The more things change....

..the more your plans change.    I haven't written in months and months.    The RV life is on hold, perhaps forever, which is fine.  My daughter-in-law (DIL #2) and son have had a new baby and I'm one of the caregivers 3 days a week, starting in two days!   Very exciting!

My son's wife (DIL#1) never did respond to my letter to her, attempting to smooth things over and open the door.

But... here's what I've learned this year.  In a nutshell because, ya know, I have things to do (Son #3, not married thank God as he's a freshman in college, is home for a week).

In some ways, I find I am simultaneously expecting too much and giving too little credit from these women my sons love.   Those in my age group (let's just say, 50 and over :) )  often forget we're as old as others see us.  Speaking for myself, I see myself more as a peer of women in their 30's and 40's.  And that may be true, as long as those women are not my daughters or daughter-in-laws.  It seems like only yesterday (deep sigh) that I was 30 - it's shocking to be 20 or more years beyond that age...or twice the age. 

My daughter in laws are women, grown and accomplished.  They sure as hell are not children, and I don't believe I treat them that way.  And I'm sure anyone who is 30 - 40 will read my comments now and think I'm being condescending but I don't mean it this way at all.  As smart and savvy and worldly as I was at 30 and 40, I still had issues and things I was working on.  Crap, I have issues now I'm still working on.

What I'm trying to say (with great difficulty and little success) is that somehow, I think I expect my DIL's to be more mature than I am in dealing with their own issues and insecurities - we all have these issues, or perhaps its just special to my family.   Dear readers can defend their own levels of sanity, mental health and maturity but I offer the argument that the apples don't fall far from the trees.

That is, I come from a dysfunctional family - VERY.  We won't go into detail.  Let's just say there are abandonment issues, alcoholism, early death of a parent, abuse issues and pretty awful mothering that I received.   With therapy and help, I did better, but not nearly as good as I wish I had.   And although my sons may have married women healthier than I was - there are issues.

So, here I am dealing with my own issues about my own mother.  And my insecurities about myself as a mother.  On top of that, my sons wives have issues with their own mothers, issues with their husbands and God help us, issues with me. 

As I deal with my stuff, I have to filter it, recognizing that I am looking at things through some very tainted (not tinted) glasses.

It could be argued that therefore, any Mother In Law problems that come up are all mine, or all my fault.  But I think NOT.  I think we all bring our own junk into this.  And if we don't recognize that we have our own tainted glasses on, we tend to point our fingers at the other person.  "It's not my fault".  or .. "It's all my fault."
Neither of which are true.  Just. about. ever.

But I forget that my DIL's may not yet have gotten that, especially since I was in my 30's, I kept "getting it" and then "forgetting it." 

So, I've come to the conclusion that most of what I can do about the Mother In Law - Daughter In Law problems has to do with my perception, my reactions.

First, I have decided to stay away from places where people talk about their specific problems, in great detail.
Everyone has a story or two or three, about what their MIL or DIL has done "to me" - in doing that, we paint ourselves as a victim or a "survivor" of the Other's attempt to unfairly victimize us.

When I go to those places, however I do it, to share these stories with others, I find myself in a downward spiraling cycle, with no solution.  There is no peace, there is no forgiveness.  It is Her vs Me. 

Further, it seems to encourage in me at least a tendency to see anything that happens through the eyes of someone being mistreated - as if there's now a translator of everything that gives further "proof" that I'm being unfairly treated by some powerful force.

Second - I have decided to recognize that I may be misinterpreting things. Or seeing them through my eyes only.

This takes some effort.  But it isn't all about me anymore.  It is the nature of our children growing up and moving out and on - and marrying and starting their own families - that moves the once Important Mother out of the center and into a Backdrop role. 

Further, my sons have married women who are not me.  Or who are not like me.  Or who may be like I was when I was 20 or 30, but who are not like me now.  In any case, they are not me and I am not them and we are not the same.

At first I chose to interpret my #1 DIL's refusing to respond to my attempts to talk with her about our riff as a rejection of me and a slap at me (and I didn't want to reopen an argument and "win",  I wanted to be able to talk about our relationship, not the issue).   I've come to conclude that there is nothing wrong with this response.  It is not in her nature to want to get into a deeply personal discussion with me about the matter.  I think she's done with it.  It was like a turning point in a relationship, where you come to realize your partner isn't the fantasy perfect person you thought they were - she came to realize who I was and vice-versa.  We aren't who we thought we were as individuals.  It isn't - or shouldn't be - the end of the relationship.  It's a change into reality.

