INLAWS...AND OUTLAWS

Okay, I did say I would talk about inlaws....or, outlaws in some cases.

I am a mother-in-law to two; soon to be three. My son, who is 48, has been married to his wife for 26 years, my youngest daughter, age 37 1/2 has been married for 17 years, and my middle daughter, age 43, will be getting married sometime soon....they haven't set a date yet, although that's my daughter's choice. If her fiance had his way they'd already be married..and that would be fine with all of us because we all love him and think he's wonderful!

I adore my youngest daughter's husband, too. He loves his family...they have four children...and he works very hard to provide for all of them. My daughter has been blessed to be able to stay home and do the most important job of all, in my opinion, and take care of those children. And, as parents, they do a terrific job.

My middle daughter has put her own life on hold while raising her son, who will turn 22 in Feb, '08, and this upcoming marriage will be her first...which is why we are so happy that she now has this wonderful man with whom she will share her life.
My grandson is in college and wants to go into law. He's so smart, and his mother has raised him well! (By the way, it was my daughter's choice to have and raise this child by herself...she was 21 when he was born.)

My daughter-in-law, however, took us all down some bumpy roads for some years before she finally figured out that we weren't her enemies, and mellowed out. Those were very hard years and caused us all, including my son, some sadness because we wanted to love her and she held us at arm's length. That was hard for a family who have always been very openly affectionate towards each other. I think, honestly, that we overwhelmed her because, she didn't grow up in a touchy-feely type of family.

I'm happy to say, we've overcome those rough days and have made peace with each other.....and I will tell you how later.

But....what do you do when the person your child has chosen is...well...not someone you would have picked if you'd been given the choice? Who, in fact, you are convinced you couldn't get to know or like if your life depended on it?

Now, let's be clear: I'm not talking about the abusive spouse, whether it's mental, emotional or physical abuse....because in that case, all bets are off and I encourage you as a parent to intervene any way you can....but, that's a slippery slope as well...and I will also talk more about that, because I've been on both ends of that issue. (I was abused by my first husband who I married at 16, and my youngest daughter had a boyfriend when she was 18 who abused her.)

But, right now, I'm just talking about Mr. or Ms. Wonderful that your kid drags home and you just know it's the worst decision they can make when they announce they are getting married. Yuck! (Or, worse still, they get married and THEN come home and announce it.) Major yuck!

Okay, let's deal with the "before" scenario first. At least then you may have a chance to turn it around....but, like I said, it's a slippery slope and you have to be very, very careful.

Let's say it's your daughter whose playing with disaster in the form of a waste of molecules she calls the "love of her life". He doesn't have a job; he isn't interested in getting one, either. He has absolutely NO manners, and when you try to talk to him all you get in response are grunts, a vacant half-smile and a couple of nods of his scraggly haired head. ("Ohmigod!", you think. "Has my daughter lost her mind? I've raised her better than this!") You look at your beautiful daughter and she looks like an angel standing next to the devil himself. Your initial reaction is panic and your breath sticks in your throat...and you want to jerk her away from him and shove him out the door with your size 7 print on his backside.....but, let me tell you, that is the worst mistake you can make! Please hear me: that is the WORST thing you can do.

That is the mistake my parents made with me when I was a know-it-all dingbat of 15 and was so very convinced that I was in looooove! (picture major eye roll and scrunched up mouth as I say that.) He was my first love, and as far as I was concerned, the only love I would ever have forever and ever and we were going to get married and live happily ever after.....how, I don't know....but, that didn't occur to us then.

My parents, God bless them, tried everything they could think of to keep us apart...and the harder they tried, and the more they dogged him, and talked against him, the more I clung to him.....he was the underdog and it was he and I against the world. He was heartbreakingly handsome, and had a vulnerable way about him that spoke to my young, stray-rescuing heart, and his hold on me was absolute. He was also a "bad boy" and that can be irresistible to a young girl....especially back then. This was the 50s.

What I refused to acknowledge, and didn't have the wisdom to look at rationally, was the fact that he had already, at 16, been in trouble for stealing a car and taking it joy riding. This was before I met him, but he told me about it. He was on probation when I met him. He also drank....way too much.

