Relationship Advice: How To Deal With Your In-Laws
Reader’s Question:
My wife and I just got married. We’re living with my mother-in-law, and I don’t like my mother-in-law.
Relationship Advice:
Well, you didn’t really ask a question. And you didn’t exactly ask for advice on relationship. But then again, you didn’t have to. I spent several hours analyzing your statement, and I believe I got your problems pegged. You have three main issues: You don’t like your mother-in-law, you’re living with your mother-in-law, and most of all, you’re living with your mother-in-law.
Now, mothers-in-law are pleasant beings. They’re everywhere; they don’t think you deserve their daughter; they think they can do things way better than you can; and sometimes they remind you of how your wife is going to be several hundred years from now. And if your father-in-law’s around, that’s usually a preview of how you’re going to be in the future: balding and supernaturally quiet.
You are a very special man. It takes a certain kind of beast to find the girl of his dreams, marry her, and live at her mother’s house. Beast, I say.
And now, relationship expert advice:
I know you know the solution to this problem of yours. I give you that much credit, beast man. If you don’t get along with the mother-in-law, leave. Stay away from her.
Now, if there is a very strong reason why you relented to living with your mother-in-law (they’re joined in the hips, perhaps?), I suggest you use the good old-fashioned way of settling things: no, not through violence. Talk.
Now, since this is supposed to be a relationship expert advice: I’ll tell you to talk to your wife. Tell her you love her with all of your heart and soul; you’d take a bullet for her, but her mom just gets on your gosh-darn nerve every time she breathes. Tell her all about it. Maybe you and your wife can reach an agreement or a solution that may lessen, if not get rid, of the issue.
You can also talk to your mother-in-law. Settle things. Present your difficulties nicely to her. Who knows? It just might work.
Or talk to both of them. Tell them how you feel. Write a poem. Just let them know how you feel and that you want the issues settled. Let them know that you dislike this friction between you and your mother-in-law, and you, as a responsible son-in-law, only want peace and harmony in the house.
Maybe you’re the problem. Have you considered that?
Or you can just leave.
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