Mothers-in-Law

Submitted in Marriage by Kate Lee on November 18, 2013 http://familyshare.com

 

My Mother-in-law isn't horrible, she's just different than what I was raised with and what I am used to. It's time to learn how to adapt to a different crazy.

I was talking to my newly married brother the other day and we were discussing mother-in-laws. After going on a cross country drive with his, he had discovered that she wasn't exactly the person he had at first thought that she was. He said something that to me hit the nail on the head as far as MILs are concerned. He said, "She's just a different crazy than I'm used to."

He's exactly right. It's not that our MILs are horrible while our own mothers are perfect. It's just that they’re different. So how do we adapt to a different crazy? The following are some of the issues I have faced with my own MIL.

Communication
It's trite I know, but it's true. My family is an open book, maybe too open. My in-laws book isn't just closed, it's hidden. I have written letters to my MIL to communicate feelings, both bad and good. Although nothing changes, she has always been gracious and I've discovered that it helps me not to keep negative feelings bottled up. We probably aren't going to change, but it still doesn't ever hurt to explain who we are and why we do the things we do. A little bit of understanding goes a long way.

What do I call you?
I still remember the phone ringing once during a family dinner. My brother-in-law was closest to it, so he answered it. It was for my Mom. He stood there awkwardly holding the phone out in front of him not saying anything. Since there were about 20 of us in the room none of us knew who it was for. Finally he blurted out, "The phone's for you, Mom ... Connie ... Sister Rose ... Mrs. Rose."
We thought it was hysterical and even more so when my Mom got a weird look on her face. "I'm not your Mom."

This was a far cry from my own MIL who would love for me to call her “Mom.” I'm not comfortable calling her that, not because she isn't wonderful or that I don't love her, but simply because I already have a mom. That title is pretty sacred. It's not just a name. It’s something that's earned. My Mom has earned it, just like my MIL has with her own kids. As much as some families try to act like everyone is equal and there aren't "in-laws," it's not true. Otherwise we wouldn’t use the name "in-law." It's a fact, not a criticism. But being an in-law doesn't have to mean that you're a "less than." I certainly don't expect my mother-in-law to feel the same way about me as she does her own daughters. That doesn’t, nor should it, offend me. We can still have a great relationship without forcing it to be more than it needs to be.

Change Probably Won't Happen
How many times have we had the same arguments over and over again with our loved ones? This is because we all have faults and usually these arguments center on our faults. Change is hard, but maybe acceptance is easier. For years there have been things that have driven me crazy about my MIL and I'm sure she feels the same about me. I've discovered something. The more I try to get things to change, the more frustrated I become. I had an epiphany the other day. It was that I wasn't being fair to my MIL. My Mom is a very strong and independent woman. I realized that I was expecting my MIL to handle things the way my own mother does and I was becoming upset when she didn’t. I didn't even realize I was doing this. I was viewing my MIL as weak and was losing respect for her because of it — something that was very unfair.

My mom raised us to be tough and very independent. She encourages her children and their spouses to rely on each other and not their parents. My MIL on the other hand would love if we lived with her, sat right by each other all day long on the couch and hugged and kissed each other frequently. Which brings me to the next point.

Personal Space
The first time my husband’s family was all together we all hugged hello and then hugged again good-bye. I wondered if someone had died. Why else would we be hugging? We live within a mile of each other and see each other all the time. I finally explained to the in-laws that just because I'm not a huggy person doesn't mean I don't like you. It's simply not how I was raised. In a weird way I realized that I resented hugging and kissing my MIL because I don’t even act that way with my own mother, who I’m very close to. It felt false to me. What I realized was that it wasn't false on her part. That was how she showed love and that's OK. It's also OK for me not to initiate something I'm not comfortable with. We tend to expect people to react the way we want them to and when they don't we think something is wrong with them.

