How to Deal With an Overprotective Mother-In-Law

To many individuals, marriage is a life-long relationship. It starts when a man and a woman decide to live together as man and wife. Normally, there is a little ceremony during such a moment, where a number of friends and family members come to witness the start of the marriage. However, even without such a ceremony, when a couple decides to get married, they are recognized as husband and wife. It is soon after marriage when many couples start to face challenges such as how to deal with an overprotective mother-in-law. This happens when a female parent of the married couple becomes too protective to her ‘child.’

To some parents, it is quite simple to let children go and have their own families when they become adults. However, to some individuals, it is not that simple. Some parents refuse to admit their children have grown up and got married. They want to stay close to them to ensure their spouses are treating them right.

Although both male and female can be overprotective to their married children, the case is more prevalent in female. They are the so called mother-in-law. It does not matter whether it is their son or daughter who is married; they always want to be protective. At times they are protective for genuine reasons while at other times they are guided by selfish motives. Nevertheless, there are a number of things you can do to ensure to keep such parents from wrecking havoc to your marriage, in case you are married to their son or daughter. Below are some tips on how to deal with an overprotective mother-in-law.

1. Institute a base of trust between her and you. Give her reasons to trust you and believe you are capable of taking good care of her son or daughter without being pushed to do it.

2. Establish communication channels with her. This way, you will learn why she is so protective. Probably you are not the problem. Rather, she might be the problem and is only overacting because she feels you are taking her son or daughter away from her.

3. Avoid being too possessive of your spouse. This way, the mother-in-law might drop her militant attitude and stop being overprotective to her son or daughter.

4. Cultivate friendship with your mother-in-law. By so doing, she might cease seeing you as a threat and start considering you as a friend.

5. Get people you trust and who she respects to discuss with her how you feel about her attitude and over protectiveness.

6. Do not attempt to stand between her and your spouse. Doing that would make her more protective, since she will feel you are trying to rob her of your spouse’s affection.

Source (opens in a new tab) by Biddrup Kumar Mollick (opens in a new tab)