Etched In Stone

I have been married 12 years to a very loving man. When I met his mom, she asked if she could be like a “real mom” instead of a typical mother-in-law. My own mother passed away a month before, and I thought she was an extraordinary woman for asking this. I accepted wholeheartedly.

My husband and I have taken some business risks and are very good with our finances, but not all risks pan out. When we get in a tough place financially, she jumps in and “solves the problem.” At first I thought this was amazing, then I thought maybe if she didn’t jump to the rescue, her son would rise up and be proactive.

This woman has criticized my parenting because it is not exactly what she would do. She is very clever at implying things. If I say, “Did you mean this or that?” she denies meaning anything hurtful. My husband is convinced that I do not “get her.” The problem is, as a woman, I think I get her just fine.

Now I hate going to her home and spending time with her. When my husband is not around, she is biting in her words and implies a lot of hurtful things, but when I ask her to clarify, she says, “Really, Hollyann, are we going there again?” Like I am crazy for constantly misunderstanding her motives and intentions.

She is married to her former marriage counselor, which does not help. In her mind everything he says is gospel. It is like trying to hold a slippery fish. In the past few months I’ve made excuses, but that will not work forever. I do not want to be around her or even talk to her.

I am committed to finding answers that work for both my husband and kids, and myself, since I am unable to control my world and move away.

Hollyann

Hollyann, linguists say that language is polysemous, which is a big word that means language can convey more than one meaning at a time. When your mother-in-law offered to be a real mom to you, you took it as an offer of love, protection, and assistance. But what she may have meant is, “I will be the parent. You will be the child.”

Linguist Deborah Tannen spent her lifetime analyzing conversation. In one story Tannen told, a high ranking woman is talking with two people when a woman of lower rank enters the room. The high ranking woman interrupts herself to compliment the newcomer on her clothes. On the surface, the topic is clothes. Below the surface, though, the higher ranking woman is asserting her right to judge an inferior.

In the beginning you and your mother-in-law had the relationship of stranger to stranger, which is a barrier. When it became a mother/daughter relationship, it became the relationship of a person of greater rank to a person of lesser rank, at least in her eyes. Accepting financial gifts reinforced that.

Your mother-in-law is happy with the superior position. Asking her to change is like asking a Wall Street banker to give back a hundred million dollar bonus. Put yourself in her place. Why would she think you have the right to change her? What’s in it for her?

We can’t make her nice anymore than we can make you mean. Until some line of no-return is crossed, things will remain the same. You have three options: limit contact, imagine yourself an actress and play a part, or be honest in every exchange. You might even tell her, like the child in a blended family, “You’re not my mother.”

Once you stop thinking you can alter her, then you can decide what you will do. The real villainy lies in someone telling you that you can change her, because when their technique fails, you will feel you failed.

Wayne & Tamara

Wayne & Tamara are the authors of Cheating in a Nutshell.

The Wrong Foot

I have been married to my husband for 19 years. We met in high school and had a child right at graduation. After high school and some college we decided to marry. I really didn’t want to marry him nor did I want to continue the relationship with premarital sex. I wanted my freedom to date people and then see if he was right for me.

He didn’t want to break up and he didn’t want me to see other people, so I decided to stay, thinking he must really love me. I couldn’t see my way out. I told him, let’s get married or it’s over. I didn’t think he would marry me because he said he wasn’t ready, but weeks after I broke it off he came back and agreed. So we were married.

I felt apprehensive about getting married, but I thought it was just cold feet. At the time I thought marriage would work out the kinks in our relationship, and the love we had for each other would overrule anything. Well, 19 years and two more children later I am utterly miserable.

He is now someone I do not like, and I don’t think he likes me that much either, but he doesn’t want to get a divorce. I do but I am afraid. Our oldest daughter moved out and we have two teenagers at home. Raising children together has been the best thing we’ve done. It’s about the only thing we can agree on because everything else is a tug of war.

I want out.

But with the shaky economy and thoughts of being a single parent, I don’t know if this would be the best time. Plus, if he doesn’t agree to the divorce, it will be expensive and I will have to prove irreconcilable differences. At times I feel like I am pushing a man away from loving me. I am so confused.

