«I hate my daughter-in-law...” I quite often hear complaints: “I hate my daughter-in-law, she took my son away from me”; “When the mother comes to visit us, the wife turns into an “evil demon”, everything is wrong for her: she speaks through clenched teeth, simply deafens her mother’s questions. And when the mother leaves, she becomes hysterical. She claims that I love my mother too much. I'm tired of balancing between wife and mother. Why can't I love my mother? And why doesn’t my wife like it?”; “I can’t stand my husband’s mother, she interferes in literally all our affairs. Please advise how to make her leave us alone? And usually a person wants to get advice that would immediately get rid of his problem. It’s easy to give advice, but to carry it out... I’d like to talk about a typical case of a relationship. Natasha (name changed) came to our center with a problem: “My husband and I get along, but as soon as his mother comes to us, a nightmare sets in: she is unhappy with everything I do. But the husband doesn’t seem to notice all this. I’m hurt and offended, and I don’t know what to do.” Finding unique and suitable advice for all situations is, of course, tempting, but hardly possible. After all, relationships are made up of the behavior of several people, as you can see in the example. Natasha suffers both when her husband’s mother is in their house and when she is left alone with her husband. In order to take any concrete steps towards resolving the problem that has arisen, you need to know the natural features of the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. One of the reasons for misunderstanding, hostility, and quarrels between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is quite often elementary jealousy. Yes, yes, jealousy. Now the son pays all his attention to his wife, praises her, talks about plans with her, etc. And the mother seemed to fade into the background. This is insulting and painful, because his mother raised him, educated him... and now all this has gone to another woman. There are a lot of such examples in life, and surely everyone can remember at least one of them. Let us also take into account the fact that most often a mother raises her son the way she imagines an ideal man, and even if the son in some respects does not coincide with the ideal, he is still the best for the mother. Why isn’t this best thing with her now?! And there is more than enough evidence of this in my practice. For example, one of the clients said: “I gave everything to raising my son. He is the best. And she (the daughter-in-law), having received everything ready, uses it and not a word of gratitude! It also indicates that he did something wrong. I can’t stand it anymore.” From this, variations in mother-in-law behavior arise. She begins to pay attention only to her daughter-in-law’s shortcomings, real or imaginary, reporting them on occasion not only to her son, but to everyone she knows; at the same time, she praises her son and his virtues, not noticing that her son is not an angel. Or she praises her son’s premarital life, emphasizing with all her might the delights of single life. Or he begins to teach his daughter-in-law how best to please her son, how to furnish the room, i.e. goes into petty custody. It is these behavior patterns of the mother-in-law that sooner or later, depending on the tolerance of the daughter-in-law, lead to conflicts. But jealousy can also appear on the part of the daughter-in-law. There are also plenty of examples of this. Here, most often the cause of jealousy is the thought: “Now he is mine and only mine.” This position most often manifests itself in possessive behavior, where only the full attention of the spouse becomes important, and not even the thought that he can care or worry about someone else is allowed. One of the clients, complaining about her husband’s inattention, said: “You understand that now he must take care of his family, and not think about his mother all the time.” This is a clear example of a daughter-in-law's jealousy. Moreover, she is absolutely sure that this is clear to everyone, and it cannot be otherwise. If the husband starts talking about his mother or wants to go to her, this may be perceived by the wife as a betrayal, a manifestation of dislike. Such an assessment of the spouse’s behavior has the darkest consequences, and, according to»