How to deal with your mother-in-law

Oct 06, 2008 11:49 AM by Wendy T. Behary

Posted in

Surviving And Thriving

You want her to like you, accept you, and respect you. You have your own mind, and it's been a pretty good mind at that. You are smart, have opinions, and ideas all your own. Butâ€¦ forget it! She is always right! She has to win! It's her way or no way! Who is she?!

You know the one. She can launch a look of disapproval, disgust and disinterest like no other. You are dismissed with an eyebrow, a sigh or a chuckle. She is the ultimate button-pusher. You guessed it. She is your narcissistic mother-in-law. And you are engaged in an interpersonal battle like no other. For you are one of her greatest rivals and narcissists love to compete and to win. Okay - off your knees, deep breath, straighten your posture, chin up, and ready your stride. You are up for the challenge. Hang onâ€¦Quick definition of a narcissist: someone who has an exaggerated sense of self-worth, is highly self-absorbed, entitled, condescending, superior, show-off-ish, competitive, and approval-craving. They do not appreciate the impact of their often obnoxious behaviors on others. They have a lot of trouble with empathy and with the notion of give and take.

Who Stole My Voice?

You stammer and struggle for words, but somehow they have vanished. It's as if someone has pressed the mute button on your vocal chords. Why does this woman have this effect on you? Perhaps you have simply resigned yourself to the "keep quiet and keep the peace" mantra. Rest assured, you are not unique. For most of us, dealing with a narcissist can be a daunting task, but dealing with a narcissistic mother-in-law, who has to be right about everything, surely ups the ante. She is family, after all. She will be a part of your life for a potentially long time. She already is, or will be, a grandmother to your children. She is not just a difficult encounter. She is your partner's mother.

What do you do?

First, you gather as much information as you can about her history, in order to understand how she became the person she is. 1.Was she simply spoiled and indulged as a little girl and this is all she knows? 2.Was she loved conditionally, based on her performance and achievements? 3.Was she harshly criticized when she was not being perfect in the eyes of her parent? 4.Why should I care, you ask? The explanation behind her narcissistic style equips you in confronting her about her unacceptable ways. The explanations are not to excuse her ways but to better hold her accountable. Here's howâ€¦

Empathic Confrontation & Setting Limits

Empathy is not agreement. It is not sympathy, nor is it compassion. It is simply the art of walking in another's shoes. With empathy you can give her some benefit of the doubt, but she must be confronted in order to help her appreciate the affect she has on you and others. Limits must be set and boundaries declared as a means of protecting your rights, territory and sanity.Here are just a few examples of how you can use empathic confrontation and limit setting with the self-righteous mother-in-law in your life: 1. "Jane (your mother-in-law), I know how hard you work to maintain a very enjoyable reputation as a great hostess with many artistic talents. I know this was a priority in your own family growing up. We have benefited from these talents as well. [Okay, here comes the Confrontation part] But this is my first home and I know you can understand how exciting it is for me to make my own decorating decisions - right or wrong. I am sure I have a lot to learn and I appreciate your ideas, but I need you to respect my opinions as I do yours, even if we disagree. Your tone and persistence makes it sometimes feel like a contest. I don't want it to be a contest. I don't want it to hurt our relationship."2. (Phone Rings — Oh noâ€¦it's HER again!) "Hi Jane. I only have five minutes as I am running to an appointment, but I didn't want to miss your call again." (Okay — small white lie — but a good limit setting approach) You can increase the number of stress-free days and moments by limiting your exposure. Keep the calls short and infrequent, same with visits when possible. Remember: you cannot change a narcissist by yourself, but you may have some influence over the way they behave with you. You can also control the impact it has on you by limiting your contact and clarifying the boundaries when you are with them. 3. For example, "Jane, I appreciate your concern for little Timmy and what you see as his over-attachment to his teddy bear. I know you watch Oprah and read articles about child development, and feel you have some expertise in this area. It is okay for you to offer your input to us privately, but it is not acceptable for you to discuss this in front of our friends or in front of the children. This must not happen again. I am counting on you to respect our wishes, and I'd appreciate your commitment to this effort while in our home." There - you said it, graciously but firmly. So, let's say she sighs, waves her hand in the air, as if to dismiss you like an annoying flying insect, or puffs up and gets defensive. Simply and nicely let her know that you had no intention of offending her nor are you inviting her into a debate on the matter. Again, "Jane let's not let this hurt our relationship." And leave it at that. These skills take time and practice. You may want to solicit a friend or even an audio taping device so that as you practice your new skills you can collect feedback on your word selection, tonal quality and measure the sturdiness in your voice. You want your message to be communicated with authenticity and to achieve the impact you intend. You may also want to consult an expert who deals with narcissism to see if there is any personal baggage that you need to discard in order to enhance your capacity to be a better advocate for yourself. Some experts can even provide interpersonal coaching for dealing most effectively with situations like this one.

