Commenter Laura returned to describe how her changed attitude transformed her family dynamic and resolved the problems she was having with her mother-in-law (see here for previous post):
just an update and maybe this might help some others. Since I have last wrote things have been absolutely wonderful in our marriage!
I knew having his mother back in our lives would be horrible and unbearable but I also knew being the barrier between my husband and his mother trying to come back into our lives would also end in the same result. I decided to start sending her pictures trying to show her I was accepting her arrival back into our lives. She never responded not even one time but when my husband used my phone he seen the messages called her to ask why she never responded and she told him she had nothing to say or she would have.this continued with me offering to drive an hour away so she could see the baby and some other nice gestures but the more i accept the situation the more it ticks her off and now she no longer wants to come over or put her two cents in on anything negative.
So its been nice! Haven’t heard from her and my husband told her on the phone in front of me to not say anything negative about his wife to him or don’t bother calling. (this would never have happened in the past)
So nice gestures and letting my husband lead the situation fully, with no side comments on my part has helped greatly. Although yes this is exactly what I tried in the past and it didn’t help at all but this time around I guess bc now he doesn’t take small gestures like that for granted anymore.
Three quick observations:
- Laura starving her mother-in-law of drama by containing her own reactions caused her mother-in-law to lose interest in stirring up trouble. Drama is like crack to a troublesome mother-in-law. By withholding the drama, the incentive to stir up trouble was greatly reduced.
- Once her husband was no longer trying to manage being manipulated by women on both sides, he quite naturally became protective of his wife.
- Laura doesn’t say this outright, but her husband telling his mother to knock it off under his own authority caused his mother to settle down. This isn’t always a given, but often mothers in this type of situation will demonstrate a sense of relief.
While Laura is obviously tempted to rationalize that letting her husband lead wasn’t what delivered the different results, clearly she was able to let him lead enough to get those different results. Especially when something is counter intuitive, often we have to learn a particular lesson multiple times before we stop fighting reality and accept it. I suspect this isn’t the end of Laura’s mother-in-law troubles, but even so she does have peace now, as well as a template she can go back to if she succumbs to temptation and starts trying to out manipulate her mother-in-law.
Well done Laura.
