Why So Many Women Struggle To Set Boundaries With Their Mother-In-Law

I am one of the lucky ones, and I know it — my mother-in-law is so kind, supportive, and loving, and I wouldn’t change a thing about her. If that declaration makes you want to wring my neck, you must be part of the roughly half of all Americans who report having some kind of conflict with their mother-in-law (I’m sorry). That means you probably have firsthand experience in trying to set boundaries and learning how difficult it can be, especially when you’re trying not to step on your partner’s family’s toes. In her forthcoming book You, Your Husband & His Mother, psychologist Dr. Tracy Dalgleish explains why even “high-performing women” who handle conflict all the time can struggle to set boundaries in their in-law relationships.

For the record, setting boundaries with people can be really difficult. Online discourse makes it sound like it’s something you just do, but it’s not that simple for everyone — even people who deal with interpersonal conflicts all day, every day.

“It’s so interesting to work with women who are CEOs, who are directors, who are in the military, who run their own businesses, who have four, six children, and they all struggle to set boundaries with their mother-in-law,” she tells Scary Mommy in an interview. Let’s say your MIL always shows up unannounced, makes weird comments you don’t agree with around your kids, or offers unsolicited advice on how you parent. You want to speak up, maybe you mentally prepare a script, but you just… can’t. That difficulty all starts with a very basic and human instinct, Dalgleish says: You want to be liked and earn her approval.

“We experience this tension with our mother-in-law in wanting to please them and to be liked, and yet at the same time, we are a generation of women who are doing things differently. Because we’re doing things differently, that creates this tension and friction. Things like navigating the mental load, how we parent, how we set up the dynamics in our own romantic relationship are going to look different than their relationship. And so I think that tension makes it difficult then to have a voice and to share and to feel accepted,” she says.

And if you know your mother-in-law disagrees with the way you and your partner do things — split household duties, raise your children, whatever it may be — it’s difficult to know where to begin a boundary-setting conversation. Won’t it just end in a fight? Dalgleish says it’s possible to have these conversations, even if it’s hard. Here’s her game plan (spoiler: a lot of it has to do with your own inner work):

• Don’t take what’s happening personally. “The family that you entered into already had a dynamic long before you joined that family. And being able to be outside of it and to see the dynamic for what it is and not personalizing it and making it about yourself, that’s the first piece,” Dalgleish says.
• Remind yourself that doing things differently from previous generations is kind of the whole point. “Recognize that you are allowed to build your own family for the way that it is. What I recognize in the thousands of people I’ve worked with is that their parents or their in-laws once did things completely different than what we’re doing. And recognizing that being different isn’t bad.”
• Assess how you want to handle things and remind yourself that most decisions are “morally neutral” — i.e., you don’t have to feel guilty by default for going against the grain. “When a request comes out, when conversations happen, allow yourself to be more curious about what your own reaction is around what works for you, what feels good for you, and what doesn’t,” Dalgleish says. “Deciding not to travel eight hours on Christmas through the snowstorm doesn’t make you a good daughter-in-law or a bad one; it’s about accepting difference.”
• Talk to your partner and make a plan for responding together. “One of the hangups for couples is that oftentimes we’ll go to our partners in ways that end up disconnecting us and creating more problems. So we’ll say things focused on the mother-in-law or on their partner’s behavior rather than focusing on ourselves and what would feel good for us,” she says.

Picture this: The holidays are coming up, and your mother-in-law invites you because, every December, you’re always there from Dec. 24 through Dec. 27. That means flying and packing up your two children. Maybe they’re young, or not sleeping well, or just not great travelers right now. You want to say no. What’s the move?

For starters, you have to check in with yourself. What are you up for right now? What can your kids handle? What would you like a holiday visit to look like, or when would you ideally like it to happen? If packing up and traveling is it, fantastic. You might offer to visit for a shorter time, host at your house, or find some other middle ground. If you plan on staying home and saying see you next year, accept that that’s completely and totally fine — morally neutral.

“Whatever your answer is, come to this place of saying, ‘It’s OK for me to want to do this differently this year. And then it’s about coming to your partner and saying, ‘How do we want our holidays to look this year? And here’s what I need. What do you think about that? What do you need?’ And then we need to find a way that’s going to work together. Then it’s about potentially him or you both communicating with his family what’s important to you,” Dalgleish says.

When you communicate your plans, offer some reassurance at the same time, she says. “Mothers’ roles change when their children marry. And that role change can create a lot of insecurity and questioning of whether they matter. When you are setting boundaries, give that reassurance to family and say, ‘You’re so important to us. We love having time with you. We can’t wait to see you again. Here’s what’s going to work best for us this year.’”

Setting a boundary doesn’t always go perfectly, and changing patterns and dynamics within a family can create friction. If your MIL doesn’t receive the news well, it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.

“Tension and discomfort is not bad. It’s unfamiliar,” Dalgleish. “This doesn’t mean [you made] a bad choice; it means that your values are bumping up against each other. You’re a compassionate person that cares for others. They’re allowed to have their feelings, they’re allowed to be upset about it, and you get to make a choice that is best for you and your family.”