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May. 10th, 2025 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyDear Care and Feeding,
I have never had an easy relationship with my mother-in-law. She is an Orthodox Jew and I come from the Bible Belt. She initially told my future husband that he wasn’t allowed to date me and later, when it became clear he wasn’t going to abide by her dictate, she took me aside and explained that marriage wasn’t possible between us because any future children wouldn’t be considered Jewish as it passes down the maternal line and that within the Orthodox tradition, conversion was viewed with skepticism. For good measure, she added that she couldn’t bear coming to her son’s home and seeing a Christmas tree. When we married, she basically hijacked our wedding plans to ensure it didn’t offend anyone she knew. We had little say in the wedding plans—not even the wedding date.
Fast forward a few years: Things have only improved slightly. I have gone above and beyond to try and ingratiate myself with my in-laws. When our kids were toddlers, I invited them over for Christmas and pulled out all the stops (they routinely spent Christmas at the home of Christian friends). I decorated the house to the hilt, made every dish from scratch for Christmas lunch, and was as gracious as any Southern belle could be. On her way out the door, my mother-in-law declared, “It was all too much, too much. Never again!” I shut the door and burst into tears.
In the intervening years, my in-laws have had a relatively cordial relationship with me and our children. Their preference for their other granddaughter (my sister-in-law married a Jewish man) is clear to both me and my daughters. Despite living just 20 minutes away, we probably only see them four or five times a year. My in-laws seemed much more content taking multiple cruises throughout the year than building a relationship with our kids. I think all parties were more or less fine with that, although I was genuinely sad that our daughters would never have the wonderful, life-enriching relationships I enjoyed with my grandparents.
Then the inevitable happened: My mother-in-law fell and broke her hip. She’s now in a nursing home for her post-op rehab, but the expectation is that we visit as often as possible. Beyond that, it’s clear that the future is bleak, especially as my MIL is reluctant to participate in the most basic physical therapy. Already, my husband is expected to take my father-in-law to medical appointments since my mother-in-law can’t accompany him. I’ve asked my husband what our future relationship with his parents will look like, but even he knows he’s the “bad son,” so he is now expected to prove himself. I don’t know how to support him, how to guide our (now early teen) daughters through this, and I’m grappling with my own feelings of resentment toward my MIL and wanting to support my husband, whose own feelings are mixed. Any advice would be welcome.
—Bible Belt Shiksa
( Read more... )
I have never had an easy relationship with my mother-in-law. She is an Orthodox Jew and I come from the Bible Belt. She initially told my future husband that he wasn’t allowed to date me and later, when it became clear he wasn’t going to abide by her dictate, she took me aside and explained that marriage wasn’t possible between us because any future children wouldn’t be considered Jewish as it passes down the maternal line and that within the Orthodox tradition, conversion was viewed with skepticism. For good measure, she added that she couldn’t bear coming to her son’s home and seeing a Christmas tree. When we married, she basically hijacked our wedding plans to ensure it didn’t offend anyone she knew. We had little say in the wedding plans—not even the wedding date.
Fast forward a few years: Things have only improved slightly. I have gone above and beyond to try and ingratiate myself with my in-laws. When our kids were toddlers, I invited them over for Christmas and pulled out all the stops (they routinely spent Christmas at the home of Christian friends). I decorated the house to the hilt, made every dish from scratch for Christmas lunch, and was as gracious as any Southern belle could be. On her way out the door, my mother-in-law declared, “It was all too much, too much. Never again!” I shut the door and burst into tears.
In the intervening years, my in-laws have had a relatively cordial relationship with me and our children. Their preference for their other granddaughter (my sister-in-law married a Jewish man) is clear to both me and my daughters. Despite living just 20 minutes away, we probably only see them four or five times a year. My in-laws seemed much more content taking multiple cruises throughout the year than building a relationship with our kids. I think all parties were more or less fine with that, although I was genuinely sad that our daughters would never have the wonderful, life-enriching relationships I enjoyed with my grandparents.
Then the inevitable happened: My mother-in-law fell and broke her hip. She’s now in a nursing home for her post-op rehab, but the expectation is that we visit as often as possible. Beyond that, it’s clear that the future is bleak, especially as my MIL is reluctant to participate in the most basic physical therapy. Already, my husband is expected to take my father-in-law to medical appointments since my mother-in-law can’t accompany him. I’ve asked my husband what our future relationship with his parents will look like, but even he knows he’s the “bad son,” so he is now expected to prove himself. I don’t know how to support him, how to guide our (now early teen) daughters through this, and I’m grappling with my own feelings of resentment toward my MIL and wanting to support my husband, whose own feelings are mixed. Any advice would be welcome.
—Bible Belt Shiksa
( Read more... )
