The wedding thread is so full of info about weddings but I am hoping to start some talk about after the wedding. My son was married last weekend. I really love his new bride and couldn’t be happier about the marriage. Since the weekend, I have had some time to think about my in-laws, how my parents were as in-laws, etc.
I want to be a thoughtful, supportive MIL. My own MIL is a kind lady but we never really clicked. We live so far apart and they do not travel so while it makes me sad, this is the reality there. My own mother adored my husband, almost to the point I felt she liked him better. BUT, looking back, none of that adoration started until we had kids. Now I realize she was so happy my kids had a good dad as her ex, my dad, was not a good father or husband.
So, I probably overshared but I want to be a great MIL. My son and his wife have decided to remain child-free, though I know they may change their mind. I am not holding my breath.
Anything you MIL/FIL did or said that made a difference?
I didn’t look to my own in-laws for guidance on “how” to be an in-law. I got along with them fine but I don’t feel like it was a warm, close relationship. I don’t think they had interest in being anything more than my H’s parents. I always saw them as older whereas I don’t think of myself as older.
All I can say is you are who you are and if you don’t off the bat feel warm, friendly, comfortable - whatever you seek - with your DIL, you can’t make it happen overnight. Only one of kids is married so far - my son - and he dated his wife for 6 years before marrying. It was super natural to add her in as another family member. I feel quite close to her, can spent time alone with her comfortably, we share interests, joke a lot with each other, etc. My H’s role has sort of become to be the dad she never really had.
If you’re not where you imagine you should be in a relationship with her I think you just have to give it time, but also give it occasion to develop. Spend time with her if you can. Don’t just see her as your son’s wife. She is just who she is - get to know THAT.
I would agree with @abasket. Give the relationships time and energy–don’t try to be “besties” with your new DIL, but try to find something you both like and spend time doing it together–maybe going out to lunch/brunch, dinner, shopping at farmer’s market, etc. My MIL and FIL were so happy that H finally married, they were prepared to love me but give me space. They were so happy when we had kids and were overjoyed when we brought them to visit. I was never “close” to my MIL/FIL, but genuinely liked them and knew that they liked me and adored the two kids.
My SisIL and I have a bit rockier start but came to like each other quite well over time as well. She really appreciated that we made an effort to visit her and spend time with her and my BIL, celebrating holidays. She also was happy that the kids and H and I all seemed healthy and thriving.
Don’t go into their home and move anything around!
My ex-MIL took down and moved some of my items to areas she thought they worked better. While I was at work and she was helping ex wife. It wasn’t a great start to our relationship. And added a lot of stress. We parted company but that always stuck with me as a leading indicator of some of our ongoing problems.
Your child’s spouse isn’t a child. Though you may still look at your kid that way, very common and ok. I get it. But the spouse needs to be respected as a peer in these types of matters. It’s their home and they are adults after all.
My situation is unique. I am an only, and both of my parents were killed before dh and I married. That meant that there was never any “sharing” involved for holidays. As my friends have become ILs, that has been a big struggle I have seen - they don’t like the “sharing,” and get really hung up about hanging on to their nuclear family traditions that may or may not be feasible to continue as their children marry. So, I would say to try and share well.
As for my in-laws - my mother-in-law has mostly been fantastic. She has a healthy respect of boundaries and never gives unsolicited advice. She is, by nature, a loving, positive, and supportive person. She isn’t perfect, but neither am I. I do feel close to her and enjoy spending time with her one-on-one.
My father-in-law was the total opposite. Overbearing, critical, negative, always giving unsolicited advice, no boundaries whatsoever. I had to laugh at @privatebanker ‘s post about moving stuff around. Fil had a key to our house (dh had it before we married, and he and his dad did some remodeling together) and would let himself in to do “work” in the house or hang out with our dog when dh and I were at work. When he brought over HIS parents to fix a leaky faucet (without asking) when we weren’t there when dh and I were both working 65 hours a week and the house was a wreck, I finally had enough. But, I had to have a crying fit to get him to understand that it wasn’t HIS house. Honestly, my fil was the main source of arguments dh and I ever had in our marriage. He passed away last August, and, as awful as this sounds, it was a relief to me. I was sad for my dh and our ds and my mil because they were sad. But, I don’t miss the man at all.
