much for this article, it has really helped me. I am in a bit of a tricky situation because in isolation my examples sound petty but the accumulation of them have got to me. My in laws have got 3 children, 2 sons and one daughter – they are very opinionated when it comes to their other daughter in law saying very very nasty things about her and her relationship with their son saying she is lazy, useless, does nothing for their grandson and they wished that he would leave her, they have used the term that they ‘despise her’. It is hard for me to hear as I get on with her. In person they are nice to her which makes me wonder what they are saying behind my back?? They even make comments about their own daughter, she is wealthy and they make comments about how she spends her money, they seem to be jealous of their own daughter and holidays she goes on etc. Onto me and my partner – what I struggle with is that nothing is ever enough and that they try and make my partner feel guilty for living his own life, for example we excitedly told them that we have booked a holiday to South America that we had been saving for at the end of the year and their response instead of being pleased for us was to say the next time we saw them ‘your mother is upset because we wanted to go to South America and you didn’t think of us. If you go again can you consider us in your plans….’ bearing in mind they go on 4+ holidays a year without ever inviting us. It put a downer on it and made my partner feel bad. Next is his mothers 60th birthday, they are going away for it mid-week and we told them from the start that because of when it is and work commitments / annual leave limitations that we wouldn’t be able to go, well since then we haven’t heard the end of the fact that we are missing her birthday,. We have booked and arranged a lovely day for her the weekend after but that hasn’t even been acknowledged, only what we can’t do is talked about, nothing we do is ever enough. We could do 10 things for her and not do 1 and that would be the one she would focus on, remember and constantly mention. (Bearing in mind they did not get my partner a birthday present, call him or see him on his birthday – it seems to be like demands are very one way). There is constant back handed nasty comments from my father in law to us implying we are spoiled when we work hard for what we have, this often involves comments about my parents helping us for example, if I say my mum gave us a lift to the train station the response would be ‘i’m surprised she didn’t drive you all the way there, or “of course she did.” It sounds petty but it’s built and built, to be honest I am at a bit of a loss what to do, I really do make an effort with them going to see them often even without my partner, helping them with whatever they need help with but the snide remarks that are pretty constant and are often disguised as a ‘joke’ make me leave every time feeling down and angry that they are constantly making my partner feel guilty. It makes me want to avoid seeing them but that isn’t what I want – I am a people person and family is so important to me. Any advice on how to handle the back handed comments or the seeming jealousy towards not being involved in things me and my partner do would be appreciated.
Sarah Jane, it is truly surprising that such mean people raised such kind children. Oftentimes this behavior pattern is simply a habit and one that can be broken if you use the right approach. You could try to use the methods I talk about in my blog post every time they insult or insinuate. But an easier and more productive plan might be as follows:
You could consider getting all the adult children together to hatch a plot to defeat this behavior which consists of the adult children staging a very subtle completely non-confrontational intervention. You would arrange a group sit-down talk with the parents and one of you would simply announce that you have all decided that since family is so important that you have decided to try always showing support for each other and not indulge in any negative comments about family members. The initiator of this idea could tell the parents that since it’s natural for all of us to voice negative things, each person could be responsible to remind others to only say supportive things unless the person really needs to hear some bad news about themselves.
This plan sets up a situation where the parents have pre-agreed to let you stop them from criticism. After all, who would go against the idea of being supportive as a family? And when you remind them, all you need is to say something like, “Remember we were going to try to only support each other?” If you don’t get angry, but instead cheerily remind them over and over, they will eventually get sick of having to be reminded and they’ll stop this noxious behavior.
HI Joanna, Thank you for your article it has helped so much reading it. I wish i only read it a few months ago. I have been married for 3 years but with my husband for 7 years. My husband and I suffered with infertility issues prior to being married. We knew when we got married that we would need to go through IVF and it possibly may not happen for us and adoption could be an option if we are blessed with a child. Bottom line is we agreed we would be okay with the out come no matter what that we loved each other. Throughout the start of planning the wedding I wanted something small knowing we had such large expenses ahead of us. His mother and father pushed and pushed for a large wedding. We got married in a castle with no help from anyone. My father in law dressed in straight black to my wedding, and my mother in law did not hug me even one time.
They pushed and pushed the child issue from the very start letting me know they were very eager for me to have children. They would buy me new born baby clothing and drop it off by the house when visiting. It was the constant topic of conversation. At the time because of them being so pushy we did let them know that we were going through IVF what the Doctor had said about our situation. It actually was both of us I had already gone through a surgery earlier to remove fibroid that left me with scaring and my husband had an issue with his sperm. Also over the years my egg quality has started to decrease. For some reason she felt like this means that i could not carry the baby and offed to carry the baby for me! She also felt like some thing was wrong with our blood and maybe it just could not mix and that’s why we could not have a baby.
I choose not to speak to her during the IVF processes,because she was stressing me out and I was already stressed out enough. She claims her feelings were hurt by me, her entire side of the family acts funny with me including my brother in laws girl friend that have drinking issues. They look down on me because I have my act together hold down a good job, have a home, car, and I don’t drink every day! I am actually considered a snob for that.
Since my last round of IVF was not successful we tried to adopt it fell through. My mother in law took down every wedding photo of me and my husband from her face book page. My husband has very kindly asked her why and she said face book must have removed them. She blames me saying she is upset with me because i don’t answer her phone calls. she feels like I keep her son from her but when he is home he can go see her anytime he wants without ME. The straw that broke the camels back with me was that she came to my home with my brother in law and his girlfriend and there baby for a unexpected visit. I had no issue with this, it was lunch time so i was making everyone a big salad and I had picked up some dip, chicken and bread. everyone gathered in the kitchen around the island to talk and eat but her. If I went in the living room she went in the kitchen. If I went in the kitchen she went to the living room. As we talked she would roll her eyes when i spoke just could tell in her body language. Still my husband trying to please her, the only thing she had to ask me is if we would consider IVF or adoption before leaving. I told her not IVF and we have already signed up for adoption it is not up to us. My husband called her again and asked her why she was acting like this and told her she was causing a strain in our marriage. She said it had nothing to do with us not having a child. So at that point I said then if its a genuine dislike then I have nothing to say anymore and have refused to see her or speak with her. Now his brother is getting married in March, I don’t want my husband to attend alone and I don’t want us divided but I don’t know what to do.
Hope, unfortunately in-laws are forever. Your MIL is misbehaving, like so many MILs. It’s best to think of her as a spoiled child. Taking her antics seriously can lead to estrangement which will affect your family in so many ways. To resolve this problem, her behavior should be treated as you would a spoiled child. Her provocative behavior should be completely ignored. She should be left in the other room to stew if that’s what she wants, just as you would do with a spoiled child.
To break this pattern you will need to act as though she has never done anything rude. This does not mean you forgive her or treat her kindly. Instead simply keep things light and on the surface. When she wants to ask invasive questions it’s best to simply say, “I’m not comfortable talking about that right now,” or “We’ll talk to you about this when we are more certain,” and move right into another subject, always keeping things polite and completely on the surface.
