Mother-In-Law...I Need To Tell You Something

"A daughter is a daughter for life. A son is a son until he takes a wife."

I remember the first time I held my son just moments after he was born. I stared at his perfect little face, counted his tiny fingers, kissed his head and thought of this saying. I realized at that moment the count down clock had started. I only have a few years as the primary woman in his life, and those years are flying by.

When your son gets married your role in his life drastically changes. While you are still a very important person in your son's life, your role does change and you do have to take a step back. There is just no getting around that fact. This right here is I believe one of the main things that can cause friction between mothers-in law and daughters-in-law. You now have two women competing for the primary role in one mans life, and since there can of course only be one, problems arise.

I have spent some time looking around online at different books and writings that address mothers-in-law and how they should handle the relationship with their daughters-in-law. Most of them sound a lot alike! There seems to be a lot of "Just butt out" conversations going on, but that just doesn't seem very helpful to me. So I decided to try coming at this from a bit of a different angle. It's always helpful to know where someone is coming from when you are in conflict with them but chances are, your daughter-in-law would have a very hard time telling you some of these things. So for all you mothers-in-law out there, here are a few things it seems that many daughters-in-law would like for you to know...

1. By marrying me, your son has taken on a new family focus.
While I fully understand that you and your family are still very important to your son, I am now his primary family and therefore his focus does need to be on us and our family. I need you to respect my role as his wife and honor his focus on our family.

2. I do things different than you. Not wrong, just different.
We are two different women with two different backgrounds so of course we handle things differently. There is nothing wrong with the fact that I do things different and I would rather you not point it out every time. I appreciate how you clean your home and cook your food, but please understand that I may do a lot of it different. It is ok! While I do appreciate your concern, I feel that the best way for us to be close is for you to let me do things my way in my own home.

3. I have different traditions.
I do have different traditions when it comes to holidays and birthdays, and your son and I will take on some of those traditions. Please give us the freedom to do that. Understand that we do want to be with you and your family on those important days but we do also want to have our own traditions and they may clash with some of your traditions. Again, it is ok. We are forming a new family and with that comes new traditions. Please allow us that freedom.

4. Your son does make his own decisions and opinions.
I know that it may seem like I make all of his decisions for him but trust me, I don't! He is a grown man and does a great job of leading our family and making decisions that he feels are best for us. Please don't be so quick to brush it off simply because it is a different decision than you expected him to make.

5. How you raised your children is not necessarily how I want to raise my children.
We do come from different backgrounds and because of that I am going to raise our children different than you raised yours. You had the freedom to raise your children how you felt best, so please, please give me that same freedom. Please respect the fact that I am their mother and am doing the very best that I can. As much as you may think you are helping by offering advice regularly, please try to hold back on the advice unless it is asked for. That may sound harsh but the truth is, the constant advice only makes it seem like you think i'm not doing a good enough job.

6. Honor my rules and instructions with my children.
I will at some point make rules for my children that you may not agree with but it is so important for you to honor them anyways! I am not asking you to agree with me, but when you are around them I have to be able to trust you to honor me as their mother and respect my instructions for them. If I can't trust you it will be difficult to have them around you.

7. Remember how it felt when you were a new daughter-in-law.
I'm sure that at some point you had conflict with your mother-in-law. Please try to see where I am coming from in these situations! Instead of pointing out what I need to change, please take that time to simply pray for me and your son. We are both doing the very best we can at building our family. While I may not always do a perfect job, I do love your son more than I love any other person in this world and am always doing the very best I can in this role of his wife.


I have just a couple of things to say to both mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and then i'll be done with this subject. At times it may feel like the two of you are in a war over this one man, but you need to remember something. You are fighting over the very thing that brought you together! You both love this man in a very unique way and you both want the very best for him. Both of you need to learn to respect the role you each have in his life and in your family.

Also, I don't care how bad the problem is, it was not caused by one person and can therefore not be fixed by one person. It is not possible for one person in a relationship involving at least three people to fix things all by themselves. It will take all of you working and sacrificing your way and opinions to make it work.

Let's Talk About the In-Laws

The relationship between you and your in-laws will be one of the trickiest relationships of your life...until you become the in-law. My in-laws and I have had a very difficult relationship, a lot of hurt on both sides and a lot of things to work through. I've learned a lot from our relationship and I hope to carry what i've learned into my relationships with my sons and daughter-in-law. So because there are two sides to this relationship i'm going come at this from both of those sides. Let's start by talking to the sons and daughters-in-law...