Don't get offended on the small things. Save it for the big ones.
If your MIL invites her daughters to lunch or shopping and doesn't invite the daughter- in-laws, before you get offended ask yourself if you’d invite your MIL to lunch with you and your sisters or your mom. Probably not. Just because she still wants to do some things with just her daughters doesn't mean she hates you. If it’s not a big deal, don’t make it one. Also if your MIL wants to do a family portrait and wants the photographer to take one picture of the original family without in-laws, that's fine. Get over it. However if that's the only picture she wants to take, that's not OK. Your kids chose to marry their spouses. It wasn't your choice, but it shouldn't have been. Do not exclude them from a family picture since they are now part of the family whether you like it or not.

“If you can’t say anything nice……"
Yes, she has faults, but it doesn’t make her an outlaw. I know I have faults too. She’s a mother and probably has had them pointed out to her her whole life either by her kids, a spouse or herself. Just like I have. I want a break sometimes so why can’t I give her one? I know that one day I will face these same issues with my own daughters-in-law and that knowledge tends to give me the perspective I need to be a little kinder. At the very least, it may make it a little easier to let my sons go when they get married one day.

Kate Lee

Kate is a wife, mother of three, and a writer. She has a BA in Communications.
Growing up Kate used to entertain the neighborhood by telling stories about her family (mostly about her Mom). People always laughed and they couldn't believe the stories were true. I always got the same comment. "One day you need to write a book about your family." I'm currently writing that book and blogging about finding the humor in everyday life. My goal is to help people laugh through life's moments of chunder. You can read more of Kate's writing on her blog. Www.momentsofchunder.blogspot.com
 

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Fourteen Marriage Principles

From: Chris Ayers (adapted and expanded) "I love My Family" Facebook page

 

From a psychological perspective, love is mental well-being associated with cooperative living, sexual and spiritual satisfaction.

The history of irrational love has been illustrated by great writers like William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet.   We note the themes of crazy passion and desire.

Dramas, soap operas, movies and fairy tales detail how problems disappear when the two lovers are finally together.   This is not real life – it is fiction.

Sometimes we imagine, and what the media teaches: that the power of love is so strong that just being together is all you need to experience a long lasting and happy marriage.  This is an illusion.
We know for sure, or will come to realise, that "happily ever after" is only the beginning.

Here are some points to consider BEFORE your wedding.  If you didn’t do it then, work on these early in the foundation stage of your forever growing marriage:  and remember “Better late than never!”

1. Do you know yourself? It is important to find a right person. But do you consider yourself to be a good and growing person?  Do you know what you do and do not like?  Are you psychologically healthy, trustworthy, empathetic, altruistic and able to share and care for another person enough - not too little or too much? The qualities you search for in another apply to you too. The more you know yourself, the more you’ll know what to look for in another person.  The consequences of what you did not expect will be felt less. If you do not know yourself, no relationship will complete you.

2. Do you accept each other for who you really are? No one is perfect. We all have faults, limits and certain attributes that are detestable to us. Marital problems begin when one party thinks they need to change the other and tries. Change is difficult, and no one can manipulate, shame, trick or force another to change. Each is responsible only for the changes each chooses and can make personally.

3. Is your life generally tranquil? This includes getting along with others, knowing how to solve problems, conversing civilly, and applying empathy, tolerance and good will. Arguing is normal within any intimate relationship.  You need to be sure that the arguments are constructive, problem solving and provide rational and peaceful solutions. If conflicts before and during marriage are ugly and disrespectful, be warned, do not expect them to get better without growth and self-discipline.

4. Do you like yourself and how you feel when you are with your significant other? It is imperative that you know and can be yourself. There is harmony when you and the one you love connect through sufficient similar interests, attitudes and values. Be sure that you feel comfortable in each other’s presence. Similarities strengthen a relationship.  Be considerate of your differences.

5. Do you feel spiritually comfortable around him/her? You need to know that how your spouse feels and acts about the Divine and spiritual will influence your relationship. Someone with an open heart; who is generous, charitable, humble, and cultivates faith and hope daily is better company than someone who cannot tolerate religion, who believes repentance and forgiveness to be "things of the believers", or mocks your personal devotion, cultures or individuals.

6. Do you share compatible interests, attitudes and values? This is fundamental. If both focus on building a life and family together, with similar objectives, the power to overcome marital problems is strengthened. This will affect self-esteem levels, cultures, physical appearance, education levels, family situations and other abilities needed to build a successful and lasting relationship.