You may have to accept that just like it is for so many people, your visits with relatives are going to be uncomfortable. But this type does have the ability to change her patterns, although I doubt she will ever be the kind of MIL you can open yourself up to.
So to sum it up, to change her patterns you can team up with your husband and decide to ignore all her negative behavior including past behavior and act as though everything is fine. There is no reason to explain either your past decisions with her or your future ones. You can simply act as though the past never happened and ignore all future attempts to provoke you. Your brother in law’s wedding might be a good time to practice.
Hi, my husband and I have been married for 9 years now ( dated for 3 ). My husband is the only child and our tradition requires us to stay with my in laws, well as he is viewed as the heir. Both my FIL and MIL were very controlling and looked down on me and my family , when we got married I did not work or have any qualification than my high school graduation. The same year we got married I decided to go to university. It was a four year qualification and I did not get to stay with my in laws because the university was in another city. The same city my husband was working. At that time we had a nine month old son who was staying with me and my parents before the marriage. I was young and naive and did not want to express my views to avoid conflict. My MIL manipulated me into leaving my son behind because she did not get to have many children of her own. My husband was raised by his grandparents so my MIL missed that opportunity. I left my son with her, it was painful to leave my son behind. During study vacations I was forced to go home because my son was there! My husband would stay behind working. My FIL and MIL would critize my cooking indirectly out loud. Like say :”What kind of meat is this?” Or say : ” What bad table manners!” I would shrink at the comment and try to do better the next day. I did not tell my husband about this. My MIL then literally showed me how she wanted her food to be like dish by dish as if I was some help. Every study vacation was a drag for 4years. I was litteraly waking up cleaning with my MIL which she made clear I was never gonna be better than her/ wake up earlier than her. I am an introvet and don’t have friends. After 2 years of varsity I had another baby and she immediately stepped in and said she would take care of her while I finish. My husband was passive, didn’t want to get cought in the middle. I now had two of my kids staying with her!
I finished studying, which she also mentioned through out the years that I should come work back home! I decided to do that but I did not look for a job near home. I worked in the nearest town, an hour drive. I found accommodation there, then told my husband I wanted my kids there with me. My husband lost his job in the big city and was staying with me in town. We told his parents that we wanted the kids and I was pregnant with the third. She litteraly acted out to show how broken she was. She was very very sad. We then postponed the discussion until the 3rd child was born. Within one month of being born, my FIL passed away. She was very sad and said she can’t stay alone and wanted my one month old daughter to come join the other kids. But I had already hired a nanny and I had to turn the nanny down and my husband was okay with that. I even told my MIL that she must let me raise this one child because I missed that with the others. She ignored that. I was so sad that I even got a tranfer to come stay with her and my kids and her 100 years old mother! I was to her my kids’s older sister, my kids even call her mother. I had stayed with her now for three and half years. It’s been hell. She does not respect my privacy. Does not knock when she comes in my room, spoils my kids rotten and I am extremely furious. I do not know what to do because she gets the kids ready for school, suggests my way of taking care of my kids is not proper.I now resent her because I cannot do anything right even the laundry. I confronted her but she denied everything. It got bad I did not speak to her for 3 days and she called a family meeting and cried and said I was nasty to her. I can’t even have a private conversation with my husband she wants to be part of it. Even our sex life. She would say: ” I am old now I even can’t sleep during the night I HEAR EVERYTHING” she would say this knowing very well that we were intimate last night. I cry a lot and even have dark eye bags. My husband said in that family meeting that this thing is going to break us up. Because really its me or her now. And my husband knows that if I go, there too much to loose. My husband now says I must record his mother because she denies everything. I think it’s a bad thing to record her. My husband has found a nice job in the nearest town and he is only off twice a month. My relationship with MIL is toxic and she even tells her old mother that I am a bad person. Her old mother swears at me and even told me I was such a bad cook. I was sometimes suicidal but I won’t do it because I love my kids way too much to do that.I even love my husband too much to do that. I have even buried myself in my work because I really don’t have a life. My son is almost ten and he adores me and even decided to call me MAMA instead ,my kids all do love and call me MAMA. Please help
You have several things going in your favor. One is that your MIL doesn’t want to be seen as a bad person. This will allow you to use my techniques which can be found both in this blog post for her controlling behavior and in my four-part blog series on how to stop emotional abuse.
Another thing in your favor is that your husband does support you even though he is uncomfortable being in the middle. Your challenge is that with this personality type you must become tougher and meaner than she is. You need to learn to strongly and immediately defend your way of life to her including how you cook, how you clean and how you raise the children. Although this may go against your traditional MIL/DIL expectation of roles, I believe that if you become just as ruthless with her as she has been to you, she will back off and take on a healthier role in your household.
You may need to make very strong personality shifts to accomplish this, but I think you will find that by strongly asserting your dominance over your household consistently with no empathy for her protests while also giving her positive feedback any time she behaves appropriately she will eventually learn to respect your boundaries.
Thank you, I really appreciate your advice.
You’re most welcome. Best of luck.
Hi Joanna,
Thank you for the article.
What would be your advice in regards to dealing with a mother-in-law who is kind to me (her daughter-in-law), but openly disrespectful and unfair to my husband?
My husband and I have known each other since we were kids and started dating in freshman year of high school. We broke up for a few years then got back together senior year. We got married in 2016 and have our first baby on the way.
Since day one when we got back together, his mother showed up to my parents’ house to tell me that I was too good for her son and he was too immature for a real relationship. This made MY parents dislike him for a very long time.
I obviously did not heed her advice and continued to date her son. It took her almost a year before she would even allow me into their house.
Once she finally accepted me and got to know me better she was suddenly very sweet and attentive to me, calling me “m’ija” and everything (Spanish for “sweetie”). But as I spent more time with them, the more I noticed how crappy she treats my husband. Worst part is, he seems to be aware of it but allows it to happen anyway. He thinks because she was a single, hardworking mother (which I do respect, don’t get me wrong) that she deserves a free pass on treating him like dirt.
There are various examples, one that sticks out to me: he’s the oldest of four children and always takes the blame for them. Example is one time his brother left the light on in the kitchen, then MIL comes stomping out of her bedroom and screams at the top of her lungs at MY husband for the light being on. I was appalled! What gives her the gall to assume it was my husband without any proof whatsoever, then to be so disrespectful to get in his face and yell like a banshee? Worst part? My husband took the blame and said “Sorry, Mom. It won’t happen again.” I wish I had stuck up for him but I was in too much shock to say anything.
That’s one of many examples. Another instance- she ruined his marriage proposal to me. He thought it would be romantic to pop the question on Xmas Eve surrounded by his family. When he got on one knee and presented the most beautiful ring I could imagine, his mom ruined the moment by shouting, “Say no!” We were both very upset and all she had to say was that my husband should’ve warned her in advance that he was going to propose.