More tips on keeping the peace

How to deal with your mother-in-law
Mother-in-law Manager
Dealing with difficult people: 17 Tips to keep you sane

Comments

Comments on "How to deal with your mother-in-law"

31 years and through all the behaviours I experienced their is a difenition. THINKING I WAS NOT ADEQUATE FOR HER SON IT SEEMS MUCH DEEPER. POSSIBILITY...I FELT ADDRESS CHANGE BACK TO MAMA'S WAS CO-DEPENDANCY AFTER READING PERSONALITY DISORDER ACOHOL SEEMED MILD.

Thank you for sharing my rage. it just helps me deal with today.

MY wife and I got married in 2008. Her parents are divorced. My FIL & Family loves me. My MIL & Family hate me, EXCEPT GRAND MIL. I love GRAND MIL. Chrirstmas 2009 MIL and her brother/ my wifes UNCLE took my bride into another room and told my wife to divorce me. We left. After that day my wife didn't talk to her family (Her Choice). Now my wife and I have a 1yr old Son. When he was born MIL came over to the house and started yelling at my bride because my FIL bought my wife a baby crib (the one my wife wanted) I then told MIL to leave and Never come back. Now MIL has gotten GrandMIL involved telling her that I & my WIfe wont let MIL see her grandson."my MIL has had many chances to see/hold her grandson but chooses to push him away" MIL has told my wife that we spend time with my family more then her.... YEs my family lives 2 mile down the road from me and my MIL lives 1 1/2 hrs from us. But I dont see my family every day nor do I talk to them every day.... To be totaly honest with you I dont want my MIL around my son or my wife because every word that comes out of her mouth talks ill of my FIL & my Family & Myself but I know I cant do that..... What should I do???? Corey

my mil lives with us on and off and is always here since i first had our baby five years ago. she is here so much that i sometimes feel like I don't have space and my relationship with my husband is never the same when she is here. I have expressed my feelings but there is nothing we can do, this is his mother! the mother of the love of my life so what- i hang in there by the power of God and hope things will change in the future

I am so thankful to find this website. I have been dealing with my MIL for 14 yrs and even after 14 yrs I am still not good enough for my husband. She bad mouths me to everyone and blames me for things I have never done. I am stretch very thin now dealing with her. I am unsure how much linger I can keep putting up with her. My husband has always stood up for me but she doesnt care. Nothing anyone says to her matters, its her way or the highway.

I tried for 12+ years to have a healthy relationship with my mother-in-law who I have now realized is a narcissist. What I was tolerating was actually abuse and it definitely was not worth the damage it caused. Trust your gutt about people in general, but not excluding relatives ! ALWAYS listen to your gutt. We have a built in alarm system meant to save us from wasting out time, our life, and putting ourselves in danger. A relationship with a narcissist is dangerous. Once it becomes apparent that there will never be healthy balance, that you have been lied to or manipulated, used or abused,or once you realize that a person is a narcissist - just get them out of your life as soon as possible. You can't change them, you can't negociate or compromise, these are only games that you will always lose followed by all manner of inhumanities. It doesn't just hurt your feelings, they destroy you. If you never want to achieve the peace and joy of living the life you were created to live, if you want to become suicidal or become a permanent victim or the victim of a crime, stay in contact with a narcissist.

My husband and I met when I was 15 and he 17. Two years later we married-I was not the "ONE" she had in mind for her "baby boy". This November we will be married 40 yrs. To tell you quite honestly how I have survived his mother is only by the Grace of God. She wants everything her way and since 1972-we have had to deal with her narcissist ways-come Christmas Eve, birthdays-cakes and cards are always late or forgotten. When our girls were younger she made the remark" I'm not leaving them anything-I plan to spend their inheritance" (Looks like the doctors will beat her to it) Time will not permit me to tell all the other nasty darts that have come from her mouth thru the years. Just this past month my father in law was on life support in the hospital, our pastor came to sit with the family. Her remark 'there sits my daughter in law-you know the one thats unphotogenic" What has that got to do with a member of the family in ICU?? She has taken pot shots at me, my mom, our children/grand-children for years - finally when she went off at me for covering my father in law up while on the ventilator I decided enough is enough- I'm done with it. I have tried to be her friend, bent over backwards to please her -but No More. This Christmas we have plans with our daughters/sons in laws and grandchildren. Thanks for listening. Good to know I'm not alone