The way to ruin it would be to continue expecting her to react the way I want her to, and to "punish" her because she won't.  She is who she is.  I am who I am.  It doesn't help that we live thousands of miles apart, across an ocean.  It makes it hard to grow past this, as you would if you were in a relationship with someone you see every day or week or month - we are lucky if we see each other every year.  It is sad but the physical distance isn't helping.    So - I expect more when I expect  her to be who I want her to be, as if that's somehow superior to who she is.   My expectations are unrealistic when I expect our relationship to be central to her - she has a husband, a child, friends, parents, a job, a life of her own.  I'm somewhat important, but.. you know, life goes on.  I expect too much when I expect that whatever pushed her off in our interaction was all about me,  that there weren't some of her own issues she's dealing with that got projected on me that someday she'll go "aha!" about.. it really isn't all about me, though it may seem that way in the heat of an argument.   I give her less credit when I think she isn't probably aware of much of this herself, when I think she isn't a loving and valuable person who is doing all she can.

Some of this came about, indirectly, in dealings with DIL#2 - I watched myself and realized how much my disappointments are about not being a central part in the life of my son and his new family.  My expectations then got pushed (by me) onto my DIL #2 - I started theorizing that she really didn't like me, that she had all sorts of things going on in her head about my parenting, my history, etc.   I felt victimized and sorry for myself because I felt excluded.  When what was going on was - just life going on.  This too has passed.  And I am somewhat resigned to my own thoughts about being the mother of sons.

My daughter-in-laws are close to their own mothers.  They'd rather spend their time with their mothers, and their husbands generally tag along.  I am very fortunate that when I am nearby, I'm included.  But - as a single older woman who worked and never was the traditional nurturing center (holiday dinners at my house - um, no), I am still not that.

I don't know if it is true in most families but - in the families my sons have married into, it is the wife and her family that becomes the hub of the family.  I am not and have never been a hub.  My mother wasn't a hub.  I would love to have a hub, but I'm not a hub.  So I am now secondary.

This may not be true for many people.  It's true for us.  Now I have to find ways to work with this.  Seeing it as some huge plot against me doesn't work.  Slapping myself because that's how my life went doesn't work either. Or my specialty, which has been to suffer in passive-aggressive silence, saying nothing in a way that lets everyone know I'm hurt.

So, I am working on finding a way to be somewhat centered (rather than self-centered) and see if I can be included, not excluded.  And just saying how I felt, without that shrill voice that sounds like because I feel this way, something must be done immediately!

  I was able to let my son #2 know how I felt about being excluded after his son was born.  Everyone was excluded - except his wife's mother.  He said, "she doesn't want to see anyone, and hundreds of people have asked."  I pointed out I'm not "hundreds of people."  I'm his mother and the baby's grandmother, and just asked him to consider that in understanding why I was feeling hurt and excluded.   This too passed.  My DIL had just had a baby - she wasn't feeling well .. she wanted.. her mommy!   But rather than just sit and sulk with my feelings - I was able to express them to my son without putting a zing to them. Or as much of a zing as usual.

I don't know if it would help a DIL who is having difficulty with a MIL to take it less personally if she could see that the woman perhaps, like me, has a tainted view of the world.  This is, of course, the kind of information one needs not share with one's MIL - unless you are a therapist or even if you are - its not recommended to therapeutize your own MIL.

 What might help  is to be able to filter one's own reactions by understanding if someone else's reactions are at all true (perhaps a MIL is being left out more than your own mother) - and also not to take their reactions personally.  It isn't about you.  It's usually about - at least for me - about their own uneasiness with their own issues that have more to do with them than with you.

And interestingly enough - what's true for the goose is most often true for the goose-in-law.

The trick here, I think, is to know that.  Daughter in law - Mother in law.  It isn't all about you.  And you aren't without some part in whatever is going on.  Really.

What's in a Name?

I've said that "mother in law" is just a title - as is "daughter in law". Just a simple, legalistic descriptive term that tells you the relationship of a woman to her children's spouses or a daughter to her husband's mother.

But as the relationship between my two sons' wives develop, I begin to question that. My first DIL and I now have a less than friendly relationship - civil, I suppose. As she said, it will never be the same. She seems to have no awareness that it could be the same, better, if she were willing to talk with me - not about the "incident" but about what is going on between us. She doesn't want to, it isn't her style and so our relationship erodes. It will be civil. I feel sad, but more accepting than I've been before.

However, I find myself referring to her as "my son's wife" rather than "my daughter in law". And I don't really want to be described by her as her mother in law. Those titles, at least to me, aren't impersonal and descriptive. They are the indication of a personal relationship, a connection between two people, a connection that - at least for now - isn't there. I suppose that means I've emotionally divorced myself from her, I feel disconnected.

But in referring to the wives of my sons, I find myself saying (when not referring to them by name) that one is "my son's wife", while the other is "my daughter in law".

The problem with daughter in laws

Since nobody reads this, I feel free to express myself! The problem with daughter in laws is ... in my opinion ... a sentence that leads to conflict, distancing and arguments.