The latest example which is the last straw is her kid who just barely turned 18 can’t get his license for awhile because he already has two DUI’s. She wasn’t feeling well so she made the kid drive her to the mall, and lo and behold they got into a fender bender. MIL knew the insurance wouldn’t cover it because her son doesn’t have a valid license, so she told the insurance it was her other son driving (yes – my husband) and then called him to inform him he was to take the blame for his brother. What does my husband say? “Sure, Mom!”
This is the last straw for me. I could somewhat turn a blind eye before but now that we’re bringing a child into this world, I don’t want my baby to grow up and see his or her daddy be constantly abused and treated like this.
I try to talk to my husband about it but he gets very defensive when it comes to his mother. I don’t think she’s a bad person, I just think she’s so accustomed to blaming my husband for everything that she just can’t help it anymore, and same for him. He is used to taking the blame for everything, so he doesn’t understand why I get so irritated by his mother’s antics. And she does not treat the other kids in this manner – only him. Which is bizarre because her other kids drink and do drugs and are constantly in trouble with the law. My husband is a hard worker and the most trouble he ever got in was fights at school, but by time senior year rolled around he cleaned up his act and graduated with high marks. I don’t understand where her resentment for him comes from, yet she lets the other kids get away with murder.
She doesn’t even know we’re pregnant. I’ve told basically my entire family and everyone – even my parents – are super excited for us. But I feel like when we tell his mom she’ll find some way to ruin it for us just like she did our marriage proposal.
Sorry for the long novel, but I’m at my wit’s end here. How can I stand up for my husband without coming across as rude or not minding my own business? Again, he refuses to stand up for himself against her and we’ve almost split up in the past because I couldn’t stand being around her when she acts like that. And I most certainly do not want our child to grow up seeing that, heaven forbid she ever thinks she can get away with treating our CHILD like that.
Thanks in advance.
Ashley, I’m sorry to hear about your difficult situation. Many men have difficulty confronting their parents, particularly a mother. Men generally have a different neurological setup when it comes to emotions. And there truly is a downside to typical female expression of emotions. The good side is that it is warm and comforting. But the bad side is that when anger is present it will be experienced as scalding to most men who have a lower emotional setting and less tolerance. Not having the tools to deal with female anger, most men are at a loss of what to do. Their best action will be inaction. But this tactic can be frustrating for their female partners who understand much better all of the many levels of female control and are confused at why their husbands can’t fight back.
So if there is any way possible, it’s best to not to make your husband feel any worse about his inaction. It’s best to accept that you are the one that has the insight into your MIL’s behavior along with the skills to intervene and put a stop to it. You do not need to involve your husband at all.
Your MIL is counting on no one confronting her on her outrageous behavior. But using non-confrontational methods you can easily shine the light on the things others are letting her get away with. Using the type of language I suggest in this post you should be able to start up discussions even about her past negative behavior.
If you approach her in a non-confrontational way you can ask her about any of her antics. The way to discuss them is privately, away from the family. You can simply ask her why she chose to do X, Y or Z, whatever the situation. She is counting on you not being direct, so you could literally say, “I always wanted to know, why did you have the brother drive when he had the DUI’s?” or “I always wanted to know why you blamed my husband for what his brother did?”
She may use all kinds of tactics to ridicule you or she may outright lie about the situation or use any number of ways to take the focus off of her behavior. You can take a look at my four-part blog series on emotional abuse for methods to deal with any abusive tactics she may try to use to back you off.
If you persevere and continually ask her why she does these things and act like you really want to know the answer, she will become more and more uncomfortable. You will be psychologically policing her behavior which no one has ever done before. If you regularly approach her with a completely innocent tone, just wanting to know what was behind all of these “decisions” she will change her behavior even if she never gives you a satisfactory answer.
Unfortunately, this kind of tactic will not heal her or help her. It will instead take her one layer down in her defenses. It will leave her nervous and unhappy, but at least she will be prevented from including others in her destructive behavior.
I found this post very interesting and am pondering over how to incorporate it into my relationship with my MIL. One issue I suspect will come up if she is challenged at all is that when things do not go her way, or she is called out at all or anger is expressed towards her she suddenly has a massive medical emergency and goes off in an ambulance. For years she was using this tactic any time she was upset which makes her sons feel terrified to disappoint her. She attempted to stop us from having a destination wedding because she could not be out of driving distance from a neurosurgeon, could not get travel insurance, and a spell down south could bankrupt them – she did end up attending. One time when our Christmas plans to visit them became compromised my husband actually said he would have to leave me completely alone and go himself because If he did not go his mother would die. Her medical issues have declined rapidly since having grand kids – because of course who would leave a grand child alone with someone so unwell. How would you handle someone who uses these techniques to control?
Krystal, I’ve given your unusual situation a lot of thought. My heart is with you as this is quite challenging. Generally speaking, my techniques are somewhat limited to verbal interaction and using language to get behind a person’s defenses. I haven’t been able to come up with anything on the spot for you, but I will say you seem to have done a very good job handling this family problem.
If I was working with you, I would probably have you and the rest of the family create a setup where her medical problem is perceived as catastrophic, weaving it into the most minor of situations, continually referring to it in her presence in a way that shows it impacts all family decisions.
The reasoning behind this is that she wants to use the beneficial affects of her medical condition but only when it best suits her. So the non-confrontational way to handle it is to take the card she’s playing completely seriously, which would mean the entire family would have to abandon all their needs to attend to her health.
This over-focus on her condition would be embarrassing for her and would force her to admit that the family shouldn’t have to give up all of their needs for her. Taking this problem ultra-seriously would also prevent her from doing what she does want to do, as you so perceptively described with the example of her time with the grandchildren. It also ensures that you never end up ignoring what the legitimate aspect of her health problem is, which is not possible to disentangle from the manufactured or even psychosomatic aspect.
I include this hypothetical setup for readers who may be encountering a similar problem, but I’m not sure that I would recommend you try this out in your family. If you are having success in later years with her due to the grandchildren, it may be best to allow this positive trajectory to take its course. Intervening this way could help if she was at her most controlling, but as long as things are moving in a positive direction it would probably be best to not interfere.
Hi, I have been looking for help with my mil and came upon this website. My husband and I have been married for eleven years and we have a eleven year old son. When I first got together with my husband, I didn’t give the best impression of myself which made the situation negative from the start. But I have apologized more than once for my part in our negative start. Things were ok and she would give me advice when I became pregnant about being a mom and making sure people respect what I say. She even told me a story about her own mil and how she kept giving my husband the pacifier when she didn’t want him to use one. My mil said “how dare she not listen to me, I’m his mom, so she never watched him again.” Then my son was born and all of a sudden she became controlling and she would not listen or respect anything we said about our son. Luckily for me My husband has not been shy about telling his mom how he feels. But its been tough because I don’t like seeing my husband and his mom at odds but at the same time I believe that she should respect what we say as parents. When my son was first born she had 100% trust from us but over the years she has chipped away at that trust by putting my son in danger, by not keeping her word, and by lying to us. I know my mil loves her son and she loves her grandson and that’s way we don’t keep him from her. She comes to our house often and spends time with him but I know she would rather take my son alone for the day which we don’t allow because of all the trust issues as well as the fact that she doesn’t seem to want to work on them. She seems to be jealous of my parents and the freedom they are given with my son but the truth is my parents have always respected my husbands and I authority with our son which is why they are given the freedom. She told my husband that she did all the stuff she did because she’s his mom and thought she should be able despite the fact that when she was a young mom she would have never accepted that behavior. What advice would you give with dealing with someone who I believe is not a bad person, but for whatever reason is very insecure and controlling and doesn’t seem to think she needs to respect anything my husband or I say about our son? BTW, other then the issues with my mil concerning my son I don’t have any issues with her.
