Mother-In-Law + Daughter-In-Law
Ruth is the donut queen, New York Times expert, and, among many other titles, Ruth is my mother-in-law. This relationship means that Ruth and I have had the chance to navigate one of the relationships that means so much, but somehow there is no playbook for, and can sometimes be really really hard! No matter if you are married or dating, have a child who is, or is preparing to, these relationships we have within our families are important, and we figured we could share some things that we’ve learned along the way.
After chatting with Ruth about our thoughts and tips on this mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship, the word that repeated over and over in my mind was time. (Said in Oprah’s voice from Super Soul Sundays.) I realized today for the first time that because we love the person who is a part of this family, we somehow expect the relationship with their family to feel exactly the same. But we forget the part that family members have spent years and years growing together, and you’ve come to love your significant other through some amount of time, sharing personal thoughts and ideas, and creating new memories.
It seems we should start with removing any expectation or idea of what we think these relationships will look like (can you believe how much we are told about in-laws or people marrying into a family from others, TV, etc?!) And instead, let us show up with an open heart ready to build these relationships up. For some, that may mean fairly quickly depending on your personality, for others, it may take a bit longer to get to know one another. Let’s remove the expectation and pressures of what it will feel like, and make some room for these relationships to grow with time.
In the spirit of being transparent, I absolutely brought expectations into Will’s family. Perhaps I had certain “needs” and I absolutely have “a way of functioning” and I just couldn’t wait to be surrounded by people who felt the same! (We know there is never a family who all functions the same…so we know this won’t turn out well ;).
It was when I put away my expectations of what I thought this new-to-me family would look and feel like, and started being open to learning who they were and sharing a bit of myself that I think our relationships really began to grow. As with all relationships, some of those moments were easy, and others were a bit sticky. But when you have two people who are willing to show up and figure out even the sticky parts together, you’ve got something special. And my heart feels happy to know that I do.
As you are navigating these relationships and moments too, Ruth and I sat down to talk about what has worked well, what might have been helpful to know, and what got us to the point of getting to have this conversation in the first place:
Talk about your expectations of the relationship
This goes back a bit to the expectations point above. Some people bring different ideas of what the role they think their new family member will play in their lives. It can be really helpful to chat about upfront what your ideas of mother in law and daughter in law mean. You could say something like “As your mother-in-law/daughter-in-law, is there anything you’d like me to know about our new relationship?”
Keep your focus on your spouse/the new relationship growing
It can be helpful to remember why you all are in a new relationship in the first place! You either are someone’s partner, or your child is growing their new family. It can be helpful to remove some of the pressure of “holy smokes I’m in this new relationship with someone who is now my family” and remember why you are all there. Then you can reflect and see if your words and actions are lining up in a way that support your spouse or your child’s growing family too.
If there is a problem, don’t push it under the rug. Find a way to talk about it.
I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve heard hurt feelings, issues, etc that come up within families (mine included), but we never talk about it. While of course we have to give people a bit of grace because we are all not the same and different personalities do things differently, it can be really important to talk about problems, boundaries, etc in a productive way. When we push things under the rug, or only vent about it behind someone’s back, it isn’t allowing our new relationship to grow. That might mean picking up the phone or sitting down in person and saying something like “when this happened/when I heard these words, it made me feel… I wanted to share that piece of me that is really important, and wanted to have a conversation about it because I care about our relationship.” Keep the focus on sharing more about yourself and your values and preferences, not about the other person.
I am writing this piece because I feel so lucky to have a mother-in-law who is willing to sit down and have these conversations with me. Ruth and I share many characteristics (we both love donuts), and also have many different pieces of our personalities too (she prefers cake, I like raised). But when two people have respect, an open heart, and the willingness to share about themselves with the other, and even lean in for those hard conversations, I believe these relationships grow. And I hope yours will too.