Dear Annie: My significant other and I have been together for nearly 14 years. His mother is a huge issue in our relationship, and this past Thanksgiving was the worst. He has been divorced from his first wife and mother of his 21-year-old daughter since before his daughter was 2 years old. His ex cheated on him prior to their marriage and during the marriage. This devastated him for years, especially after she left him and took his daughter.
His mother, who presents herself as a good Christian, has always blamed him for the marriage ending, even though his ex cheated and left him. On Thanksgiving, in front of the entire family, including his daughter, she said that she didn’t blame the ex because he had “made a comment about an attractive actress on television when they first were married.”
How on earth does she find that comparable to someone cheating with your spouse’s co-workers and your spouse’s childhood best friends? Needless to say, it didn’t end well, with my significant other slamming the door and leaving.
We are not looking forward to family Christmas with this woman! Help! How do you set boundaries with his mother and let her know that she isn’t as perfect as she thinks she is? There’s so much going on here that I don’t even know where to start.
-- Significant Other
Dear Significant Other: The best way to set boundaries is to have a conversation with your mother-in-law before you are together in a big group. Even though you were upset by her very insensitive comments, she is still your husband’s mother. You refer to her in your letter as “this woman.”
So it might be best if your husband were to sit down with his mother and calmly tell her how hurtful she was in blaming her own son, which does not do anyone any good. His ex-wife’s infidelity likely caused their divorce, not his casual comment 20 years ago. His mother’s opinion is not only wrong, but it hurts everyone across the board. Her comments hurt her son, her granddaughter and you, her daughter-in-law. Perhaps she is not aware of how hurtful her comments are and needs to hear it from her son. If she gets defensive, then all you can do is understand that hurt people hurt people and she is not a happy person.