Geena, your situation is a great example of how ideally a couple should handle problems with a MIL. You are both setting clear and important boundaries with her, and your husband is taking the lead as it’s his mother. You are both clearly aware of your MIL’s lack of ability to control her behavior towards her grandson, although she is clearly too embarrassed to directly admit to her bad impulses.
You have created what will be the best case scenario where your MIL cannot put your child in danger yet she is able to see her grandchild with appropriate safety measures. Your clear boundaries make a strong statement to her which I am sure she understands very well even if she is too embarrassed to talk about it directly. I would continue as you are. The point of good boundaries is it allows the other person to improve their behavior on their own if they choose to. If she does not choose to curb her impulses, she creates her own limitations.
Perhaps she will change, but in the meantime I would keep doing what you are doing. For whatever reason, your MIL’s mental health isn’t quite where it would need to be for her to have full grandmother privileges at this time. But you are giving her a good incentive to make the changes in the future if she chooses.
I desperately attempt to tolerate a narcissistic and extremely manipulative father-in-law. He has “played” the entire family for decades with just about every mind game imaginable. The world, in its entirety, revolves completely around him, his needs, his wishes, his demands, his problems, etc. One of his standard ploys is to pretend he doesn’t understand and then argue and discuss something into the ground until his opponent simply gives ups and basically say the heck with it. It wasn’t that important. Once again, he wins.
I have come to the point I will have nothing to do with him on any subject and I haven’t even spoken to him in years. I refuse to be manipulated by him or waste any further time and energy dealing with him. Nevertheless, this jerk pesters my spouse with every problem he can manufacture, dream up, or create and then calls and calls and calls even at my spouse’s place of employment, home, cell phone. My spouse has never been able to stand up to this fellow and simply tell him to “get lost.” He’s an old man now, but still goes on and on and on as it has for decades. Time to put an end to it. Past time! How?
James, this father-in-law sounds like the perfect person for your wife to use my non-confrontational methods with. You and your wife could start with the Introduction to the Nicola Method which is an easy guide to use the basic techniques of my method. It’s on the home page of my website. Some examples of how to handle his shenanigans would be:
“Since you are calling me at work can I assume this is an emergency?”
“It sounds like you think our opinions on this subject shouldn’t be included.”
“It sounds like you don’t think the views of the rest of the family should be listened to.”
“It sounds like you don’t think others’views should be included in decisions.”
“It sounds like you don’t think my opinion should be listened to.”
My techniques have been developed specifically for people who have inhibitions about confronting people. See if your wife might feel comfortable memorizing one of these sentences and using it the next time he pesters her.
I have controlling family on both sides. My in laws and my own parents. They are extremist ultra orthodox Jewish religion followers.
they are VERY controlling. for instance when we put our son in a school my in laws didn’t like, they contacted school principal behind our backs getting the school to kick out our son.
when my son was in an other school, he made 2 very good friends. The in-laws disliked them and they got the school’s principal to transfer my son from their class to stop this friendship. This pattern happened again and again as my son moved to 2 different schools and his best friends moved after him to the new school just to be with my son.
When we prepared to move to several states away, the in laws called the community there. we don’t know what they told them, but the community rejected us that we won’t move there.
then eventually my in laws sued me and my husband for custody on our children. we escaped to an other country.
few years later we came to visit in the USA to make a bar mitzvah for our son with my family and my parents.
then when we prepared to go back home, my parents sued me and my husband for custody on our children, alienated our oldest son and incited him to stay with them and got the judge in the court to approve it.
we were also jailed based on false allegations my parents imposed on me. (and we were freed after 30 hours)
now we are back to our country. I don’t talk with my parents or my in laws. I have occasional Skype chats with my oldest son that is 16.5 years old. He refuses to live with us as we are not religious as his grandparents.
I’ve had to stop a lot of what I wanted to do to keep my in laws happy, I did have loads of friends
On Facebook and two of my friends(use to be friends) are no longer my friends because my in laws
Took control and still are interfering with what plans we have and who we are friends with, who we talk to.
It’s not right cause we can’t get on with our lives without interferrance.
Most of this ‘professional’ advise in this article is pure BS, and will only ’empower’ the abuser. However, it is great advise for timid or shy people, or even for highly civilized and/or polite people who have been raised right and taught that it would be improper to be disrespectful to an elder in-law. Abusive in-laws are especially attracted to those who have been abused by others before. The advise in this article gives a false impression that making a feeble attempt at some tricky, verbal response with an abusive ‘bully’ in-law may somehow set the stage for an ‘even’ playing field. 100% false hope. If you practice this advise you will only set the stage for more abuse, more passive aggressive comments, more open ridicule in front of other family members, etc. People forget what abusers are actually like, what they are AT THE CORE of their being. They are highly skilled in their art. They know exactly what they are doing to you, and when you let them get away with it, they take your silence or ‘weak’ reaction as evidence that you are, in fact, weak. This will only make them want to emotionally harm you further. These people are sick. Truly. Anyone who preys on other people with insults and comments that are designed to harm self esteem is EVIL. Period. So how do you handle such a person? Easy, but probably not so easy … that is until you DO IT. Take the person aside, to a semi private or private area. The bully will normally insult you in front of others. It gives them joy to do this to you when others are present. Take them over to a private area. I usually just look them in the eye and say, “Come over here, let’s chat.” You will not be chatting with them. Then look them in the eye again. Tell them, “If you ever call me that name again, or fill in the blank with whatever they just did, then I will leave the family gathering.” If you have kids, tell them that the kids are leaving with you. If it is bad enough abuse, tell them that they will NEVER see your kids again if they behave that way. They will likely smirk when you tell them this. Then say to them, “You had better wipe that smirk off of your face right now.” They will say something smart ass back to you. Its in their nature. But you are getting through. Believe me. Then tell them “NO MORE INSULTS” and walk away. That will fix it. 100% guaranteed. You will NEVER be liked by these people. They don’t like themselves. You will NEVER gain their respect. They don’t respect themselves. Stop trying. FIGHT BACK. STAND UP. GET IN THEIR FACE AND TELL THEM TO STOP. It works.
Fed Up, I think you have mistaken this blog post for controlling in-laws with my posts on emotional abuse. The techniques in this blog post are for non-abusive but controlling in-laws. But thank you for your contribution and I believe your advice for those with abusive in-laws is well taken.
Hi Joanna,
I have been married for 6 months and facing similar issues with my in-laws.
My husband and I had a 5 year relationship before getting married.
