“She hates me. I can’t explain it but she fucking hates me.” Helen’s eyes were red and puffy, a clear sign that she had spent her morning crying, but there was something else in her voice. An anger I had never heard before.
“What am I supposed to do? I can’t marry Tom and welcome this kind of poison in my living room every Sunday, every Christmas and every birthday”, she concluded.
Oh, yes, you have guessed it right. My best friend was walking in the same shoes, millions of women (and men) have walked before. She was about to embark on the next adventure of her life, but instead of feeling joy, an evil outsider loomed over her future happiness: her future mother-in-law.
It would be easy for me to tell her to suck it up because her partner loved her and he would definitely find the solution to this mess, but you know what? Neither Helen was Cinderella, nor did she live in a fairy tale.
People tend to say that you can’t really love someone without loving or at least accepting as a necessary evil their family and friends. And that’s probably the right attitude.
After all, the man or the woman you meet and fall head over heels for, isn’t some ragweed. People don’t grow on trees and they definitely don’t grow neither by mistake nor without someone… watering them. It’s their family that makes them who they are and some of the characteristics you now find irresistible about them are due to them.
For instance, if you adore your significant half’s attendance to your every need and him being so understanding and willing to share every little household chore with you, you should probably be thankful to his mother. She was the one raising him from a naughty boy to a wonderful man; she taught him to treat his woman like a princess and most of all, like an equal.
And if you find out that your wife meant every single word of her vows at the altar, because she’s there for you not only in health but in sickness too, you should be grateful to her parents for raising such a nice person.
The same goes for your partner’s siblings and so on. Of course individuality’s role is crucial, but let’s not kid ourselves; no one has any values just by being born. Raising and nurture is the key to what you‘ll end up becoming.
Yes, that’s the rule but when you deal with people, things get complicated and sometimes out of hand.
So, what can you do when there’s bad blood between you and his/her family? There are no easy answers, no magic solutions, but you‘ve got to start somewhere. You‘ve got to start looking and I‘m sorry to break it to you, but the first look is in the mirror. Are you sure you are an impeccable son or daughter-in-law and you never ever did anything to offend them?
If you are telling the truth, the only truth, then you have got to take the next step. And that one depends on the relationship you have with your partner. In a case like my friend’s, time is of the essence. Your fiancé should be brought in, sat comfortably and explained with every detail but without any whining, the facts. Then it’s up to them to deal with it. If they decide not to act and try to convince you that you are just exaggerating, then there’s only one road and you have to walk it alone. Cruel? I know but no one can live like that and be sure that the venom though slowly, it will end up poisoning not only your relationship but yourself.
And there’s always the other way, the bitch’s way. Every smirking comment his mother does, you double it and no comment can go unanswered. Not only you get temporary satisfaction, you are sending your message loud and clear. “Don’t mess with me, bitch”. Either they will back down, either they will decide to armour themselves and go to war. But be careful. You don’t want war, cause no matter who wins, both sides end up wounded.
As far as the third road, it can be easily considered as the safest, though it leaves you totally unsatisfied. You can just ignore your partner’s family, set them aside and never visit them. Your partner is a big boy (or girl) so they can visit their mommy on their own. After all, you will not be missed!
When it comes to life, everyone comes with baggage and sometimes even if they are monogrammed Louis Vuitton trunks, they can be proven deal breakers.
Author: Dimitra Tsampodimou
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