My parents, who had provided me with a very good upbringing, just could not understand what this boy's attraction was; to them, of course, it made no sense! And, you know what? In my deepest heart, I also knew they were right but admitting it would have made ME wrong, and what teenager can deal with that when it comes to her "great love"?

When the inevitable happened (remember, this was the 50s and birth control was not what it is today) and I became pregnant, my parents still tried to convince me to get away from this boy. They were going to send me to an unwed mother's home in LA, but we finally convinced them to sign for us to get married..we told them we would run away to a state where marriage was legal at age 15....(what idiot signed THAT law?) Now, we had their permission, but, his probation officer had other ideas. He refused to allow us to marry unless my intended either got a job or else went into the military. (smart man!) My Love was then 17, and what kind of a family-supporting job can you get at that age? So he chose the Army. Then, of course, you have 8 weeks of basic training and we were not allowed to get married during that time. By the time we were actually allowed to get married, our son was one month old, exactly, and I was just two months past my 16th birthday.

On our wedding night, in a cabin in the mountains, isolated from everything and everyone, my new husband, who was "so in love with me" beat the crap out of me. And he continued to do this on a regular basis...and I was too scared, too much in a state of shock, and too ashamed (because it was all my fault, he said) to tell anyone...most especially my parents, who, remember, tried to warn me.

We were married for three years, but, luckily, because he was in the military, he was gone a lot of that time and my son and I lived at home with my parents while he was overseas. But, when he got back, we were stationed in Texas and I had no one there. Again, I was isolated, and again, the beatings resumed.

Somehow, one day I found the strength to call my parents and tell them what was going on, and the next thing I knew I was back in California with the people who REALLY loved me and the jerk was history.

Eventually, I remarried. My second husband legally adopted my son and we had two daughters together.

I tell you all this because this is what can happen if you push your rebellious child into a relationship by attacking Mr. Wonderful...even though you may be totally right.

So what do you do?

First of all, you have to control the panic you feel when you meet your daughter's choice. Be polite and do your best to talk to him and try to see if there are any redeeming qualities. If not, well...then you have to wait until he's gone and you and your daughter are alone and it's a CALM moment. Maybe you can take her out to lunch. Or find the time as often as you have to whenever or however you can...so long as it's calm time and in a non-threatening environment.

This is how I handled the situation with my youngest daughter's boyfriend that I mentioned at the beginning of this entry..(and how I wish my parents would've handled things with me). He hadn't hit her yet when we had this conversation, and when he did later on,..(he only got away with it once)..she had the courage to leave him immediately. I like to think our conversations made a difference and that something I said clicked in her mind at that moment when he was stupid enough to lay his hands on her.

She was living with this guy....remember, she was 18 and old enough to leave home. This guy was scary. First of all, he was several years older than her and very controlling. He had guns in the house..(he was a hunter)..and I could see the propensity for violence. He didn't have a job...they lived in the "apartment" on the top floor of his parents' house so there was no rent or utilities to pay. My daughter had a job so her paycheck was what they used for food. The situation was not a good one and when I visited that place my heart dropped....it was dark and dreary and depressing. He kept flesh-eating fish in a huge tank. The whole atmosphere was totally alien from the way she grew up and I couldn't see anything good about this guy or this living environment. He and his family were not the kind of people you would want your daughter around..they were all about a half a bubble off center.

But, I thought back to when I was young and "in love" and the attempt my parents made with me to convince me to do what made sense...and I knew I wasn't going to make the same mistake with my daughter. So, every chance I got, I would calmly sit down with her when it was quiet and it was just us so there were no distractions, and just talk to her. And, in a very normal, conversational tone, avoiding any confrontational attitude, I would ask her questions like: "So, what are 'John's' (not his real name) plans for the future?" Her response was vague...I think she said something like "he wants to be a plumber" or something like that. So then I said, "Oh. That's a nice profession. What steps is he taking to accomplish that goal?" She got real quiet while she was thinking....(and that was exactly what I wanted her to do)...then she said, "Well, I don't know; we haven't talked about that." Then I asked her, "How do you get along with his parents?...because they will be your in-laws someday, won't they?" She thought some more and I could see the gears working. "I'm not sure they like me." was her response. "Oh. That could be difficult." I said. Then, as she was working this out in her mind, I changed the subject for awhile.