Within a week of getting married, my husband announced that we will be staying with his parents because his mother has raised a helping hand in our chores because we both are working couple.
She doesn’t let me do things in the kitchen always criticize on how i cook and what i wear and pass aunts at me given a chance.
Considering our past relationship (we were very good friends) I tod my husband what was happening and he just refused to believe me. He said his mother cannot do such things and I am the crazy and the negative one to think of his mother in that way.
When I said she doesn’t even approve the way I hold a ladle or spoon he refused and said i have ego issues when someone tells me I am wrong.
My husband think I am trying to separate him from his parents.
He said he is growing afraid of my behaviour and thinks I am a crazy lunatic person and I assume everything.
I feel my MIL is killing me with her extreme good behaviour.
What should I do?
Correction:
* Pass comments on me
How ca I show my MIL’s true intentions to my husband?
He is not ready to believe it even when I say I am suffering from this problem.
Anna, refer to my longer comment.
Anna, this is a very difficult situation. This type of thing happens frequently in marriages, but not in this severe a presentation where the marriage is actually threatened indirectly through this behavior pattern. I would suggest you try to reverse this behavior right away if you can.
The method I teach to reverse this behavior includes you taking your spouse out of the equation entirely. In other words as hard as it may be, you would need to not involve your husband at all. If you can, just tell him that you believe you know how to resolve the problems with your MIL so it shouldn’t be an issue any longer. Taking him completely out of the picture should stabilize your relationship. Then you would need to not talk to him about any of the details, positive or negative. If he asks just reassure him that you are working it out and it is no longer a problem.
Then I would suggest you apply the methods in this blog post. Try to keep in mind that your MIL is battling with insecurity which can make many otherwise well-behaved people act out terribly. Also be aware that she senses her great power to make a divide between you and your spouse. By not involving your husband at all you take this power away from her.
You have a few more options beyond using the language in this blog post. You can, if it is more comfortable, have a sit-down discussion with her where you tell her that you are very sensitive, and that criticism is very difficult for you. You can teach her how to behave appropriately by asking her to instead of criticizing you to give you positive comments of how you should do things.
She won’t remember to do this because her criticism are actually to make herself feel more powerful, not to make you behave differently, but it does allow you to stop her every time she criticizes. Having her re-frame her criticism to a positive from a negative will keep her from getting an emotional boost. If every times she behaves critically you say, “I think you may have forgotten that I’m very sensitive. Could you say that in a more positive way,” she will be unable to make herself feel more secure by putting you down. She will also tire very quickly of having to make a “discussion” out of every barb or jab that she has the urge to make.
If this doesn’t work for you or you are uncomfortable having her tell you how to do things at all, you can go directly to the blog post and use language like, “I might be taking this too personally, but when you said that it sounded like you didn’t think I was a good cook (cleaner, wife, etc…). Hopefully this will embarrass her into taking back the criticism each time and eventually she will stopn altogether. But if she agrees with that and has no problem telling you you are not a good cook, cleaner, wife, etc., you can refer to my four part blog series on emotional abuse which shows you hot to stop outright cruel behavior.
These two approaches, one to move your husband completely out of the relationship with your MIL and two, keeping her from being able to use criticism to soothe her insecurity should help you make very quick headway to remove this very destructive behavior pattern.
* sorry corrections..
It should be pass comments on me whenever she has a chance.
How can I make my husband see her real face?
I want him to know I am suffering and he doesn’t want to believe me.
I also told him that women do such things because they feel like they are loosing their son to another woman and I am not saying his mother is a bad person.
But he said his mother is not like every other woman and I should stop generalizing.
How can I make my husband understand what I am going through?
Also I am not good at confronting others.
Anna, refer to my longer comment to you.
Hi Joanna,
I’m in need of some serious help/advice/ideas. In 28 days I marry my best friend. Unfortunately, his mother is not speaking to us. I’ve tried reaching out 2 times and have heard nothing back.
Let me back up a bit. We have been together for 3 years. She has always been very passive/aggressive but nothing to this extent. My fiance lost his dad when he was 16 and his mom remarried. My fiance and his step-dad do not get along very well. He has one younger brother who is married and has two kids. I see my future MIL get upset/jealous over the littlest thing.
Fast forward to our engagement. Everything seemed to be going fine, I invited her to find my dress, I invited her to my shower (which she was 2 hours late for), and I invited her to my bachelorette party (which she was 1.5 hours late for) She got to see our venue (which my fiance and I picked out)(she was mad that my parents went along). My future MIL and SFIL told us that they wanted to pay for the rehearsal dinner and beer/booze at our reception. I let her pick out the rehearsal dinner spot and the food. She asked me to give her a list of booze/beer in which I did. Two weeks ago she got mad at us because we did NOT send her other daughter in-laws mother a wedding invite. (We’ve only met her 2 times) She then decided to text my fiance about how she doesn’t feel apart of this wedding and that I am making all the decisions. She then went on to say that my family is always involved and that we shouldn’t be inviting friends of ours from my families side since we didn’t invite her other daughter in-laws mother. In return my fiance stuck up for me and told her that my family has been nothing but supportive and wonderful. And now she isn’t speaking to us. I’m wanting to know if they don’t want to have anymore involvement in this? What should I do? I’ve tried reaching out to her twice with no response.
Can you please help me! I don’t want her acting this way the rest of our lives. Is this something that my fiance needs to deal with?
Ana, your MIL is acting exactly like a spoiled teenager, and my advice is that you treat her as such. In other words ignore all of her teenage tantrums and dramatic pronouncements. You would treat this present cold shoulder the way you would a teenager who goes stomping off to her room. Act as though it never happened and treat her as though she is coming to the wedding. If you completely ignore all of her threats and complaints and just use the phrase, “I’m sorry you feel that way” as a response, her tactics will not work.
I understand it’s close to the wedding, so this might be stressful to carry out. You will need to get agreement from your fiance to allow her to rant and then go on as though she had never said it, treating it like a teenage tantrum. Simply treat her as though everything is normal no matter what outrageous things she says. Make sure she knows you are expecting her to continue to participate in all the wedding events by reminders or asking when she wants to be picked up as though nothing negative has happened.
This will serve as a clear message that you hear what she is saying but that you are not taking her dramatic proclamations into account. If she is not punished for her outrageous behavior but is treated as though she never said those words, she will realize her tactics aren’t working and she should be able to straighten herself out before the wedding.
You may need to use the techniques I mention in this blog post in the future to get her to stop all of this type of behavior. You may also eventually want to share these non-confrontational techniques with the rest of the family so she learns how to handle her insecurity in a more productive way with all family members. Your MIL will be much happier when she stops this needless behavior and recognizes that she has a wonderful family environment with lots of people around her who care about her.
Hi! Thank you for this article! There’s lots of methods I think I can implement in my situation. I didn’t see tho and I’m sorry if I overlooked it, what to do if your in law cries every time a boundary is enforced along with “but I just love you so much!”
Danielle, I would probably suggest you treat her as you might an oversensitive child. Stay with your boundaries, but be understanding and perhaps say that you’re sorry that you have to bring up such difficult matters. She needs to know that this tactic, if it is one, will not stop you from asserting boundaries.
