Dear Man Shrink,
I’ve been married for almost a year and my mother-in-law is extremely dominant. She lives in a wealthy suburb of Boston and constantly badgers my husband about everything—from jobs, to our future children, to the city we live in (Dallas … according to her, this is “not where an Ivy League grad should live”). She tries to rule my husband’s life and he lets her. No one has ever challenged her before, including his father and his two brothers. So when I try to express our opinion as a couple (things we’ve discussed and agreed upon, but my husband won’t bring up with her because he’s afraid to), I look like the bad guy. He doesn’t take up for me or even admit to having the same opinion. The last time this happened, I told him he needed to deal with it instead of leaving it for me to deal with. She fixates on topics until she gets her way so trying to have a normal conversation is impossible—she wears you down until you give in. What do I do? I’m worried about how this will affect my marriage and truthfully, I’m just as angry at him for not having the spine to stand up to her.—AO in Dallas
Dear AO,
I’ve got good news and bad news. Let’s get the bad out of the way: your mother-in-law sounds like a total headache and she will probably, at minimum, always annoy you. If she’s like the person that I’m imagining, then she’s not likely to change. Now here’s the good news: you can do a lot now to make things better later. If you wanted to address this after twenty years of marriage, it would be possible, but far more difficult. Since this is a new family system, it will be easier to change things (notice I said easier, not easy). You know that oil change advertisement that says, “you can pay a little now or a lot later”? The same principle applies here.
Getting Mama Bear to stay in her cave isn’t going to be easy, however. In the short run, you’ll have to do things that hurt feelings, start fights, and perhaps result in the exile of you and your husband (or, um, just you) from family gatherings. If things are half as bad as you describe, I’d count on two to five years of strained relationships with your in-laws. But if you follow the steps below and survive, there’s a chance that Mama Bear will learn that she can only piss in her own yard.
Remember that it’s not about you. Despite all the cheap shots his family has taken, this really isn’t about you.
