I’m discussing my horrible suffering with PUPPPS with my mother.
“Ah, now you see why women always hate their daughters-in-law!” she exclaims triumphantly in the midst of my monologue about the horrible suffering I experience.
“OK, how do you connect this to daughters-in-law?” I ask.
“All of this effort and suffering you undergo in your pregnancy, and then some hussy appears in your son’s life and refuses to do what you tell her! How obnoxious is that?”
I imagined how 30 years from now we’d be sitting at Eric’s wedding and I’d jump up and hurl myself at his bride, yelling “Die now, bitch!” In the meanwhile, N. would be showing everybody my pregnancy records and explaining that I had gone soft in the brain because of how hard it was.
Of course, Eric can do us all a favor and decide to marry a guy.
My mother is absolutely the best mother-in-law to her daughters’ husbands. You seriously cannot wish for anybody less intrusive, more welcoming, tactful and kind. However, I’m starting to think that it’s a good thing she never had a son because she probably would not have been the same great mother-in-law to his female partner.
Clarissa's Blog 
I heard the sentiment before, except the “refuses to do what you tell her” part. Shouldn’t she be listening to *her* mother, if to anybody? 🙂 Or, is she now a husband’s property, but since a husband is mother’s property, she is mother’s – in – law now? 🙂
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Of course, Eric can do us all a favor and decide to marry a guy.
If that is his inclination then he better hope he’s in the right state. 😉
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In 30 years, nobody will even remember it was a problem in the past.
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In lots of traditional cultures (pretty much everywhere India and eastward south of Russia) the husband wife bond is not one of special emotional intimacy (until both are pretty old, maybe). In these cultures women tend to have the greatest emotional intimacy with their sons.
It’s natural then daughter-mother-in-law conflicts are rife in said cultures. They tend to demand that he takes sides in their arguments and he usually sides with mommy (maybe feeling guilty for not supporting his wife). The father-in-law might become the daughter-in-law’s defender (which doesn’t help her relations with her mother-in-law either).
The daughter-in-law might be miserable until she gets her own son to become overly emotionally co-dependent with and everybody’s off to the races again.
While this is especially an Asian scenario I’ve seen something like it in some Latin Americans too (esp Mexicans and Cubans).
It wouldn’t surprise me if that scenario (or something like it) was part of Russian/Ukrainian cultures as well.
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“In lots of traditional cultures (pretty much everywhere India and eastward south of Russia) the husband wife bond is not one of special emotional intimacy (until both are pretty old, maybe). In these cultures women tend to have the greatest emotional intimacy with their sons.
It’s natural then daughter-mother-in-law conflicts are rife in said cultures. They tend to demand that he takes sides in their arguments and he usually sides with mommy (maybe feeling guilty for not supporting his wife). ”
– EXACTLY!! I grew up in this environment and oh, boy. It’s a completely insane model of familial relationships that turns families into constant battlefields.
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