But if we must finish that sentence? The problem with daughter in laws, from the mother in law's perspective, might be one of many things. And it well depends on the mother in law's perceptions of her place in her married son's life.

This whole issue - mother in laws and daughter in laws - is so loaded with tension and conflict, it's a wonder there are any mother in laws and daughter in laws who get along. It's a wonder we aren't hearing horror stories of undercover agents hired by both "sides" to get rid of the other.

From what I read on the boards - even the board I like - the problem with daugher in laws and mother in laws is who we each think the other is, and who we think we are.

There are so many ways the roles can be played, it is impossible and incorrect to broadly place a daughter in law or a mother in law in the position of victim or bully, wrong party or Queen Manipulator.

It isn't a matter of the Title that gives the power, though you would think so if you read the boards. All Daughter in Laws are < fill in the blank > All Mother in Laws are < fill in the blank > .

The problem with daughter in laws is that they are people. The problem with mother in laws is that they are people. Flawed, with different degrees of maturity and perceptions of their own position in the lives of the others.

Sadly for those who get locked into the dramas, the problem with daughter in laws and mother in laws is that they seem to forget we are only here for a very short time. It can all end, literally, in a heart beat.

Men are more likely to confess to a predilection for pornography than admit to a close relationship with their mother.

I came across this article by William Sutcliffe and found it very enlightening... I wish his mother had a book or a blog out, she's a kindred soul with a wise mind, to me.

When son William calls her up to discuss his new book about to come out (about three somewhat meddling women who are led to motivate their 34 year old unmarried sons to get on with their lives), he's surprised somewhat at her reaction both about the book which (in his words) ".. suggests that, after all the effort women put into the first 18 years of their sons’ lives, what is subsequently given back is a pretty meagre reward."

His mother seems to have come to some acceptance and understanding of this -- probably in a longer and more painful process than is reflected in this article (though, then again, I say with a bit of humor, they are Brits, a bit more stoic and probably not led to the public wailing and moaning we Americans are want to do)

William's mum explains:

“All mothers feel the pain of no longer being needed, but we don’t admit to it,” she confesses eventually. "

“It’s not an unmixed pain, though,” she says, hiding a little behind the double negative. “You wouldn’t want it any other way.”

When I ask her why nobody admits to it, she says: “You don’t want to seem abject.” She is rather pleased with her choice of word. I ask her what she means by it, and she comes up with another.

“Discarded. You know that you’ve been discarded. You passionately want your son to find the right woman, but you know that when it happens, you are cast aside.”

The interview is definitely worth a read.... Men and their mothers

Advises for Mother In Laws in Tense Families for Surviving the In-laws Visits

This is written as a parody of very one-sided advice written for how to survive a visit with your in-laws .

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For some, the holidays are a wonderful time to spend with family – it’s wonderful to spend time with children, their spouses, grandchildren who you may not get to see often. For some of us, the holidays are a mixed blessing because the new families often wish to spend time with their own families, or must divide their time with his family and her family (which can include stepfamilies – sometimes the married couple's level, sometimes on the children’s level). Family traditions ~ the old and the new ~ also vary. There may be only slightly veiled tensions due to unrealistic expectations about which family style is correct, plus time tensions and things we are not aware of.

If you’ve invited your grown children, their spouses and your grandchildren to visit for the holidays (or they've invited themselves), here are some ideas to help get through the holidays without too many major disappointments.

Idea # 1

Know who your contact person in their family is – your grown child or their spouse. Prior to the visit, send a request for information regarding the length of the visit, sleeping accommodations, meal and special food preferences and times, babysitting needs and schedule, laundry, dry cleaning and general safety requirements, as well as boarding needs for any accompanying pets.

If needed, use the services of a good mediation service if any responses seem they might create conflict.

Idea #2

Send out quality R.S.V.P. invitations to events you would like them to participate in – be cheerful, pleasant and loving if they cannot attend any of them, for they have lives of their own.

Attend them yourself, even if they don’t.

Idea #3

Make use of a reliable cleaning service to prepare your home for the visitors, adjusting the normal cleanliness or dust levels to a higher or lower level to match the comfort zone of your visitors.

You will be judged as harshly for a house that is seen as too clean as for a house that is seen as too dirty.

Consider retaining these services until after the visit is over for a truly stress free visit.

Make sure the pantry and refrigerator are stocked with approved foods or cleared of those not approved.

Idea #4

Be flexible. Although you may have used the schedule received to cancel normal activities to be on hand for your visitors, be aware that their plans may change at any moment.

To avoid being labeled as selfish and self-centered, be ready to drop everything in order to babysit, pet sit or whatever is required, as well as to cheerfully cancel any personal plans you may have already made.

