7 Reasons Why Your Mother-In-Law Is Mean to You
True mothers-in-law from hell are really rare, and mostly they all pretend to be mean, but in fact they can be lovely aging women. We really feel for you, of your MIL makes you cry in the dark corner whenever you see and confront her, but there’s always an explanation, why your mother-in-law is mean to you.#1 She’s jealous. Jealousy can make the sweetest woman be a bitter one, and your mother-in-law has so many things to be jealous of. For instance, you replace her and now you’re the most important woman in the life of her son. She still remembers when he was a toddler and thinks that he’s not old enough to cut his beefsteak on his own. However, those days are gone, but she doesn’t understand it.
#2 Her own marriage is a wreck. You MIL may be so mean to you, just because she thinks that your marriage is better then hers. Maybe, she has got an old-fashioned marriage, where she had to leave her ambitions and let her husband be the number one, while you and your husband are equal. Yes, you also have your own problems in your marriage but your MIL never notices them.
#3 She had a mean MIL, too. We accept certain models of behavior that we live in and later start to transmit them, too. For instance, if your mother-in-law had the same problems with her own MIL, when she was at your age, the marriage of her son gave her a license to be mean to you, just because she also had to suffer the same problems.
#4 She’s afraid. Nobody wants to think about getting older, and even your mother-in-law may think about herself that she’s still young enough. But the marriage of her son means, that now he’s not a cute baby any more, and the next stop of her life will be the Grandma-ville. Whether she wants it or not, but now she understands that she’s old and she’s afraid of that.
#5 She’s stressed out. Stress is one of the things that makes people be mean to everyone. Problems at work and pressure at home makes your mother-in-law cranky with everyone around. Still everyone can’t be her scapegoats, and she picked up only one person, who’s not her immediate family, but close enough, and won’t be able to confront her attacks.
#6 You’re the source of changes. Your mother-in-law may be afraid of changes, because they make her feel helpless. And now with the changes in her family she has to start living the new way, which she really dislikes.
#7 She thinks she knows better. Your mother-in-law has sold and bought 13 houses, so she thinks she knows everything about the life, and she wants you to ask her for advice. If you don’t do that, she comes to your place and starts taking over it. Her intentions are genuinely good, but nobody asked her for unsolicited advice, and that’s where your problems begin.
These are the most common reasons why your mother-in-law may be so mean to you. You can solve the problems by communication. However, never dispose the chance that your MIL is a real terrorist, and your husband’s known about it all the way, but sincerely wanted the two of you to become real friends.