7. Do you live within your income?  Do you budget?  Do you creatively “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”?  Are you committedly working together, building and maintaining your abode?

8. What do you expect from your husband/wife? Today, male and female roles are ill-defined. It is essential, however, that you know what you expect from each other. In our marriage, we are partners, parents, and companions responsible for sustaining a home and family as lovers, friends and confidants. We need to know how to help each other, play together, clean and collaborate.

9. Do you feel sufficiently sexually attracted to him/her? Far from being everything in a marriage, sexuality is an important part where humor, sociability, respect, affection and confidence nurture your romance.  All these aspects contribute to the chemistry between man and wife. Remember, affection and being together does not mean you need to have sex all the time.

10. Do you feel comfortable around in-law family and friends? It is said that when you marry the individual, you marry the family. If this harmony does not develop, eventually, it will affect your relationship. This includes how your husband/wife feels about the people close to you.

11. Are you interested in making your spouse happy? This means letting him go after his dreams, supporting her, and admiring each other’s potential. While a successful marriage includes your happiness, you will still need to do your part to happify the other, and not always only yourself.

12. Do you have a solid friendship? This means being loyal, honest and trustworthy.  These are supports of a long-lasting marriage. Invest in discovering and using the very many means of communication. Most people enjoy talking to and being with each other. Ponder that.

13. Are your hygiene and habits compatible? Normally, people do not think of these as requirements for a good marriage, but it is essential to know how to take care of and present yourself, and how to contribute to the cleanliness and maintenance of places you live together.  This improves the health of the couple and their children to come.

14. Are you willing to accept the responsibility of making your marriage work? This means you will not give up when problems arise. Less mature attributes such as habitual anger, narcissism, passive aggressiveness, borderline personality disorder and histrionics can pick away at any loving relationship and destroy the marriage and family. Discover more about these if you suspect they are lurking or present.  Agree to do what work you each need to do to resolve your challenges.

Ponder and analyse each point. It is not much. You do not need to be perfect in every requirement to be happy during your growing and maturing marriage. However, good intentions, unity and the desire to better yourself in each of these facets is important for a successful marriage. Without good intentions any one of these points will snowball and destroy the relationship.

These are some hidden truths not often spoken about that will help you make a better decision.

Love can conquer all. But a matured love, that has grown together, that is interesting, strong and unified can do so much more.

Tandem Bike Ride With God

I used to think of God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong, so as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die. He was out there, sort of like a president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I didn't really know Him.

But later on, when I met him, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike, but it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that God was in the back helping me pedal. I didn't know just when it was He suggested we change, but life has not been the same since I took the back-seat to (God) Maharaj. He makes life exciting. When I had control, I thought I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable. It was the shortest distance between two points.

But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places and at break-through speeds; it was all I could do to hang on! Even though it often looked like madness, He said, "Pedal!" I was worried and anxious and asked, "Where are you taking me?" He laughed and didn't answer and I started to learn to trust. I forgot my boring life and entered into adventure. And when I'd say, "I'm scared", He'd lean back and touch my hand.

He took me to people with gifts that I needed, gifts of healing, acceptance and joy. They gave me their gifts to take on my journey. And we were off again. He said, "Give the gifts away; they're extra baggage, too much weight." So I did, to the people we met, and I found in giving I received, and still our burden was light.

I did not trust Him, at first, in control of my life. I thought He'd wreck it, but He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, jump to clear high rocks, fly to shorten scary passages. And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I'm beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion.

