Mother In Law Raising Your Hackles Again? Here Is How To Defuse The Situation

If your mother-in-law is driving you up the wall, you need Chirag Mohanty Samal’s tips on de-escalating tensions

- Chirag Mohanty Samal

Love stories have happy endings, or at least that’s what we’re conditioned to expect. So we usually enter relationships wearing rose-tinted glasses. And if we manage to end up marrying the man we love, it seems like we have reached a safe shore. Until we meet the people waiting for us there. Of all of them, the one with the biggest question mark hovering over her head is the mother-in-law. Thanks to almost every sitcom we’ve ever watched, we’re probably already dreading her. But what if someone told us the script could be changed and we could rewrite a happier story?

According to Dr Bhavna Barmi, senior clinical psychologist at Delhi’s Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, the equation you share with your mother-in-law can impact the quality of your life and marriage. Dr Barmi though has good news, “In today’s complex urban societies, it is being observed that the rate of divorces because of the mothers-in-law have reduced. As women have started stepping out of the house and matching pace with men in professional spheres, mothers-in-law have come to be seen as supportive figures, ones who help in managing a home, raising kids and, occasionally, they even intervene to resolve marital discord.” If this sounds different from your own experience in the area, then here’s what you can do to turn things around—or at least, maintain peace and sanity.

THE SCENE

SHE DID SOMETHING REALLY ANNOYING