Dealing with a Monster In-Law

Posted on October 19th, 2010 by Keith Ferrazzi

I threw my hat in for the GMA advice guru gig, which was “come one, come all” for entering.  They’ve got some other entrants’ responses up on the ABC site today.

I thought I’d post a couple of my responses on the blog this week.

Here’s today’s. I hope you guys enjoy the shift from my usual workplace-relationships focus. But since business relationships are just personal relationships in more formal clothing, it’s not much of a detour at all.

1)    What would you tell his person: "Whenever there is an issue between my mother-in-law and me, my husband refuses to stand up for me. How do I get him to value our relationship more than the one with his mother? (150 words or less).

Okay -- first, stop draining yourself by competing with your mother-in-law.  I bet most of these fights are pretty unimportant – be honest, are you creating any of your own drama here?

When conflict is unavoidable, you have to get your husband thinking less about "choosing" and more about sticking up for you when he thinks you’re right.  Your husband deserves his own opinions, but when he agrees with you but sides with his mother anyway, there has to be clear accountability.  Say something like, "If you don’t have the integrity to support me when you actually feel I’m in the right, then I’m going to spend less time with your mother," or whatever consequence makes sense in your household.

Bottom line: you don’t have to be a victim here.  But you do have to be a little harder on your husband -- and a little gentler with the monster-in-law!

How did you improve your relationship with a monster in-law?

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