And when I'm sure I just can't do any more, He just smiles and says... "Pedal."

www.sikhsangat.com

posted 3 August 2009

 quoted by Erin D Maughan  BYU Devotional 4 August 2009

How We Wrestle Is Who We Are

by Brian Doyle - January/February 2005 issue - Orion Magazine

MY SON LIAM was born ten years ago. He looked like a cucumber on steroids. He was fat and bald and round as a cucumber on steroids. He looked healthy as a horse. He wasn’t. He was missing a chamber in his heart. You need four rooms in your heart for smooth conduct through this vale of fears and tears, and he only had three, so pretty soon doctors cut him open and iced down his heart and shut it down for an hour while they made repairs, and then when he was about eighteen months old he had another surgery, during which they did more tinkering, and all this slicing and dicing worked, and now he’s ten, and the other day as he and I were having a burping contest he suddenly said, “Explain to me my heart stuff,” which I tried to do, in my usual Boring Dad way, and soon enough he wandered off, I think to beat up his brother, but I sat there remembering.

I remember pacing hospital and house and hills, and thinking that his operations would either work or not and he would either live or die. There was a certain clarity there; I used to crawl into that clarity at night to sleep. But nothing else was clear. I used to think, in those sleepless days and nights, what if they don’t fix him all the way and he’s a cripple all his life, a pale thin kid in a wheelchair who has Crises? What if his brain gets bent? What if he ends up alive but without his mind at all? What then? Who would he be? Would he always be what he might have been? Would I love him still? What if I couldn’t love him? What if he was so damaged that I prayed for him to die? Would those prayers be good or evil?

I don’t have anything sweet or wise to say about those thoughts. I can’t report that God gave me strength to face my fears, or that my wife’s love saved me, or anything cool and poetic like that. I just tell you that I had those thoughts, and they haunt me still. I can’t even push them across the page here and have them sit between you and me unattached to either of us, for they are bound to me always, like the dark fibers of my heart. For our hearts are not pure; our hearts are filled with need and greed as much as with love and grace; and we wrestle with our hearts all the time. The wrestling is who we are. How we wrestle is who we are. What we want to be is never what we are. Not yet. Maybe that’s why we have these relentless engines in our chests, driving us forward toward what we might be.

Eventually my son will need a new heart, a transplant when he’s thirty or forty or so, though Liam said airily the other day that he’s decided to grow a new one from the old one, which I wouldn’t bet against him doing eventually, him being a really remarkable kid. But that made me think: if we could grow new hearts out of old ones, what might we be then? What might we be if we rise and evolve, if we come further down from the brooding trees and out onto the smiling plain, if we unclench the fist and drop the dagger, if we emerge blinking from the fort and the stockade and the prison, if we smash away the steel from around our hearts, if we peel the scales from our eyes, if we do what we say we will do, if we act as if our words really matter, if our words become muscled mercy, if we grow a fifth chamber in our hearts and a seventh and a ninth, and become as if new creatures arisen from our shucked skins, the creatures we are so patently and brilliantly and utterly and wholly and holy capable of becoming…

What then?

 

In His Head - On Marriage and Divorce

By Brian Doyle -

I am not so stupid as to make any public comment whatsoever about the character and nature and music of my marriage, which I understand less about year by year anyway.  My marriage, like every other marriage that is or was or will be, is different from every other marriage, and my marriage changes shape every 11 minutes or so, and my marriage, like every other marriage, is ultimately an utterly ephemeral thing, a shared idea, a mental and emotional constrict which both parties believe in to varying degrees at the same time or else there you are at the bus stop muttering about how you used to be married.  Also, the person to whom I am married, or to whom I was married 11 minutes ago, is a mysterious, changeable country whom I simply try to savour and appreciate rather than attempt to understand, or God help us all, predict in any way, shape or form whatsoever, such predilection to prediction being the surest road to muttering at the bus stop.

Yet there have been many riveting moments in my marriage and I recount them here cheerfully so that you can tell me what they mean, for I have no idea.  Like when our three children were hauled wet and startled from the salt sea of my wife’s womb and I saw her spleen and thin layer of subcutaneous fat, which I thought was pretty cool but she didn’t.  Or the time we lost a baby in utero.  Or all the times she has fallen asleep on my shoulder watching movies and the way she wakes with a start and asks anxiously did she drool or snore?  Or the way she becomes so absorbed in the paintings she paints that she loses track of the time and hoots with surprise when she realises how late it is.  Or the way she reads by the fire wrapped in a caftan.  Or the way she forgets the milk for her coffee is boiling and yelps with surprise every single morning when it boils over.  Or the way she loves to work in the yard, rain, or sleet or shine.  Or the way she laughs from the very fibre of her being sometimes with a dear friend on the phone.  Or the way she loses her temper sometimes suddenly and slashes and slices with a stunning tongue.  Or the way she retires upstairs sometimes in tears, overcome by exhaustion and rude children and unsubtle husband.  Or the way she our love affair has waxed and waned and ebbed and flowed and worn so many different coats of motley that sometimes I conclude it has died and sometimes I am agog that it has been born once again miraculously from ash.