Jill

Jill, in the HBO series “The Sopranos,” Carmela Soprano enjoys the lifestyle provided by her gangster husband, Tony. At the same time, she is dissatisfied with his crude ways. Contemplating divorce, Carmela goes to a therapist to find a simple answer to her dilemma, but she is taken aback by his bluntness. The therapist makes clear her husband is a mobster, and whether she stays or goes, Carmela intends to continue living off blood money.

You would like a simple solution, too, but in your own mind you are sidestepping the truth. Immediately after telling us you never loved your husband, you speak of the love you both had. Which is it?

It appears you gave him an ultimatum. Marry me, or I will date others. That isn’t the wedding proposal most girls dream of, and if that is what happened, it wasn’t the right way to begin a marriage. Most people don’t like to say no, and that is why they often give in to high-pressure sales people. Is that what your husband did?

Look at what happened, examine it, and own it. There is no shame in admitting a mistake, when a mistake is made. Put your cards on the table with your husband, but before that, put your cards on the table with yourself. You are not the only person who ever mistook like, familiarity, and convenience for love.

Your yearning is telling you that you never had love and are still looking. Many women in your situation–trapped by economics and the prospect of single parenthood–go looking for another man and leave the marriage only when they have found one. But that is the low road, and you don’t need to take the low road again.

We don’t get more from less, and we don’t get something from easy. First, be honest with yourself. Next, be honest with your husband. Then the two of you can decide where you honestly are.

Wayne & Tamara

Head Games

I have a coworker I’ve been friendly with for several years. About three months ago she started being too busy to have lunch together. I asked her once whether anything was wrong and whether I offended her in some way. She assured me nothing was amiss and she considers me a friend at work.

But in the past month she stopped speaking to me unless absolutely necessary. No more sailing into my office, flopping onto a chair, and asking, How is life? No more talking about her work stuff and home stuff. No more good morning or good night, even when she is leaving the office next door to mine and always used to pop her head in.

Once she went so far as to look through me to say good morning to someone else. Another time she was in the conference room having arrived first for a meeting. I arrived second, and she kept her head down as if very busy until a third person arrived, then said hello to both of us.

There have been hundreds of instances of not seeming to hear me when I say a normal pleasant greeting to her in her office or in the hallway. I feel hurt and disturbed as I wonder if I’m being accused of something I didn’t do, or if I put my foot in my mouth in a way that never struck me as offensive.

I feel it would be useless to ask again if something is wrong. I think my real question is, how can I make myself tougher so a thing like this doesn’t occupy my mind and bring me close to tears a few times every day? Are there steps a person can take to grow a tougher skin?

Alexia

Alexia, Wayne once asked a 60-ish friend why he was always in such high spirits. This friend explained that as a young man he worried incessantly. He worried over tests, dates, and whether he would ever find a job. Then in his late teens he had an epiphany. Worry accomplishes nothing.

What you need is not so much a tougher skin as to stop worrying over things beyond your control. You asked if there was a problem and she denied it. You’ve done all you can. For some reason, the friendly woman with an office next door moved away and a person with whom you have little in common and no rapport moved in. That’s curious, but it’s not a reason for worry.

In the personal space between her ears something is going on. You are likely never to know what. Wayne once smiled at a friend on a street corner and was baffled when a woman he didn’t know and hadn’t noticed crossed the street to ask why he was laughing at her. Say what?

People do all manner of strange things. People tell tales, create hoopla, and use passive aggression. They also show extraordinary kindness and care. Good people torture themselves asking why, why, why. But the answer is often as simple as displaced emotion. This woman may be a little like the serial killer who wants to kill his mother but kills other women instead.

Not everything in life carries the same weight. Your family carries a certain weight, your partner a certain weight, your house a certain weight, and your neighbors a certain weight. Your job carries a certain weight. You are giving her too much weight. Your purpose at work is work.

Treat this woman with the normal corporate politeness used in the workplace. Treat her professionally, clinically, and distantly. When you walk into a room and she is there, ignore her, but with a third person present act normally.

It always helps to ask ourselves, what is my purpose in life? Then let your life proceed from your purpose and not from the oddities and quirks of others.

Tamara

Wayne & Tamara are the authors of Cheating in a Nutshell.