To begin, lets look at the very first thing said about this relationship found in Genesis 2:24 "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." I've always thought it interesting that Adam even said this, after all, they are the only people to have never had to deal with in-laws of any kind. So the fact that it is said at the very creation of marriage must make it pretty important. But did you know that is not the only time it is mentioned in the bible? It's also found in Ephesians 5:31-32, Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7-9. I think the fact that it's mentioned so many times tells us that it's something to take very seriously. The fact is, when you get married the two of you start a new family. It can be very difficult for a time but it is absolutely what needs to happen.

Guys, as hard as it may seem, you have to do exactly what those verses say and leave your parents and cleave to your wife. The Hebrew definition for leave is "to depart from, let go, forsake, to let loose and to leave behind." That's a pretty challenging definition isn't it? The Hebrew definition for cleave is "to cling, stay close, to be joined together, to pursue closely and to stay with". That puts a lot of work on you men! I know that the relationship between your wife and your mother can put a lot of strain on you guys but take a step back and look at your relationship with these two ladies. Are you doing what the bible tells you to do? Have you left your parents and do you now cleave to your wife? This is not something that happens automatically, it can be a long and difficult process but it has to happen for the health of your marriage.

My husband had quite a challenge when it came to dealing with his mother and I, as I said, we have not had the best relationship so he had his work cut out for him! With the complications that come with the relationship between you and your in-laws you have to figure out how to handle things before they happen. Colby and I spent a lot of time talking about this situation when we were dating because I had watched my mom and grandmother have a very difficult and controlling relationship for most of my life up to that point. I had seen how hard things can be when the son is easily controlled by his mother and therefore the daughter-in-law is controlled as well. I knew that was not something I wanted to live out, and thankfully, I married a man who fully understood Genesis 2:24. But we still had a difficult time and all had to learn exactly where our places were in this new relationship.

Guys you have to face the fact that at some point in your marriage you will have to deal with a conflict between your mother and your wife. You are a very important person to both of them and at times, you are the rope in their tug of war. It's not fun and i'm sure it doesn't feel fair but it is something you will most likely have to deal with. So before you get in that position, figure out where you stand! Colby and I both know that regardless of the situation, we will always present a united front. I can completely trust that he will never talk me down or make fun of my opinions with anyone in his family wither i'm there or not and that is a huge comfort for me!! If there is a conflict between his family and I, we remain united at all times. Now, when it is just the two of us he is free to (and has done so plenty of times before) tell me where I am in the wrong and how I could have handled it better, but he has always been very good to never side against me in a disagreement. And again, this was decided before his family and I ever had our first disagreement. That is probably the best thing you can do for this whole relationship, take the time to figure out exactly where you stand before you have to make that stand!

Now girls, here's where your part comes in. I firmly believe that you come first and I support that position. But, and this is a really big but here, never belittle the importance his mother has as well! Your role and importance in your husbands life does not in any way negate the importance of his mom. Has her role changed? Absolutely. But she is still, and always will be, a very important person in your lives and your family. I did not understand this when we first married and I did a lot of damage fighting battles that should have been left alone, it is damage that we are still working on repairing years latter. I had this idea that any time we disagreed on something I had to come out on top to prove that I came first. And let me tell you, it's not worth it! Since then I have had to learn when exactly to just let things go. There have been, and i'm sure will still be, plenty of things we will disagree about that I do have to take a stand on. That stand would have been so much more effective and well received if I hadn't chosen to fight about the many other little things. Instead of looking for opportunities to prove you do come first, look for opportunities to stay quiet. You'll find a lot more of those and your whole relationship will be better off for it!

Also girls, everything I said to the guys about them leaving their families and cleaving to you applies to you as well. You can not expect your husband to respect you as the leading lady in his life if your dad is the leading man in your life. If you want your husband to side with you in a disagreement between you and his mom, you have to side with him in a disagreement between him and your mom. It goes both ways! Most of the time there is more conflict between the daughter-in-law and his parents but I do not want anyone to think that the man is the only one that has to leave and cleave. It does go both ways. If you can all get this relationship figured out early on you will save yourself from causing a lot of hurt and doing a lot of damage!

This post is linked up to Time Warp Wife and Women Living Well.