Many times I have concluded that all marriages are nuts and my marriage is nuts, but I find myself delighted by her company which is endlessly stimulating sometimes in ways beyond hilarity or sensuality and sometimes in ways so frustrating and heartrending that I go pray and walk and hum and fold laundry and recall that I am no gleaming, glittering prize either, I am just a guy, muddled and humming.

I remember everything, I am memorious, that’s my gift and my curse, and I remember the way her voice once came shivering out of the dusk, telling me about her dad who had just died whom she loved madly, she was his last child, his late-surprise daughter, and I remember the quiver of joy in her high-beam eyes when we danced on our wedding day, swinging each other so fast and wild that if either let go we’d still be orbiting Neptune, and I remember the million hours she rocked and consoled and bandaged and fed and cleaned and snarled at and sang to our children, and the million hours we have wrestled with ideas and locked limbs, and I know the sound of her sob, and the lilt of her laugh. The lurch of her logic and the flare of her fury, yet after 20 years I know her hardly at all; which may be crucial for marriage is a verb, and why I am married, and why the most momentous moments of my marriage seem to me to be incontrovertibly and inarguably the next 11, of they come, which I hope they will, I pray they will, though no-one, including most of all me and my wife, knows if they will come, or what they will bring, which seems to me somehow the secret of the whole thing. 

But what do I know?

The Tiger's Whisker

An Old Korean Tale 

The story is of Yun Ok who came to the house of a wise sage for council.

 “’It is my husband, wise one.  He is very dear to me.  For the past three years he has been fighting in the wars.  Now that he has returned he hardly speaks to me, or not anyone else.  If I speak, he doesn’t seem to hear.  When he talks at all, it is roughly.  If I serve him food not to his liking, he pushes it aside, and angrily leaves the room.  Sometimes when he is working in the rice field, I see him sitting idly on the top of the hill, looking towards the sea!  I want a potion, so he will be loving and gentle as he used to be.’

 

“The wise sage instructed the young woman to get for him the whisker of a living tiger, from which he would make the magic potion.

“At night, when her husband was asleep, she crept from her house with a bowl of rice and meat sauce in her hand.  She went to the place on the mountainside where the tiger was known to live.  Standing afar from the tiger’s cave, she held out the bowl of food, calling the tiger to come and eat, but the Tiger did not come.

“Each night she returned, doing the same thing and each time a few steps closer.  Although the tiger did not come out and eat, he did become accustomed to seeing her there.

“One night she approached within a stone’s throw of the cave.  This time the tiger came a few steps toward her and stopped.  The two of them stood looking at one another in the moonlight.  It happened again the following night and this time they were so close that she could talk to him in a soft, soothing voice.

“The next night, after looking carefully into her eyes, the tiger ate the food that she held out for him.  After that when Yun Ok came in the night she found the tiger waiting for her on the trail.  Nearly six months had passed since the night of her first visit.  At first, one night after caressing the animal’s head, she said, ‘O generous animal, I must have one of your whiskers.  Do not be angry with me.’  And she snipped off one of the whiskers.

“The tiger did not become angry as she had feared that he might.  She went down the trail, running with the whisker tightly clutched in her hand.  When she brought it to the wise sage, he examined it to see if it was real, then tossed it into the fire, causing the poor girl to become stunned.  Then the sage said, ‘Yun Ok, is a man more vicious than a tiger?  Is he less responsive to kindness and understanding?  If you can win the love and confidence of a wild and bloodthirsty animal by gentleness and patience, surely you can do the same with your husband.’”