He drove a really broken-down car which was dangerous and I worried every time she was in it. She brought our conversation back around to the two of them again when she mentioned that the car was getting worse and worse every day. So I asked her what they were going to do about getting a different car....didn't have to be fancy; just safe. Again, she thought and said, "I don't know how we will get another car because John isn't working." (Bingo!) Then she said, "I really don't like where we're living....I'd like to move away from there." I said nothing. Let her think. Don't put her in the position of having to defend this loser. I knew it was finally occuring to her that as long as she stayed with him, this would be her life.
We talked about all kinds of things, but I knew that the whole time, she was thinking about how she was living and beginning to see down the road. I left it alone because she was seeing the light and I didn't want to slam the curtain shut by attacking this guy in any way, even though I wanted to scream "Wake up, for God's sake He's a worthless piece-of-crap and your life will be hell if you don't get out NOW!"

We had several of these conversations before this guy made the mistake of hitting her, and, as I said, I like to think those conversations made her think and gave her the courage to leave. I believe that he sensed he was losing control over her and that may be why he hit her....but it backfired.

At any rate, my point is this: if you want your kid to listen to you when they are with someone you know is not good for them, you cannot get angry, or confrontational, or say anything mean about or to this chosen one, or put your kid on the defensive....because the result, even if they know in their heart you are right, will be the opposite of what you want. And, you may lose your child in the process because they will turn away from you. No one wants to be made wrong.

Now, I said my daughter-in-law gave us some grief for awhile. The last thing I wanted to do was to put my son in a position of having to chose between his wife and his family. (I have always believed that when a son takes a wife, she must come first and his mother has to step aside. That's the way it should be. You want your daughter-in-law to love you as well as loving your son, and you want her to be like a daughter...but, sometimes it doesn't happen that way.) So, I bit my tongue whenever she said something unkind, or refused to join us for Holidays and resented it when my son wanted to spend time with us at any time, but most especially during Holidays. It was very hard on him, as well as us, because we were always a close family and Holidays were very important times for us.

When I saw how torn he was, I made the decision not to put any pressure on him. I would simply say, "We are getting together for Thanksgiving (or whatever) . Dinner will be at such and such a time, and we would love for BOTH of you to join us." I always included her. Usually he would stop by for a little while but I could tell he was feeling guilty for leaving his wife at home, even though it was her choice. He would leave after a couple of hours because she would have a dinner waiting at home for just the two of them. (It wasn't just us she would resent; it was any and all of his friends, too. She just wanted every minute of his time; she was very insecure.) So, he would leave, but I could see he was unhappy, and much would've rather had his wife want to join us too.

All those years, I absolutely refused to say one bad word to him about her....oh, I was THINKING plenty...but never said anything. In fact, I defended her to him several times when he would get frustrated with her.

It's only been for the past 5 years that she has finally learned that we are good people and not against her, and she now will come over on Christmas Eve when we have our huge function, and seems to enjoy herself. Hey, we take what we can get...it's a step forward. My son is still very involved with all of us all during the year....we haven't lost him, and it's BECAUSE we don't put pressure on him to defend his wife.

And, it helps that the one thing I've always been sure of is that she loves my son very much and that he loves her...and that's the most important thing....and obviously, it's working for them because it's been 26 years and here they still are, going strong. Who am I to argue with success?

So, be careful, parents, when you find yourself in a situation where your child has seemingly lost their mind and picked some totally bizarre person to spend time with....THEY see something in that person, and although it may not be evident to you, and it's obviously not a good thing....be careful how you handle it, for they will defend their choice to the end, if for no other reason that they cannot admit you are right and they are wrong.

It's a kid thing.
Good luck!!