Hi! My Father in law is very controlling and selfish. He is a widower and my son is the only son he has my sister in law stays away as she has a job there. I have my entire personality changed because of his behaviour. No matter what we do as children he would always go behind our back and bitch about us . Differences started when he used to have meetings with my husband and after that my husband used to come back to me with something negative everytime. Until one day I confronted my fil and told him to say to me whatever problem he has with food etc. He didn’t expected this and said he would not want to hurt me so that’s y he didn’t say things directly. I said I get hurt wen u tell my husband behind my back and then we have a fight. I said I will be more than happy to get any feedback upfront. But still he keeps on backbitching about me and about his children too to our relatives. It hurts both.of us as we do every possible thing to keep him happy he is financially well equipped still dependent on us. He would want my husband to buy him even an underwear when he himself was earning. Still Which is not a problem but his behaviour drives me crazy . He expects me to do all the household work when we have two flats just because I am a daughter in law. He would take my daughter 4 years old away at relatives place for night out when he knows I don’t like it. He is always depressed and critical I feel sorry for him as i understand he is all alone but he never respected my mil when she was alive. All he bothers about is money. He is a big miser and would not spend a penny on my daughter. Even he is indirectly controlling all our decisons as he would not let my husband shift to a better place just because he wishes to die in the same house his father died. He won’t let him go to other states or country for better job opportunity because he won’t be having is friends circle there. And my husband loves him so much he won’t leave him alone. We didn’t wanted to have another child But he somehow convinced my husband and I am carrying a child I didn’t want to have. He didn’t let me pursue my career after I had my first child. I feel I have become a puppet of his wishes . He is so strange and weird that even said that it’s possible that my husband dies before him and he lives long enough and I and my child will have to live with him. I seriously think he has some mental illness. He is most of the time rude to me not in words but tone. And talks bad about me behind my back to my husband and all my relatives like I don’t give him breakfast on time, I don’t clean his house. I have given up my career and everything for this marriage but this old man is driving me into depression what should I do?My husband can’t hear a single word against him.
Anonymous 5, you are dealing with quite a handful! You are doing a great job with him, although you must be totally exhausted. If I was working with you it would be a very intensive process, and it would take a long time because we would need to deal with one issue at a time. But I sense that you are unusually strong, and in that case I would instead of using my confrontational methods be very, very directive with him. You have already seen that you can successfully cut through all of his nonsense by telling him the truth about talking behind your back.
So I would start with this method. I would ask friends and other family to let you know if he has been talking about you negatively. Tell them they don’t need to say what it was, but that you are working gently with him to break this habit. You can tell them that you won’t mention their name directly.
I believe that if you confront him each time he does this, exactly the way you described, he will stop. You would use the exact language you used before, telling him the reason he needs to stop is that it hurts you. Don’t address any of his criticisms. Next I would begin a campaign of independence. If he wants to take your child, tell him you have other plans for that time, and then ask him what other time he would like to take your child to relatives. If you keep this up, he will learn slowly that your children are yours and he needs permission.
You might need to work with your husband as well. I hope you recognize how lucky you are that your husband doesn’t share these same habits. However, you need to make a unified front with you husband, making sure that your decision-making happens between you two, not with your FIL. I would avoid any confrontation with your husband. Allow him to be as doting as he wishes with his father, but when it comes to decision making, your husband needs to be clearly reminded that these areas concern only the two of you.
You are a very tough cookie, and I believe you can turn him around just by being very strong in what you know is right and following your very good instincts.
Thanks Joanna I really appreciate your help and time on this. Your words will really help me to stay strong and you know I just felt so strong after I vented out whatever was there inside me because there was noone I could tell all these things and it was eating me up from inside. God bless you for giving hope to people in need 😇
I was not planning to comment at all, but seeing how helpful you are with all the commenters, I feel compelled to have your bird’s-eye view if possible. I feel fully confident that what my in-laws are doing is disrespectful, but I’ll take all the advice I can get if there’s anything more someone can tell me. My husband and I have been living in his parents house for almost two years now. They are retired and the idea was that they are traveling all the time in their camper, so at first, the arrangement worked- and we weren’t married yet. But we moved our relationship further quickly, and got married last December, so it’s been almost a year now. Not long after we married, I quit my job and our plan was for my husband to make money for us on his own. We are happy with this decision and have dutifully paid rent to his parents the whole time. However, as you might guess already, his parents are not okay with me not having a job. We could handle the criticism, but there are issues much worse than that. After we’d been married only a month, his parents (after having said before that they had moved out of the house for good and wouldn’t come back), announced they were coming back to stay in the house because his dad’s back is bad and only the local doctors can help apparently. And since it was January at this point, it’s cold out so they said they’d be staying in the house instead of the camper. This was disappointing news, and I remember his mom saying she felt bad for us. But it has not gone that way at all!! If they were considerate and kind about walking in on us, especially since they had a good reason to come back, I would have no qualms. But it’s been this whole year now, plenty of nice days have gone by, yet they haven’t spent any time in the camper. They did not reduce our rent even though they are constantly here. They are increasingly taking over the house, even though they had originally called themselves guests. I take great care to make my requests in a non-confrontational way, but they always take it the wrong way, so ive stopped trying to make any of this house our own. They expect us to let them do as they please and give us no personal space. They bombard us any time we are here. We finally are making plans to buy our own house, so we will be out of here pretty soon, but in the meantime, I have the daily battle of being judged for every move I make, having to answer them when they ask what I’ll be up to today or “what I’ve been doing all day.” It’s very painful for me to realize their original love was conditional since they treat me differently now that I don’t work. It’s like they purposefully get in my way and use my space so they can annoy me instead of letting me enjoy peace in my own home that we are paying way too much for. I’m heartbroken that they have their crap everywhere yet will take a single small item of mine and put it in a place that obviously says they want me to put it somewhere else. There’s so much more. I feel I am in all directions explaining this to you and I don’t know how much advice I really need. I’m just sad at what’s become and want to confide in you because all your advice appears very helpful. I plan to use it as needed. So sick of being hurt like this after all I’ve done for them and their son and how much I’ve yielded for their sake. Thank you for providing practical solutions that can preserve the relationship. I am hopeful that getting our own house will reduce the stress and conflict tremendously.
Alison, I believe you are right in your belief that when you move out, these issues will resolve. One of the most difficult challenges in resolving conflicts with in-laws is that they tend to be conflict-avoidant. And they have good reason. In-laws are hopefully forever, and it is so easy to damage these relationships. But when your in-laws don’t communicate their needs, their views often come out in manipulative ways as you seem to have experienced.
Your mother in law’s views about whether you should be working would probably be appropriately concealed if the boundaries in your living situation had been clarified. We all have pet peeves about those we are close to, and under most circumstances we can keep these to ourselves. But when we try to conceal real issues, like important boundaries, we often end up unable to conceal the little ones.
