My Mother In Law!

[gardenswithkids]

I am a Catholic and my husband converted from southern Baptist to Catholicism about 2 years ago. My mother in law is a sometimes practicing southern baptist and holds true to alot of their teachings such as the ban on alcohol. She is constantly bad mouthing our religion and sends my husband sermons and information on why alcohol should not be allowed. (We drink from time to time in moderation).

My other problem is that she sits there and condemns us while she has been married 3 times and never goes to church and allows her younger sons to have girlfriends sleepover and it just seems like the pot calling the kettle black and yet I have never called her out on any of these things.

She also claims they have no money to come and visit us forcing us to spend $2,000 on plane tickets every year(We live in another state and have 3 children) and yet they are vacationing in New York and buying a brand new truck.

Our visit with her and the rest of his family is in 2 weeks and I just know I’m going to be miserable as I just have a hard time getting along with her and I don’t know how much longer I can keep my mouth shut. Any suggestions on a kind way to approach her?

I suspect you are stressing out as the visit approaches. But you are setting yourself up for a miserable visit by thinking things like “I just know I’m going to be miserable:” I suggest you change your thinking, as it’s much easier to change that than to change other people.

Find something to do that you think you may enjoy while in your MIL’s area–and do it! Explore the parks or restaurants or museums, or whatever the area has to offer. Don’t just sit at your MIL’s house for the entire time. You don’t have to spend all 24 hours of each day of this trip at your MIL’s or with your MIL. Let her have some time alone with her son (your husband). She may not like you any more than you like her, but she probably likes her son. Let them spend some time together while you go and do something you enjoy. It’s hard on both the in-law host and the in-law visitors to spend all that time with each other–and it sometimes results in running out of trivial things to talk about so those thoughts which should remain unspoken tend to escape our mouths.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

Your husband needs to stiffen his backbone around his mother on your behalf.