Love By The Numbers

Jane Fonda's character in the film "Monster-in-law" is actually not a character at all, she's representative of the way some mom's actually bully new brides with manipulation and control to get their way. Thankfully these type of mother-in-laws aren't that common and most new relationships gained by marriage can grow stronger over the course of 2-3 years.

Since new marriages are full of changes for everyone involved, here's some advice to save the new daughter-in-law years of tears or heartache and pain.

1) She's your husband's mother, not yours.
Keep a realistic perspective on just how close you can get to this other woman who really did love him first. The faster you try to push into his family circle, the more you find some women pushing back.

2) She won't like you sometimes and may show it.
Some women have a tendency to overprotect their sons, while others tend to over-provide for them. Helping his Mom see that you are already on the job as a loving wife who deeply cares for her son will build trust that she doesn't have to worry about him now that you are in the family.

3) She needs time to build a relationship with you.
It took time to grow in your love to your new husband and you had the advantage of being motivated by romance. It will take a longer time to build a relationship with her and will have the disadvantage of time or distance restraints. Think of how you built friendships with the other women in your life-lots of phone calls, cards, meals, trips, shared holiday's and shopping!

In most cases I've seen that you can feel like you belong in her family and she in yours within three years or so. Understand that if you only invest an hour a year into connecting with your new mother-in-law that it may take a long time to get to a heart-to-heart friendship. You control a lot of the timing about how close this relationship will be so honesty consider your situation and think through your steps to move beyond an angry or attacking 'monster' to move toward gaining another mother's love and respect which benefits everyone.