What kind of mother-in-law will I be? (9-minute read)

I have a daughter and a son. They’re both under 5 but assuming they’re both heterosexual and get happily married, I will have a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law. And I get to have the title of a mother-in-law.

Maybe it’s the old traditional mindset that girls will always come back to their parents whereas boys tend to stray away but I only started thinking about this relationship a little more in-depth when I had my son. 

Why is it more common for the relationship between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law to be strained than with her son-in-law?

1. Let’s first blame our genetics and the evolution of the human species.

If we look at the survival of the human species, there is a clear difference in the mating strategies between males and females. As archaic as it sounds, we are animals.

For males, it would be the most advantageous to impregnate as many females as possible in order to preserve his lineage and to increase the chance that his descendants will survive. He has an innate desire to spread his seed like a pollinating machine. He can do this many times even within the span of a day…spurt, spurt, spurt.

Isn’t that why we are all related to Genghis Khan?

As for females, she can only carry one offspring (or multiples) at a time. And this is for an extended period where she is vulnerable, specifically 9 months. So for the purpose of procreation and survival of the human species, it would be the most advantageous for a female to find a male who will stay with her long-term, protecting, providing and caring for their future children together.

It’s theorized that mothers-in-law have an unconscious instinct to disrupt her son’s relationship with his wife because she wants him to carry on the family genes with as many women as possible. However, with daughters, mothers-in-law have an unconscious need for her sons-in-law to stay committed in the long run, as to provide for her daughter and their kids.

Therefore, our survival instincts may be one of the reasons why mothers-in-law get along better with their sons-in-law than daughters-in-law.

2. Next, it’s about competing for time and attention

The first relationship a male has with a female is with his mother. Women are generally more emotionally intelligent than men, talking openly about feelings, expressing emotions, reading non-verbal cues, practicing empathy etc. Therefore, mothers are often the ones who do the emotional labour of parenting. 

FYI: this isn’t to snub the fathers who do this as well; in fact, some do it all. I’m speaking generally, you know, like the bell part of the curve, not the outliers and exceptions. 

From the day sons were born, mothers kissed their boo-boos away, hugged them after numerous nightmares (and night terrors), held them tight after they fell off the monkey bars, off the slide, off the tree, off some other structure they weren’t supposed to climb, taught thems skills of intimacy, affection, love, how women should be respected and ultimately, prepared them for a fulfilling relationship one day.

But when that day comes, mothers subconsciously feel like they are being replaced by another woman. Her son’s need for emotional support can now be fulfilled by someone else. 

Will he still need her? What will he need her for?

What will her role look like in her son’s life? Will her significance diminish? If so, by how much? 

There is a lot of uncertainty about how her relationship with her son will be affected and what involvement she has in his life. She doesn’t want him to stay but she doesn’t want him to go. She wants to be involved but she doesn’t want to pry. She doesn’t know what will happen and how she should respond. All she knows is that things will change and she will need to mourn the loss of the current relationship she has with her son.

When there’s uncertainty, there is fear. And the fear is that her son will spend less time and give less attention to her. To circumvent that, a mother-in-law’s behaviour may start to become competitive, scared she will become neglected by her son in favour of his new life and wife. 

3. Expectations of herself and for her daughter-in-law

The question is what should the ideal relationship between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law look like? The problem is actually the question. When people have expectations of what a relationship that is forged due to formality should look like, that’s when disappointment and unhappiness happens. 

A study was done that interviewed daughters-in-law and asked them about the positive and negative behaviours of their mothers-in-law. Responses contradicted each other. 

For instance, some said their mothers-in-law were overbearing and controlling whereas others said they were not involved enough. 

Some daughters-in-law said their mothers-in-law divulged too much personal information and overshared whereas others said they were cold and closed-off. 

Now I know why but what am I going to do about it?

I’m getting idealistic which goes against my realistic beliefs but aligns with my optimistic mindset. I want to think about this because, without hope and faith, there’s only doom and gloom. I don’t believe in hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. 

I prepare for the best because I believe the best will happen. However, if the worst happens, I have hope and confidence that the life experiences I will have had to that point will provide me with enough resilience to deal with it. 

I have about 30 or so years to prepare for the glorious day when I receive the mother-in-law title. 

Perhaps by that time, I will have changed my mind? 

Or the social landscape would have changed and polyamorous relationships have become mainstream; anyone can get married to more than one person and folks have multiple sets of in-laws. One big happy eh?

However, until then, here’s the kind of mother-in-law I want to be:

I will be proud of my son and confident in his decision

I raised him. My work is done. He’s a full-grown, responsible adult who is accountable to himself. Whoever he decides to marry, he will be the one who lives with it. 

I will stay open-minded. I’m not going to make snide, passive-aggressive comments about his wife, criticizing who she is, what she says or does. He chose her and he doesn’t need to justify his reasons.

