How to Love Your In-Laws

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We’ve all heard the jokes about in-laws. Why is being a mother-in-law to your son’s bride so difficult?

What is up with all that tension mothers and daughters-in-law feel and how do we make it go away?

This episode of The All Gifts Podcast is about the touchy topic of mothers and daughters in law. Joining me for the conversation is my daughter-in-law, Heaven Dampier. Heaven is a stay-at-home mom and part time social influencer and vlogger. She’s been married to my son Jarelle for five years and they have a two-year-old son named Ronin.

Heaven and I share our perspectives of what it was like to feel the tension between us, what we did about it, and the gifts we now have.

Having carried the stigma of being a teen mom, when my oldest son Jarelle grew up, I thought I’d be happy to one day fling the title “working mom” off me. I’d raised him and his brother mostly as a single mom. I got married to Joe when Jarelle was nineteen and Evan was thirteen. The title “single mom” represented shame and failure. Not because of my children, who’ve always been a blessing, but because of my mistakes along the way.

When Jarelle went to the next level, building his own family, my soul somewhat irrationally clung to the familiarity of our old life, even as I knew God longed to bless our family in surprising and new ways as we entered this season of our lives.

Jarelle got engaged in May of 2016. Months before, I’d planned his twenty-fifth birthday party just as I’d been doing every year of his life. I invited his friends, cooked his favorite fried chicken meal, and created the entertainment for the evening, a DVD of his toddler videos. The only change was his girlfriend, Heaven, made the cake. But on that sunny day in May, I watched the proposal via facetime while their inner circle, a tightknit group of friends, got to be there.

That was the beginning of having to let go.

Then there was the wedding and eventually the baby. All new levels of realization that I was on the outer circle of something I desperately wanted to be on the inside of. Every level required new depths of surrender.

It felt like a breakup. Not in a creepy, Freudian way but in the sense that I suddenly felt unneeded. My role was gone, and I felt in a very physical way, the loss of that.

At the time, I had the sense to realize that I was going through grief and it wasn’t for Jarelle to help me with it. There were times I wanted to go to him, have him solve it for me. But I knew I had to work it out separate from him.

Back then I would tell myself, “Pandora, bite your tongue and sit on your hands.”

I’m so glad I did.

Over time, the pain dissipated and what was left was only gain. I got a daughter.

Not every family is the same but here are a few things I learned from my experience:

Lies may come to attack your motherhood: “I’m losing my son.” “He is pulling away from me because I did something wrong.”
Tell yourself the truth: this is a huge change. All change brings grief. It’s normal.
Your instinct might be to go to your son to fix how you feel. Instead, go to one or two safe people.
One day you can talk to your son and daughter-in-law about it. But don’t have those conversations when you’re going through it.
Your daughter-in-law is going through her own fears and insecurities.

It helps to remember that growing up is hard and to have compassion on everyone involved.

It also helps to process your emotions. Have you downloaded my Journal Prompts for Emotional Processing?

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