Idea #5

Bury old grudges. Leaving old arguments and problems behind gives you a clean slate for the holiday. If there is tension between you, and your son or daughter in law can’t seem to let go, you can still make an effort to rise above their efforts to pull you into controversial discussions. When troubling topics enter the discussion or when the tone shifts to being confrontational or critical, change the subject or, if necessary, leave the room

Idea #6

The holidays can be a whirlwind of commitments and to-do lists, and visitors, much as you love them and enjoy seeing them, can just add to the stress. If you have just 15 minutes and a quiet corner, do a quick round of yoga practice or meditation. Go to a movie by yourself or with your husband. Call a close friend and take off for a talk and a walk. Go out alone for a quiet breakfast or spend an afternoon at a bookstore, go to a friend's house.

Idea #7

Always find that silver lining. This too will pass. If your visitors ignore you, be thankful that they let you spend time with your own grandchildren. If they treat you like you’re so old you can’t manage your finances, make decisions or drive your own car, thank them for caring and sharing their opinions. Perhaps you can find some common ground, by going through old family albums, making a new album, sharing recipes or watching old home movies or a holiday DVD.

Idea #8

Remember that you are lovable and loved, that nothing lasts forever, that you know your offspring loves you even if it doesn’t seem so. And that a mother is always a mother.


Once a Mother Always a Mother by Nanas_Alley

Once a mother, always a mother .. I'm not giving up my title

Every Mother in Law started as a Mother . by Nanas_Alley

Working on grandparent designs for Valentine's Day (months ahead, it's true, but you have to if you want to keep up!) and I started with a design I did for Mother-in-Laws -- I really liked the design, but it was intended to only be used for a MIL, with the words "in-law" scribbled over the heart and word "mother".

When suddenly it occured to me that I am still a mother. In fact, once a mother, always a mother. This is a phrase most often used by women who have lost their child to death, and I do not want to take anything away from that, or to usurp the phrase.

Still, I felt a need to express that feeling I've seen expressed with much pain many times on the Mother in Laws Unite board . And while I don't go there much anymore, I think to avoid the pain and feeling of being dragged down because of the bitterness and helplessness that seems to fill the site, I think this feeling of being robbed of our position as a mother is what causes those feelings.

Of course there comes a time when the nest is empty and we are supposed to move on to other endeavors. Being a grandparent can fill that need for some. Volunteer work, other friends, other interests. For many of us, though, if there are problems with our children's spouses and we are cut off, in minor or major ways, from being part of their family - if only as the extensions in-laws and grandparents are - then we are left with very little. And worse, we are blamed for it. Because we are not letting go, or because we haven't filled our lives properly. Or both.

I guess I'd never really looked at it thoroughly and thought that I needed to get on with my life. As a single parent who didn't remarry - and who really doesn't want to -- I hadn't realized how empty the nest was going to be.

There is, of course, the son and his wife who live far far away, and with whom there is a riff because of a minor (really) conflict five months ago that remains unresolved. What was once just a physical distance is growing into something more emotional and personal. Since my DIL won't discuss any of this with me, I can only assume that this is more or less an excuse for the distance because (I know) she and her family greatly disapprove of the way I led my life - hippy, loose and untraditional, to say the least. And my housekeeping was always a major shock (I live with dog fur and vaguely remember to sweep when company is coming; she irons her underwear and washes the walls on a regular basis).

And then my second son and his wife (who I adore) but my aforementioned lifestyle has been my undoing. I am an introvert with only a few friends. My house and life have little of excitement to offer. They do their best to come and visit -- it is good for me that I live in an interesting village they love, with friends they want to see -- otherwise, I imagine I would see them less than I do. When a couple is trying to divide their in-law time, it's difficult enough with two sets. They do their best, really, but there is her family, his family and me -- I am somewhat like the odd aunt Ida who they check in on every so often. Maybe I should get Wii or Guitar Hero.

Among my fellow posters on Mother in Laws Unite board , I imagine I'm the oddity. Most seem to be happily married and so at least have a husband and some kind of normal social life to fill their days. But even so, they are in pain and there is nothing that can replace the family feeling we all seemed to have had, back in the days when our children were young and were were granted the title of "Mother".

When you lose that title, and become instead "Mother in Law", things seem to just go downhill.

That doesn't seem to happen for everyone. It may not even happen in the eyes of all of our children and their spouses, but it's the feeling some of us share. Christmas was hard for us -- next comes Valentine's Day, which will be difficult - and then the Big One - Mother's Day, in which several of us are sure not to get anything for Mother's Day. And even if there was a "Mother in Law's Day" -- I think what we would like remembered is, once a mother, always a mother. We aren't giving up our title as Mother and replacing it with MIL or grandmother - those are add ons, not replacements!

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays!

There's a new year coming - peace and good will to all....