How can I get my hatred for my mother-in-law under control for Christmas?
Dr Miriam Stoppard offers some festive tactics for dealing with a horribly rude relative.
Dr Miriam Stoppard offers some festive tactics for dealing with a horribly rude relative.
How much longer do I have to put up with my horrible mother-in-law? She’s ruined every Christmas I can remember with her unbelievable rudeness, stinginess and lack of gratitude.
She’s now 93 but even when she was 15 years younger she did absolutely nothing, turned up empty-handed, and proceeded to criticise my cooking and general household habits.
My husband is terrified of her and dances around her every whim. Meanwhile, I’m not far off 70 myself and I’m wondering how much more of this I can take. I should be having dinner cooked for me and lording it up a bit instead of being terrorised by this monster.
How can I get my feelings under control so that I don’t blow a gasket and ruin everything for everyone?
I’m afraid there’s no easy answer to your question. Your mother-in-law’s rudeness, nastiness and ingratitude comes with your marriage.
I’m just wondering, does she single you out for her nastiness or is she just a horrible person and everyone gets the sharp end of her behaviour? If so, I’m not surprised your husband, her son, is terrified of her. The plain fact is that she’s a bully, and that kind of person will continue to bully unless someone stands up to her.
Problem is, no one has stood up to her in her life. I’m very sympathetic to your situation. When I was an agony aunt, I used to get many letters just like yours every Christmas. It seems there’s a breed of mother-in-law out there that wants to put the damper on everything. So how do you cope?
Well, I have two possible strategies for you. The first isn’t easy. It involves changing your attitude towards her so that her barbs over the Christmas holidays don’t spoil things. Can you think yourself into a frame of mind where her behaviour no longer affects you? So her nastiness and rudeness fall off you like water off a duck’s back?
If you can decide it’s not worth getting upset about her, you’ll de-terrorise her, so to speak. Then be resolute about seeing her as a better person than she is. You could wrest the power from her by being as nice as ninepence as soon as she enters your house. Your niceness will disarm her. In fact, she might not know how to act when somebody is being nice to her.
It’s somewhat far-fetched, but you may discover a different part of your mother-in-law that she hasn’t shown you or you haven’t discovered before. What I’m suggesting is hard, I know, but you’ll have everybody on your side, including your husband if you try this new tack.
My second suggestion is that you get the family around you and all agree to act in concert. You all decide you’re going to act well and not let her ruffle your feathers. There’s strength in numbers. You’ll feel much stronger ignoring her nastiness if the rest of the family is supporting you by doing the same.
[Hero image credit: Alun Callender]
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