Your mother in law’s style is to not communicate but to hint instead, which for someone as communicative and direct as you can feel controlling. My suggestion is to put everything that has come up from your in-laws not communicating their change in plans for the living situation aside and focus on your move.
I believe your in-laws will be relieved when their unspoken tension from not communicating about their change in plans to move back into their house are no longer an issue. When boundaries are in place they should be able to be more respectful and keep their unwelcome opinions about your lifestyle choices to themselves.
If problems continue to arise after you move out, I believe my methods listed in this blog post would be very useful in getting your in-laws to communicate better.
I have lived with in-laws, who have no conscience, for 30 years. The FIL has passed away, but the MIL is still around and still receives money from us and, supposedly, from the other siblings of my husband’s family. These 2 people took money from my husband before he was my husband to the point that he was in debt when we married. I did not know the extent of this until after the wedding and had to bail him out of debt. I had NEVER seen parents who did not care about their children like this. My husband has always made excuses for them, like, “Oh, my dad has always been “irreseponsible” with money!”
They never paid us back and continued to take from us, and, I think, my husband’s siblings. They went on a big trip for one of their anniversaries – my husband gave them frequent flyers (so he said) to fly to Ireland. One of my husband’s sisters planned some big party at a hotel that she made all the others pay for (without consulting anyone in my family.) We had to pay for FIL’s funeral and any other extravagant luncheon they planned. This very same large, expensive party just happened again recently for the MIL’s birthday. This woman, BTW, never says thank you and never has done a thing for us. The MIL is and FIL was the most arrogant, narcissistic, cold humans I have ever come into contact with.
My husband has kept as much of this financial “support” from me as he could until I discover it! In other words, I don’t get to say NO! To make matters worse, his siblings, and a few of their spouses, have been very rude to me OR they treat me as if I am not there. Yes, I probably should have left a long time ago, but my husband is a very good man and we have 2 daughters. So, what is someone in my predicament to do?
Kate, this is a very tricky situation. All in laws seem to need to be taught how to respect their children’s family. To teach respect you need to apply old-fashioned boundary setting techniques. There is lots of good information available on how to set boundaries. The one piece of advice I will give you is to not be confrontational with your husband. He is probably very ashamed of his inability to stand up to his parents and likely does not know why he can’t do it. The psychological damage from narcissistic parents is very deep and hard to recover from. This is where you come in, someone who does not have the baggage and history of his family and who can see things clearly. If you do not blame him for your predicament, he should be willing to go along with plans to begin setting boundaries for his extended family.
The way you got into this situation is that you, being a healthy person, did not expect his family to behave in such a dysfunctional way. People who are raised with respect and taught to respect others fail to realize that what they consider normal behavior is more of a goal for a good part of the population. So you will need to change your expectations of your extended family.
You would need to have a talk with your husband and tell him you would like to begin setting boundaries with your extended family. Tell him you don’t want to upset them or get into any kind of conflict. To take away his guilt you can tell him that all couples need to eventually teach their in laws boundaries and if it’s done gradually they won’t even know you are doing it.
You might suggest that the next time they ask for money, he tells them that you have a large expense, perhaps for the kids, and suggest he get the money from a sibling this time. Make sure your husband knows it’s not about the money. It’s about teaching them very gradually how to hear the word no from you, just like you might do with your children. If this seems to extreme, he can find some reason to give them a little less money. Hopefully there will be some level of saying no that your husband will be comfortable with. It doesn’t mean never helping them out, just setting limitations gradually.
With the rest of the extended family you will need to predict in advance when they are going to try to take advantage of you. Any time a situation arises where they might take advantage, ask important questions, like how are these expenses going to be divided up to circumvent a negative outcome. Over time they will come to understand that they need to respect you.
Over my 16 year marriage to my husband and four children later, my MIL has continued to try and control every holiday and vacation. She has tried to control other things under the guise of “helping”; but we have been successful in setting boundaries. She usually tries do exert her will through my husband without including me in decision making. For the most part my husband does a good job of boundary setting with her and he tells me about it; but for some situations, like vacations and holidays, she is successful in pulling him around and putting me in a situation where I am up against a majority rule. My husband has two sisters and the family is close knit. The sisters are always on board with MIL. We have been partially successful in taking Thanksgiving back (although we still have to go to her house for dessert, bringing my side of the family); but for every other holiday: Easter, Fourth of July, Memrial Day, etc., etc., it is always assumed that we celebrate with her at her house and she starts planning. Sometimes she tells us her plans like it is already assumed we are going. She has been planning April vacations where she rents a beach house out of state and assumes we will be making the trip to spend a week with her (taking time off work, pulling kids out of school, paying for travel costs, claiming our family time, etc. and then being there having to sit on the beach with her every day and do the things she wants to do and have her play mother to the entire family….). She does not include me or tries to prevent me from being included in any of her planning. We got out of it this year because of red tide. This upcoming Easter, despite seeing her regularly at my children’s sporting events where we sit together and have small talk, she has avoided mentioning any of her plans. One of my children recently told me that during a visit with her, she shared her Easter plans with them and asked them what they wanted to eat and then said, “Don’t tell your mother because I don’t want her to get mad.” So now there is that layer…. so now she is not including me but discussing her plans with eleven year olds; and she is trying to divide me from my children and instructing them not to include me! At a recent birthday gathering she told everyone in the family what my kids had asked her for and started going over the menu, knowing she never mentioned anything to me, as if now she is covered. She was simply glowing in the moment over the fact that she could make it known what her plans were and that even my kids were involved, obviously behind my back!
My husband always says he knows she is a control freak and we are not going to be made to do something we don’t want to do, and he is right; but he is missing how she goes about orchestrating things that exclude me, puropusly. My husband said he could confront his mother but that she probably doesn’t know she is doing it because she just wants to help and do everything for everyone and would be so apologetic and that it would cause a big thing (?). In the past when I offer to bring things or help with planning she says no, that everything is all set. I usually bring a dish anyway and then she tells me she is glad I brought whatever it was. On vacation, I can’t even look at her I feel so cloisterphobic at times. Now over this Easter thing I am at a loss of patients….I feel like I am the bad guy if I bring it up and I don’ t want to come off as passive aggressive. Any advise is appreciated.
There is non-confrontational language for each of the situations you mention. There is, “It sounds like you think we should spend all of our holiday time with your side of the family and not spend time with my side of the family.”
“It sounds like you think it’s appropriate to discuss plans with my children without including me.”
“It sounds like you don’t think I should be included in family plans.”
“It sounds like you think it’s appropriate to tell my children not to tell me about things you tell them.”
If you immediately address these issues even as she tries to get around your boundaries, she will soon stop trying and she will learn to behave. Non-confrontational language works well because you can use it over and over without having to cause any kind of trouble or uncomfortable feelings.
