An Open Letter to My Mother-In-Law
I have only been married to your son for a little over a year now, but the problems did not start with the marriage. They began years before the marriage. I have heard countless horror stories of relationships with mothers-in-law. It seems to be such a trend that a simple Google search can find you ample amounts of jokes trying to pull humor out of the terrible relationships that some people have with their in-laws. I will be honest; I have spent some of my free time delighting in those jokes. I have referred to you as my “monster-in-law” then joked it off as a “typo”. I have used the word “hate” to describe how I feel about you. I have spent countless hours crying over you and wishing you were not a part of my life. Today, I write this (whether you ever read it or not) to tell you that yes, we have a really big problem in our relationship. However, it is NOT you. It is ME.
Somewhere in my relationship with you, I lost sight of who I really am (or at least who I am supposed to be). I became so angry and bitter with you. I started to view you as a problem. I fell into the terrible sin of contempt. I somehow convinced myself to view you as less than me. I will not sugar-coat it. I devalued you. I pulled at every little reason I possibly could to hate you. I am not sure that I ever truly hated you, but I disliked you way more often than I liked you. See, I profess to be a Christian, but I have acted as if I was everything other than that. I put my own feelings over your value as a human being, as a creation of God. Here is just a taste of where I went wrong:
1. I tried to find my own value in you, your thoughts and opinions on me, and your words to and about me. I forgot where my own value was found, so I tried to bring down your value.
2. I lied to you.
3. I responded to any hurt I felt was caused by you with pure anger, and I let that anger produce sin that was often directed toward you.
4. I tried to hurt your feelings. I knew what I was saying, and I hoped it hurt.
5. I thought you should think more like me, or I thought you should understand me.
6. I picked out every single bad thing about you.
7. I handled conflict poorly.
8. I did not always encourage my husband to honor you.
9. I viewed everything from my selfish perspective, and nothing from your perspective.
10. Once I decided I did not like you, I sweated the small stuff even if it was not worth it.
11. I told everyone else how terrible I thought you were.
12. I had to grit my teeth to ever apologize TO you, but I expected apologies FROM you.
I started catching myself saying things like, “No matter what I do or say, it is wrong to her”. I finally realized my hypocrisy in saying that because no matter what you said or did, it was probably wrong to me. I had decided I did not like you, and that was that. I was wrong. My dislike for you is not a flaw in you; it is a character flaw in me. My inability to see and appreciate your value is my fault, not yours. No, I will never say that I was the only one who was wrong because I was not, but I have no choice but to take a minimum of half the blame.
Even now, I want so badly to say, “but she did this, or she said that,” but even though you did do things that hurt me so much, the way they have affected our relationship is still a ME problem because all it shows is the true depth of my own sin. It shows how I do not forgive as God has forgiven me. You do not have to be sorry. My unwillingness to forgive is my own burden to bear, not yours. It shows how I allow anger to manifest itself in the form of hate and contempt in my life. It shows how I forsake viewing everyone through God’s eyes. You see, it is still MY responsibility to forgive and then proceed to treat you with the respect that you deserve as my husband’s mother and most importantly as someone that God loves and values. I have failed in that.
We both want to be right, but I have learned that everything is not about being right. There are so many things that are better than being right. Love is better than being right. Grace is better than being right. Mercy is better than being right. Being reconciled is better than being right. Speaking of reconciliation, as a Christian, it is my responsibility to reconcile relationships that I have destroyed. It is my responsibility to pick up the ruins where I have done damage. It is my responsibility to leave my pride at the door, leave my anger at the door, leave my arguments at the door, leave my desire to be right at the door, and leave my mindset that I deserve anything at the door…and to just come completely empty handed with all weapons on the ground and hands in the air to beg and plead for forgiveness and to start to mend what has been broken. You are not too far gone, nor am I.
Plus, you do have some really great things about you. I was too busy wanting to hate you that I failed to see those things. Above all, you raised the man of my dreams and did almost all of it single-handedly. I could never be grateful enough for the man that I get to wake up to every morning and go to bed beside every night, and you had a large hand in that incredible blessing in my life.
This relationship can still work. I may feel differently than you sometimes. I may want to handle things in my own little family differently than you handled things in yours, and that is okay. It is not hypocritical to still smile and truly love one another despite those differences. It is what God calls me to do. Sure, we may need some distance sometimes, but we can kick the hate to the curve because a relationship is better than being right. After all, is that not what the gospel is all about? God was right without me, but he was willing to forsake that and reconcile me to him because he desired a relationship with me despite all of my wrong. I mattered to him. You mattered to him, and you matter to me. So here I am, wishing I better knew how to beg for your forgiveness and wishing I knew how to make this okay again. So, mother-in-law, if you are reading this, I am sorry, and I do love you.
