Understanding the Mother In Law

I am meeting a friend of mine at a café for some chit chat. Am quite looking forward to it, as the friend in question is about to be married and we have a lot of things to plan about the marriage.  To my surprise, my friend looks a bundle of nerves when she turns up for her date. The reason I am told in due course is that she is about to meet her would be mother-in law for dinner tonight. Over many cups of coffee and perspiration I am told what a torturous task it is to have to go through the whole razzmatazz of meeting the mother-in-law, trying to gauge her nature and adjust to her patterns of LIKES and DISLIKES. On a whim I asked her if her Mother –in –law was Face Book that she had to LIKE everything that she posted (err said) and on second thoughts we realized that the inimitable FB does not have a DISLIKE button, so there.

Laughs aside, while trying to pacify my friend I wondered why women have so many issues with another woman, when logically it should be the new men in our lives that we should be worrying about! But like it or not, the single point of focus in most marriages for a girl is how to deal with her Mother-in law. I remembered the Jenifer Lopez film titled Monster-in-law, (the reference here to Jenifer’s on screen Mom-in-law)I had always wondered if the film title was just a wee bit over the top. But looking at my friend, I guess it was well justified.

Its situations like this that make you wonder, about why the mother-in-law is such a figure to be worried about for a girl who is entering a beautiful new phase of her life. In it every woman’s internal psychology at work here, about whether one will part with what she has marked as her territory to be trespassed upon by another? Like most other situations there are of course no direct answers to why the mother-in law is such an object of fear in every bride’s psyche. But one factor that plays on all female minds is the acceptance from the lady of the house and her welcoming her into the folds of the new home, a domain that was essentially hers in the first place.

Added to this are horror stories of how mother-in-laws have always sought to dominate the daughter-in-law and make her do, all those innumerable things that only a mother-in-law can. Of course things have vastly changed over the past years and the situation arrived at an edgy calm where both daughter-in-law and mother-in-law check each other out. The proverbial need to adjust to another woman’s domain and listen to her remains and is often resented by most new brides. But situation of the bride apart, it is the son in question who has to do the biggest balancing act, in pleasing both the women in his life who matter most, in different ways.

Since sharing of territory (In this case the son) is the one major issue, in most such marriages. The son/ husband’s time is better divided between both and often it needs great managerial skills to do such juggling.

Contrary to what most women think, the relation between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law can be an extremely beautiful one too, if only both parties concerned were to think alike and about the happiness of the family more than their personal happiness. Of course having said that, it needs two to Tango and a one sided effort can fail miserably and lead to bitterness too.

In keeping with the times, it is perhaps both Mother-in-law’s and daughter-in-laws realize that theirs is a relation like any other and needs working at making it successful. As such instant judgments made on prior perceptions or advice of friends and so called well wishers is perhaps better avoided.

The exchange of love, like in any other relationship, is what leads to better understanding even in this most dicey of relations between two women.