My in-laws and I have has a tense relationship from the beginning. For example, as we were planning our wedding, she had her husband try to talk my husband into hiring a certain photographer and told me to “butt out”. Of deciding on a photographer for MY wedding…
So any way, I mostly just ignored her inappropriate, controlling behavior and just brushed off her condescending, “helpful” advice for the first three years of marriage. Then we had a baby, and I then felt her constant criticism not only hurts me, but it is emotionally unhealthy for my daughter, and some of her advice/actions make me legitimately concerned about my daughter’s physical well-being if left alone with her, as well. I talked with my husband, researched advice, and decided to use the Nicola Method in this way (maybe not completely accurately, but I tried):
As I’m changing my daughter, she tells me, “Gentle, mama!”
I respond, “When you say that, it seems like you think I don’t know how to change my daughter’s diaper.”
She responds, “I know that you took it that way. You need to stop being so sensitive.”
I come back with, “When you say that, it seems like you’re invalidating my feelings.”
She responds with, “I would never talk to my mother in law that way!”
Me: “How do you think a daughter in law should treat her mother in law?”
Her: “I would only say kind things.”. She storms off, and when she comes back, I try to talk to her, to which she responds, “I’m not having this conversation with you.”. Then she sits with her arms crossed and refuses to make eye contact for the remainder of the graduation. (We were at my husband’s graduation, by the way. Not that it matters as far as advice, but it just sucks that his graduation is now tainted with that memory.)
Thoughts? Suggestions for how to handle future situations?
Also, she tried to hug me as we left, and I said I’d rather not hug her. Is that ok in the future? Or should I offer a hug as a peace offering?
Emily, you did a beautiful job with your mother in law, from ignoring her wedding interference to an excellent job using my techniques. I’m sorry your event was lessened by her behavior. This may be the first time anyone has confronted her. As gently as your language was, she clearly felt rebuked. Now it’s time to see if this will back her off or if you need to use the language again.
If you can, treat her negative reaction after your statement to her as you would a teenager who is sulking. And remember that it may take a while before she is willing to accept her role as a respectful mother in law. If possible I wouldn’t try to punish her by not hugging unless it truly feels uncomfortable for you. It may be best to do as you did so artfully during the wedding plans, just ignore all her sulking and act as though everything is fine. This way, like a sulky teenager, she will see that her dramatic display doesn’t work.
Since she has given you the statement “I would never talk to my mother in law that way,” you can in the future give her the statement, “It sounds as though you think it’s appropriate to talk to a daughter in law that way.” Clearly she wants you to respect her, but she needs to learn that the daughter in law also deserves respect. If she ever treats you in an outright disrespectful way, like the “butt out” comment, you may want to use the phrase, “It sounds like you don’t think daughters in law should be treated respectfully.” This slighter more direct language should get through to her.
If you feel there is any chance of harm to your daughter, you will, I’m sure, act to protect her and not allow her to be in your MIL’s presence alone no matter what. I know you will err on the side of caution always until your MIL learns to respect your family. I’m sorry that this process may take some time, but you are doing a great job with it.
Joanna Nicola
Thank you so much, Joanna!! I will keep at it…hopefully with decreasing drama???
One more question: mid temper tantrum, she made comments about the graduates in the IT department to the effect of it being “sad” that “all these Muslim sounding names” are getting IT degrees. Since she was already pouting and it didn’t directly impact me, I just reframed it to say, “I think it’s sad that American education is not preparing American students to get these degrees,” which I felt at least somewhat made it seem less racist. However, as my daughter gets older, I don’t want her to think racist comments are acceptable or to repeat them. Thoughts?
Emily, if you feel she has racist tendencies, you need to be in close communication with your spouse about how you want to handle this going forward. Setting boundaries around racism in your presence may be necessary, as opposed to my methods. This would entail the classical form of boundary-setting where you let her know that you feel that was a racist comment and that you are not going to tolerate such language in your presence. But you will need to have a game plan beforehand with your spouse about the consequences for her disrespecting the boundaries you set.
Hi
My father-in-law is very clever and indirect with the toxic statements. He will compliment others around me, to backhandedly criticize me. For example, he will compliment my husband’s cooking every time but never say anything positive about my cooking (and he’ll say how lucky I am to have a man who made the main dish after a long day at work – and if my husband calls out that I worked all day too and that I made all the starters and sides and the rest of the dinner, my FIL will say “That’s not the same” since I work from home and don’t have to commute.) He will also make a point of saying how intelligent/kind/good his other daughter-in-law is, but never says the same about me. He never thanks me for gifts I give him. How does one handle the backhanded implications?
Cara, a good way to approach this problem is to arrange for a sit-down discussion alone with your father, telling him you had a few important things you wanted to talk about. Then when you do talk you can introduce the subject with some non-confrontational language, like, “I may be misreading this,” or “I may be taking things a little too personally, so I wanted to check in with you.”
Then let him know that you are “getting the feeling” or “getting the sense” that there is something about you that is concerning or troubling to him. You can tell him that you very much appreciate how kind he always is with you and you are very grateful that he recognizes the importance of your relationship, but you wanted to give him the permission to let you know if there is something troubling him about your behavior. Again, you can tell him that your relationship with him is very important to you and if there is something getting in the way you would rather resolve it.
He can do one of two things. He can say, no, of course there isn’t anything I have to say to you. Everything is just fine. In this case you can thank him for letting you know, but each time he makes one of these back-handed insinuations you can find a quiet moment with him soon after and say something like, “Again, I may be misreading this, but it seems like you are complimenting everyone but me. Is there something about my behavior that might be troubling to you?” Even if he doesn’t want to say it, if he is confronted at some point after each of these comments, he will feel uncomfortable and stop them.
On the other hand, he may tell you what he really thinks. You might want to check in with your husband before this sit-down with your FIL so you don’t feel blindsided and hurt by his confession. Your husband may have a good guess at what the problem is. The problem could be something as simple as his old-fashioned values clashing with yours.
In this case let him say his piece and validate his opinion without admitting to wrongdoing. “I can certainly see how you would feel. If I had been brought up with your values I would probably feel the same way.” You can tell him it’s very important that you each know how the other feels about things, and you can tell him you truly respect his ability to allow you and your husband to act on a different set of values.
To set things on an even better track you can emphasize how grateful you are that he gives your family such respect by not criticizing things that you feel differently about. This will reverse his ability to back-handedly gripe. You will be framing his bad behavior as virtuous. This will take his ability to feel self-righteous away and he should stop the behavior.
Thanks, this is excellent. I can see one would need to do this in a calm and respectful tone. Trouble is, I do feel angry about it already, as it has been going on for some time. Any recommendations on getting that out of my system before having this conversation?
I wish I could help you in this area. There is nothing more irritating than someone insulting you in this type of back-handed manner. You might, as I said, ask your husband what he thinks the issue is. This can give you a little bit more of a big picture view. Ultimately understanding why he is insulting you this way is what will release you from the anger.
In the big picture, these types of tactics are usually the result of insecurity or sometimes feelings he is having that he honestly doesn’t understand, in which case he may be actually holding back what he really wants to say. Or he may be doing what you sense, which is needling you, getting your goat without having to get in trouble for it. This can be the result of an attempt to overcome personal weakness. If you are a strong person or a person with healthy boundaries you can seem very intimidating to those who have problems in this area. But what will release you from the anger is to find out as best you can what his motivation is.