by Brandy Seay

Created on: June 23, 2009   Last Updated: June 26, 2009

Good relationship with in-laws has a positive impact on marital life: When my husband and I were just friends his mother loved me. She thought I was smart and cute and witty. When the relationship changed to dating, I all of a sudden become the enemy. When we became engaged I am pretty sure she grabbed her heart and asked God where she went wrong.

I could never understand how I became the enemy in the first place but it was a bone of contention for me. To make matters more interesting, my now mother-in-law is very much like the 1950's housewife June Cleaver, except not only is her house always perfect and her meals cooked on time, she is active in her church and community and has a full time job. For a long time, I thought I must be a little crazy, everyone loves this woman but how is it while offering me a piece of cake, I could feel the daggers cutting right through me.

For the first couple years of marriage, she made sure she never said anything out of the way in front of my husband and then it progressed. He would make excuses on why we would have to go home, like he had to do laundry or something. What? He doesn't really do the laundry. She would always say, "oh poor thing, you can move back home." You see out of respect for him I held my tongue, but boy would he hear about it in the car on the way home. I would always get the same thing, "I don't know why she does that," she loves you," and "I will talk to her." Did he ever "talk" to her? NO.

So now at this point, we have been happily married for three years and have a child on the way. After a family dinner, she asked if we have picked a name for the baby, I say yes and that his middle name will be James, (my husband and my father-in-law's first name). I could have never imagined the response I got; she says "oh I don't like the name James." I could hardly believe it. She named her own child James. So pregnant and emotional, I cried all the way home. After the birth of my son, I decided I wasn't going to take her mess anymore and started standing up for myself. After all, I am a good wife and mother. I am intelligent and have a good job and keep a nice home and why should I let her make me feel bad.

All that was happening to this point was every time she was rude to me my husband had to hear about it and the response I was getting was, "I feel like I am in the middle." So the next time she said "oh poor thing, you can move home," my response was "yes, he can, but I'm keeping the house and our child." She has never said it again.

Now fast forward, I have been married for nine years and have two children. Once I started standing up for myself, she started being nicer. Now we have a good relationship and things are great between my husband and me. While I wanted him to stand up for me, I understood the relationship he had with his mother.

My mother and I are very close, probably best friends even. And while I tried to let him know that I would not let my mother ever treat him this way, I understand him not wanting to upset his mother. Once I became a mother myself, I realized that this was not even about me, it was about her feeling like she had lost her baby, and it just took a really long time for her to make peace with it. So in the end, his mother and I had to work it out ourselves and I would say that this definitely makes a marriage easier

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