I agree with others to give it time and allow the relationship to blossom organically. I wouldn’t try to force it. I would refrain from giving advice and saying negative things about either one of them. I don’t know if you are local to them or not, but when I had an opportunity, I might take her out to lunch and tell her that you want to be a good mother-in-law, and ask her to help you become one by being honest with you when she thinks you are overstepping. I think good boundaries are the key to healthy relationships.
I had the best MIL anyone could ever ask for. She is no longer living, but in order to tell you what made her great, I will describe what she DIDN’T do. (I’m comparing her behavior to that of my own mother and mother’s of former boyfriends.)
She didn’t try to control my husband (her son). She didn’t give gifts with strings attached. She wasn’t manipulative. She wasn’t passive aggressive. She wasn’t judgmental!
My husband and I don’t embrace the same religion that all other members of his family do, and we live a very different lifestyle, but she still treated me as a valued member of the family. She had a great sense of humor. In short, she treated me like someone would treat me in the early stages of a relationship, before the warts start to emerge.
These are all wonderful suggestions. I’m not a MIL yet, but my son is in a very serious relationship and I can see this happening. My parents knew no boundaries and they have cause a lot of arguments, between DH and in our early marriage and between them and me in our later years. Oh course, there were good times and they could be generous, but the bad overshadowed. They were the same with my siblings.
My own MIL can be wonderful when you are at your lowest, but isn’t so when things are going well. She says little things that she knows annoys, and her sons are oblivious. She’s a very jealous woman. She’s a foul-weathered MIL. I swear she loves it when her DIL’s aren’t doing well.
There has been a major change in lifestyle that has a dramatic impact on our ability to develop any sort of relationship with our offspring’s spouses.
Cell phones.
When I was first married, the main way in which I got to know my in-laws was by talking on the phone. One of them would call to speak to my husband, but I might happen to be the one who answered the phone. So they would politely make conversation with me for a few minutes before asking for him. And this forced me to talk with my in-laws and get to know them a little. They got to know a little bit about me, too. The same thing happened to my husband when either of my parents called and he answered the phone.
It doesn’t happen now.
My daughter has been married for a year and a half. She and her husband were a couple for five years before that and lived together for three of those years.
So it’s been six and a half years. But I barely know the guy.
I only interact with him when I see them in person – which is maybe once a year because we live in different parts of the country. I talk with my daughter on the phone often, but I only talk with her, not him. He never answers her phone because it’s a cell phone. People don’t answer each other’s cell phones.
I’m a new in-law too, so I am far from an expert. I do know that I don’t want to be my mother or my mother-in-law, is neither one of them is a great example of an in-law.
I think the most important thing you can be is supportive of their choices. Remember that your son and daughter-in-law have formed a new family. They are their own primary unit. So don’t interfere even if you disagree with some of their choices.
And keep healthy boundaries. Your job raising your son is over.
@Marian how about an occasional text to him to open up a little more communication? Maybe sharing an article he might like or if he likes cooking a recipe you found or something.
Or Facetime. Tell your D you’d love to video chat when they are both home one day/night.
Or…call him on his phone! Come up with some sort of question that he might be an expert on to ask him.
Reach out!! You can look at the cell phone as a hindrance or an opportunity!
I don’t think I am the easiest person to get along or live with because I like to do me. That being said, I do not put a lot of demands on my kids’ SOs. I am nice to them when I see them, but I do not require them to be at family functions, I leave it up to my kids. I also rarely say anything negative of SOs to them. As far as sharing them, my kids are pretty good about it. They see me quite a bit, but they also make a point of going to the other side and I always encourage to do so.
I have a very easy going relationship with D1’s husband. When D1 calls me from home she will often put me on speaker, so her H would chime in (often). He loves to talk. D1 would need to tell him to be quiet sometimes. D1 also calls me in private when she wants to talk about certain things and we get together without her H sometimes.
I had a really wonderful MIL, at least until she got early onset dementia. The only thing she did that used to annoy me was hover over breakfast. I am not a morning person, and I’d prefer just to make what I like to eat and not one bit more. For some reason she was sure that after I’d had eggs and toast, I’d also want a bowl of cereal! What did she do right? She made me welcome even before we were married. She was flexible about holidays - we alternated Christmas and Thanksgiving for years with my parents. At first we mostly went to them, then they came to us and then when travel got more difficult for them, we went back to going to them. We talked about books and movies. They clearly adored the grandchildren.