Looks-money-education. That is all my narcissistic MIL cares about. I have always been a skinny person and happened to gain a lot of weight with my first baby. She was verbally abusive. She disapproved that I nursed instead of bottle-fed and the root of all her horrible hostility is that I stay at home with my baby and don't work and put my child in day care. She would rather that. But it's none if her freaking business. She makes everything her business and has no filters on what she says and does. I need a support group stat. She has power over my husband and me and I can't live like this anymore. Luckily my husband backs me up, but obviously he can't change her!!! I have decided I cannot be around her from here on out. I could go on and on but I'll stop here. Good luck to all dealing with overbearing, horrible narcissistic mother in laws!

God, I love reading these stories. I feel I can totally relate! I got married this past summer. I thought i was marrying into a family that liked me, but I found out a week after our wedding that my MIL told my DH to break up with me after our engagement. She didnt think me our my family was at her 'level'. She came to our wedding, was a ----- to my mother, rude to my guests and looked miserable! i have anger regarding that day but i am learning to let go of it. When I first got married, my DH had no problem speaking to his parents infront of me, most of the time he'd put them on speaker phone until one time she decieded to say i was nasty and so is my family. He now speaks to them behind my back. This led me to go to into cell phone ( bad I know, i apologized) and I read their text messages to each other and it made me feel sick! Anytime my DH and i have a argument, he texts her about me and she gives him comfort and says I am a horrible person and it is because I am from a horrible family! I feel my DH is married to my MIL and I am just hear to be a maid in our own home. My mother advised me to keep silent. My MIL has been caught a few times, now with her nasty comments.We have only been married 6 months. I have no idea how I am going to survive.

My MIL's ultimate sport is to make me feel that I am NOT part of the family, manipulates everyone, she is good at everything, and I am just a human being. This xma's she bought 3 trousers, one for my husband, my brother in law and sister in law, when my sis in law said thank you my MIL said, I didn't want you to feel left out. HA! What a BIATCH!!! Her neighbor that is super told me she is a bitch, I feel less alone in this now, she manipulates everyone in that family.

Feeling you pain ladies...

My mil is fucken insane and moody I pray 2 God 2 help me find my own place cos I can't put up wit dis stupidity of hers.I made a decision if my husband want 2 stay wit her.den gud 4 him as I will neva set my foot in dis house again neither is my kids.I hate her I hope she dies!!!

My mother in law ... is an ENERGY STEALER. My husband's father passed away a little over a year ago and she uses emotional blackmail to manipulate her children nearly every damn visit. She has refused to sleep in her house, sleeping on the couches of her sons and guilting them into it. If one of her sons needs to be with his family and take care of things these she immediately wails, cries and declares, "your father said you boys would always take care of me, but he was wrong" We just had our wedding, and not only was she rude and hateful to my mother but two weeks after our wedding, we went to take her out to lunch and what does she say? "Why haven't you invited me up to stay over, why am I not welcome in your home? What have I done to deserve this? Why don't you love me? I have been so hurt by you two!" No gratitude for our visit. No, thanks for lunch. No, how's married life, because your clearly still in your honeymoon period!!! Just making it clear to us, our new marriage is all about her. I left never wanting to see her again and I've realized she is absolutely narcissistic. My husband, for as long as I can remember, answers calls from her everyday and everyday for 10 minutes after he talks to her he is miserable. when I don't pick up when she calls, she keeps calling until I pick up and wants me to listen about how none of her boys love her and care about her. She tries to get us to keep secrets from each other. If my husband doesn't talk to her for a few days she uses that emotional blackmail to make him feel like sh*t. I love the article, but all of the poor women on here... dealing with this crap for 10 plus years?!? Bad mouthing you to your own children?! I don't think I can do it, and I know that's what I have in store unless we can make change happen. I'd love to flip out and have her declare she never wants to see me again. Ok by me!

i might have you all beat..i got extorted for $$ by mil...she i s a no good, underhanded, vile, vicious, evil, narcissitic SOB that ever lived....now the good parts about her..oh wait there is none.... AND this is a christian woman!?..go figure! im sure hell awaits -not heaven....good luck to all! fight the good fight ;)

My husband had no relationship with his very passive father. His mother is irrational, clingy, demanding, mean, etc...She is a control freak and usually wants things her way. When I had my first child, she persecuted me, because I chose to breastfeed, instead of bottle feed. She had fed her babies bottles, and so she thought everyone should. She has made my life hell on earth at times. One of the problems (and this took me years to discover this) is that my husband is passive like his own father. As soon as we started our relationship, he hid behind me, so he could get away from his mom. Narcissitic moms can feel this out in a heartbeat, and of course, I got the blame for her son pulling away from her. I'm sick of being in the middle, and after lots of counseling, I refuse to do it anymore. The problem with narcissists is that they blame everyone else for their problems, when in reality, they are the #1 source of the problem. If you refuse to play their games, they've lost the power over you.

