She makes me so angry

[Silver_Falcon_Of_Kashmir]

Re: She makes me so angry

@Paheli00

You’re not getting it Nadz. Being nice and looking like a doormat is the best revenge you can have against your MIL! Complaining about her and saying negative stuff about her to your husband will not win you any brownie points with him. Its going to be difficult for your husband to choose a side when BOTH sides are behaving the same way!

Sooo…you need to stop caring about your MIL so much. Truly disliking someone doesn’t mean you hate them…it means you’re indifferent towards their existence. Whether she’s complimenting you or saying the most disgusting thing about you…you should not actually care either way. Just smile and be polite. Shut down all your emotions when it comes to her.

Stop making decisions based on your emotions and think with your brain. Making your marriage stronger should be your primary goal & you should stop allowing your MIL to distract you from that. In front of your husband, treat your MIL with total respect. It’s not about what you feel….it’s about what your husband PERCEIVES your feelings to be. So learn to act!

You need to make him believe that despite all the past drama, no matter what your MIL currently does…you will treat her with respect and care for her. So next time your husband is around and you’re making chai for him, make a cup for MIL and offer it to her IN FRONT of him. If you guys are eating dinner and you see your MIL’s water or anything else (roti, sabzi whatever) running low…ask her nicely if she’s like some more. In front of him, offer to help her clear the table, help with dishes, cook whatever. If she complains of not feeling well, when he’s there, ask about her health and if there’s anything you can do to make her comfortable. Kill her with kindness while he’s watching/listening. And when he’s not around, be totally indifferent. Stay away from her as much as possible and ignore any jabs she throws at you.

Before leaving for UK, you must make sure your husband has very positive memories of you. Not memories of you bashing his mother and creating drama when he comes home. Unless you’re actually being physically abused…given the fact that you have tickets booked for UK…stay quiet about all the drama your MIL is causing. When your husband is with you, make his time pleasant. If your MIL wants to continue to bash you to him…let her. If your husband mentions that your MIL is upset b/c you did or said something…then you should say something like “I feel bad that I hurt her feelings. If you think it will make her feel better, I have no problem apologizing to her.” Allow your MIL to provide all the negativity/stress/complaints/nagging etc in your husband’s life. When he’s with you…give him nothing but love and peace. You’d be amazed as to what difference this can make to a man after a while.

So essentially you are teaching her to be a hypocrite and be deceitful? How is that supposed to make someone feel happy? IMHO, it’s not good advice.

If the sole reason for doing something is just to ‘please your husband’ then you might still end up frustrated if this ‘strategy’ (= deception) doesn’t get the desired results. Besides your mother in law will still hate you, maybe even more (and this time perhaps she would be justified too).

I suggest that instead of putting so much effort into pretending to be nice, how about trying to be genuinely nice to her regardless of whether your husband is there or not, because that’s the right thing to do. And even if she doesn’t reciprocate the gesture and continues to hate you, then at least you will have the peace of mind for knowing that you have done the right thing. Just because someone is nasty to us, that doesn’t give us the right to be wicked/evil/nasty as well. Because then we also become like the very person that we are hating.

And if you or anyone believes that they don’t owe it to be nice to their in laws, for whatever reasons, then by the same logic the in laws also don’t owe it to be nice to them either. This is a very irrational way of thinking that I would be only nice to people if they are nice to me. Because in the end, the person who continues to hold a grudge (even for justified reasons) is the one who is never happy, because you are constantly in anguish because of your negative feelings. When we decide to let go and forgive others the only person whom we are really doing a favour is our own self!

So again, either be genuinely nice to people or don’t. Pretending to be nice only backfires. In real life, don’t we always hate this type of people ourselves? Aren’t we always complaining about so and so being a ‘meethi churri’. So how does this become acceptable if we are doing it ourselves? We should treat others how we expect to be treated ourselves, regardless of whether the other person ‘deserves’ it or not. Besides in laws are not like our parents, who are going to love/like us despite all our foibles and follies. Only a parent’s love can overlook that. With rest of the world, you have to earn it.