I’d never thought of cell phones as distancing, but they are. When we talk to our son he often talks to us on speaker phone and if his girlfriend is around we usually at least say hi to her and ask her what she’s up to. I have her cell phone number. I’ve sent her the very occasional text - most recently to wish her Happy Chinese New Year.
As far as being a good in-law, just treat your parents-in-law or kids-in-law with kindness, respect their privacy, don’t expect too much or too soon, it takes time for good relationships to develop but initial kindness gives long term benefits of love and support. People usually stay happier and healthier if their spouses and parents get along well.
There is no guarantee that you’ll develop a great relationship as you can’t control other people or circumstances but at least it shouldn’t be distant or sour because of you.
@massmom, everyone is offering such insightful and helpful suggestions. But one of yours resonated with me. “They are their own family unit”. I will have to continually remind myself that the nuclear family which I had created is no more. We are the periphery of their story and lives, and are honored and privileged to be wanted and part of it. That means respecting that in all ways, like we would any other adults we know.
I am fortunate to have 2 wonderful, but very different, DILs. I am not sure I know what to do/say t be a good MIL, but I try not to be too intrusive. We have included our DILs in family events since our s’s were dating them (we always included their gf’s , even when we were not fond of one, high maintenance gf who had a super controlling mother who was mean to my s after they broke up, and that is uncalled for — no excuse for that.)
But I digress. I am fortunate too, that even though we live far away, we have a great relationship with the other in-laws (older s’s in-laws are fabulous, and younger s’s MIL is delightful- the dad is persona non grata). I think this helps everyone feel included. The big struggle I have is that I routinely call DS’s phone when I call. I don’t call the DILs on their phone. I wonder how to handle this. Maybe I should call them more…??
My advice would be to travel/vacation with them once a year. Pick a place they can get to without great expense. You pay to rent the house/apartment. Make it an annual tradition that eventually no one wants to break. My in laws have their faults but I have grown close to them and my wife’s family simply by spending one week with them every year.
As a DIL, my biggest struggle was that I was never really treated like part of the family. To the extent that my inlaws would tell my husband not to tell me things because it was “family business”. The implication being that I wasn’t “family.” He shared everything with me though, including that I wasn’t supposed to know, which always made me feel like an outsider, no matter how nice they were to me to my face. And this wasn’t only in the early years of our marriage but for years and years. It wasn’t until FIL remarried that his new wife called him out on doing that and things turned around. It was very hurtful. (I’ve also been with my husband since I was a teenager so felt like I grew up with them in many ways, so it was even more painful to me.)
Just from the years of reading CC and these kinds of threads, my perception is that it often seems like mothers of sons have the hardest time being MILs, and I think that is because of their fear of losing their sons, or even outright jealousy of the DIL. One CC poster even said outright that she already knew she would hate her DIL (and her son was only 10).
I had a sense that DH was his mother’s secret favorite son, so I didn’t want to get into that position of being “the other woman.” From day 1, I have encouraged DH to have his own separate relationship with his mother, in addition to family gatherings. Lunch, dinners alone, excursions to her home town to see her parents’ graves or just revive old memories, an occasional trip together to pick up one of the Ds from college, etc. I think this has helped immensely with my relationship with her.
BUT, since this is a how to be a good inlaw thread, I don’t know that the above is relevant.
I’d say the most important thing is to avoid being critical, judgmental, etc. DON’T give unsolicited advice or you will have no one to blame but yourself for your relationship with your kid and spouse being less than it could be. There are posters here who are proud to say that they give unsolicited advice and that their relationship is fine. But I submit that it could be BETTER if they wouldn’t, and there is likely some repressed resentment going on with the recipients of said advice.
That being said, I do not put a lot of demands on my kids’ SOs. I am nice to them when I see them, but I do not require them to be at family functions, I leave it up to my kids. I also rarely say anything negative of SOs to them. As far as sharing them, my kids are pretty good about it. They see me quite a bit, but they also make a point of going to the other side and I always encourage to do so.