Im getting married in OCT.And I need some opinions on what to do about my soon to be MIL that is having a hard time dealing with her only child leaving her home to start a family with me.He has lived with her all his life and she suggested that we stay and live with her in her house,just so her son want leave her cause shes feeling that he's abandoning her.She want hardly speak to him now and she claims that im a bridezilla and that shes lost all respect for me,just because we feel it's best to start our lives in our own home.We have assured her that he is still going to be there for her and she still is having a hard time adjusting to the situation.Im so afraid that he's going to decide that he wants to make his mother happy over me,but he says he loves me and he wants me to be his wife forever.What kind of advice can someone give me?I would appreciate it very much.So,please share your opinions with me.Thanks

My mil lives next door, well, in our back yard. She ease-drops on my phone calls(mostly to my mother) and my husband and I's conversations. I am 9 months pregnant with our first child, and even tho she has been very much involved with this pregnancy, she tells everyone that i wont allow it. She also encourages my much younger sister in law to pick fights and instigate arguments constantly. Even tho my husband has told her we need privacy and talked to her about all this till hes blue in the face, she will get angry and not speak for a few days and after that it is as if he never said anything. Except for the comments about him hurting her feelings. Please explain to me how.."mom we need our privacy and are adults. We love you but please call before coming over and please knock before barging in. " isnt sinking in and seems to go in one ear and out the other. Short of being really nasty to her, nothing works. She even tries to make him wear clothes only she wants him to wear...aggrivating him till he changes or tries to changes him herself! Yes i said change him herself! Shes tries! This is crazy. I am going to try all the advice in this article and if none of it works..ill just have to be SOL...LOL!

i have a mil from hell. i swear Satan reincarnated himself through her. She competes for attention and bad mouths me to her son...shez bitch..jelous...gosh i hate her!!!

First of all, the only thing that stops these people in their tacks is a firm and solid “No.” Do not try to sweeten your words to be nice and do not offer explanations. If needed, use phrases like “This is non-negotiable” or “This is not up for discussion” but mainly stick to “No”. End of story. No emotion. Be a brick wall. Do not be afraid, you will be stunned at how well this works for the narcissistic personality. The roaring, manipulative lion will become a harmless little puppy that drops the subject. You have done them a favor and stopped the endless, obsessive machinery of their mind. Remember, NO explanations, NO discussions and especially NO apologies. Many self-centered people have a deep need for love. If you feel comfortable and it is honest, you can say, “ I love you. No.” Sometimes it helps to use the persons name, “Mary, no.” Try not to express anger, just strength. I have a sister and a mother-in-law that I have to use this technique on. My instinct is always to rationalize, be kind, explain where I am coming from, etc. But then I remember who I am dealing with. The kindest, only effective thing is “no”. (Note: It will be very tempting to bond with the “puppy” that emerges. But remember, this is a person who does not have control over their mind and can flare up when you least expect it. Keep a peaceful emotional distance for your own sanity.)

My MiL was an over indulged child, a spolit wife, a mother who reversed the roles with her children and expected them to look after her needs when they were far too young. She completely neglected their emotional needs. If anyone displayed the traits of NPD, she does. We have never enjoyed what you could call a close relationship, although I did attempt to get on with her. From the start, she told horrendous lies about me, upset everyone and damned near destroyed the marriage between me and her son. He and his dad were completely under her thumb. After many years, I decided I had had enough and told my husband if he was going to carry on doing her dirty work, I was off. He was shocked to realise just how much control over him she had She still is a lying witch, but he is at least mindfull when she starts the game playing. He doesn't fall so easily into her traps. Recently, my daughter, now grown up told me her grandma, the one and the same MIL, tried to poison hers and my son against me when they were younger. I think she is green to the core jealous of the fact I have a close and loving relationship with my family. Truth is her son and daughter can't stand her and not one of her family visit her because she has been so nasty to anyone. Reckon I will get the last laugh!