mauricetherapy

Dear Maurice,

I need you to enlighten me on behaviors of in-laws. I am 23 and my husband is 27. My mother-in-law has always been a handful and since we got married 8 months ago she has been interfering in my marriage. I understand that a mother wants the best for her child, however her alleged support and love for her son has gone overboard.

Maurice asks,

What troubles are you facing with your in-law?

She replies,

I don’t know if it’s just me or my mother-in-law wants to complicate relations between myself and her son. She just won’t stop interfering with our day to day life. She will check up on her son to ask him if I am tending to him as he would expect. She goes to the point of wanting to know what I fed him over the week. She then advises her son on a healthy diet if she does not approve of my week’s menu.

Maurice asks,

I’m assuming your husband ends up sharing with you about his mother’s advice?

She replies,

Yes he does, that’s not my main concern though, I hate it when he implies that I should adopt his mother’s wisdom and change as per her guidance. For the last 3 months things at home have gotten worse. It is my place to advice our house help on the weekly meals and I have found out that my husband instructs her to cook entirely different meals at times, you can guess who from. Once I found out I was very annoyed and instead of seeing my point and standing by me as his wife my husband is adamant to follow his mother’s regiment.

Maurice asks,

Did you have similar hurdles before you got married?

She replies,

Honestly in the 3 years I have known my husband his mother has never quite liked me mainly because I come from a different ethic background. I had to come to terms that people are different and I accepted that she may never approve of me. That said, when it came to the woman my husband wanted to marry he fought for me to be accepted by his extended family. Why then is he allowing his mother to dictate in our marriage? Out of the respect I have for her as I do for my own mother I have opted not to confront her but I feel undermined. I have strongly hinted to my husband that I am not happy but he is either ignoring the fact or he is not getting the message. I need him to snap out of this mummy’s boy behavior and start acting like my man.

What do you advice I do?

Maurice replies,

I recommend that you sit your husband down and have a candid chat. Open up to him and tell him that you respect his mother very much however you as his woman and wife are feeling inadequate because your role as wife has been hijacked by his mother. Your husband needs to feel that you are genuine and are not attacking his mother, if he can comprehend your concerns rationally then I believe he will formulate a way to please both of you, at the same time he will hopefully give you his full support and request his mother to give you the respect and privacy that you deserve as her son’s wife. Your mother-in-law was once a newly wed and I can only guess that she did not tolerate interference in her home. If she truly cares for her son’s marriage she will back off.