As with other aspects of his life (career, health, lifestyle, money), he owns these decisions and has control of his destiny. And that will allow me to sleep soundly when my time comes to leave earth. 

I will respect the relationship between my son and his wife

There will be no guilt-tripping. There will be no build-up of resentment.

I will be direct with my feelings but I will empathize with them. I will share with him how I feel without expecting him to fulfill my request. I will understand how busy it is with young married couples because I would have gone through it myself. I won’t hold a grudge if they can’t make it. My son, daughter-in-law and their kids are not my entire social circle; they are a part of it.  

“I’d love to spend some time with you and your wife. Let me know when you guys are free.”

“Your dad and I are going to check out this new restaurant and thought you guys might be interested as well. Let me know if you’d like to join us.”

There will be no meddling or unsolicited advice.

If he shares with me that they are fighting, I will emotionally validate him but I will stay out of it and only offer advice when asked. Unsolicited advice is my biggest pet peeve and the next one is being a hypocrite. 

If he complains about her, I will not join the bash party. I will remind him that this is the decision he made and that in marriage, it’s not about sides, it’s about teamwork. He’s not perfect and she’s not perfect. There’s no putting either one on a pedestal. They’re human and both of them need to put effort into their marriage to make it work.

Hopefully, my book, “A Straight Up Guide to a Happy and Healthy Marriage” will still be relevant.

From how she dresses, what to eat, how to parent, please make me eat my words if I ever start giving unsolicited advice to my daughter-in-law about anything, like literally ANYTHING. I have to earn her respect and if/when she would like my advice, I will provide it. 

There will be no intrusion of privacy.

Lock me up if I ever enter their bedroom without knocking (or even enter it at all…I do not want to see what cannot be unseen) or randomly show up at their house without letting them know in advance. 

I will not expect my daughter-in-law to replace me

My worst nightmare is for me to ask my daughter-in-law to be his mother. Or to ask her to “fix” him and make sure he does things he knows how to do.

I won’t care how she cooks, cleans, does the laundry, how she organizes their home etc…or if she does them at all. Every family has their way of running their household and I will respect that. 

If I ever start to buy clothes for her so she could dress like me, please punch me in the face. Just threw up a bit…

I am not my daughter-in-law’s mother (she already has one)

I will absolutely welcome my daughter-in-law into the family, making her feel like she is one of us but I will not impose myself in her life. 

I have a daughter and I have a mom. That mother-daughter relationship is sacred. This is especially true when a woman becomes a mother. She needs her mother.

So when/if that time comes and my daughter-in-law gets pregnant and gives birth, I will respect her decision of how involved she wants me to be. Yes, it’s my grandchild but I do not have a right to have access to their baby. 

I will be there with bells on if she wants all the bells and whistles or I will be a silent cheerleader, quietly and patiently waiting until she’s ready.

I will drop my ego if he likes her parents more than us

This will be a tough one for me to swallow but he may get along with his wife’s parents better than his own. There’s nothing wrong with that and I will not be jealous (maybe at first but I’ll figure out a way to manage).

From compatible personalities to similar hobbies and interests, he may become friends with his in-laws. Perhaps his in-laws own a business that he’s interested in or they work in the same industry? Or some other reason that makes them gel. And they end up spending more time together than with us. 

To be honest, I probably will be hurt because I was raised to compare (For the love of Asian parents, everybody got demons eh?) despite years of trying to abolish this behaviour; however, I am hopeful I will find ways to manage my emotions and accept the situation. 

I will not force the relationship with my daughter-in-law

I obviously want to have a good relationship with the person my son decided to spend his life with and the mother of my grandchildren. I would like to get to know my daughter-in-law, her pastimes, likes and dislikes, understand her story, where she came from, her values, beliefs and priorities, passions, hopes and dreams, life lessons etc.

However, it takes two to tango; time, effort and desire from both parties are required in order to build, develop and maintain a relationship. If we end up great friends, then all the merrier. I’ll be incredibly grateful and would thank my lucky stars that it worked out. 

If we end up not having anything in common, then it’s not the end of the world. That’s how it’s been with my in-laws. It’s okay if she doesn’t like me. I’m not going to go above and beyond to make her like me, giving gifts, excessively complimenting, offering to pay for things, agreeing with her on everything, never saying no to her requests etc.

My hopes are that she will do the same. I will love her because she is family. There’s no need to impress me or try hard to get me to like her. She should say no to me. She shouldn’t agree with everything I say.

I’m going to be my authentic self. I won’t be afraid of conflict, to respectfully confront (and be confronted) if/when I’ve crossed lines, to respectfully speak up when there’s been a misunderstanding or disagreement. I won’t make my son mediate our dispute. 

I won’t put my son in a tough position to choose sides because there should be no sides (obviously unless there is abuse occurring). He should choose his wife. He should put his wife before me because he shares his life with her, not me; she is his life partner, the mother of his children.

So Readers, how is the relationship with your in-laws? How have you made it work? Or do you avoid them like the plague?