Weddingbee Blog

If you had to choose one word to describe your relationship with your future mother-in-law, what would it be? What would you want it to be? For me, being able to answer this question truthfully has been one of the greatest things to come from planning our wedding.

As a child, Mr. Lovebug had a soccer mom. A make-the-Halloween-costumes-by-hand mom. A never-miss-a-single-important-event mom. A doting, expressive, and very available PTA mom. I had one, too. Only, mine isn’t around any more, for a handful of those complicated yet devastatingly simple reasons that life sometimes dishes out. And if there’s one thing I’m not looking for, it’s a replacement.

I know; that’s a shockingly cold thing to say, isn’t it? Particularly when the woman in question is an effusive, bubbly sweetheart of a mother, just dying to pull me under her wing and into the nest. I mean, really. She calls me her “kidlet”, which is just about the cutest thing ever, right?

Only, why does it make me feel like a phony? Am I an ungrateful brat, for not wanting that?

I hope not. Because I believe I have a pretty good counteroffer.

I can’t be a daughter to her, in the sense that she seems to want. I feel myself digging my heels in, whenever I sense the slightest (motherly) disapproval about my decisions. When I made clear my anti-bouquet toss, anti-garter dance, anti-veil, and anti-wedding party stance, her shock and protestations hurt and alienated me.

But then, one day when Mr. Lovebug and I were having some pretty bad trouble, I called her, desperate for insight into my fiance’s behavior. I asked her to lunch. We sat at the table and I poured my heart out. And something in our relationship shifted, as I spoke of our very adult problems. She stopped looking at me like her second child and started listening to me like a grown up. Commiserating, even, with similar stories about her own marriage. Like a friend.

And I realized, this - this is what I want. Her friendship, not her parenting. I’m 32 years old. Any need I had for maternal guidance has - sadly but truthfully - long since scarred over. I want to share a bottle of wine with her, and laugh at our men together. I want to learn about who she is, and who she was at my age. I want to let her in on my secrets, and just gab about whatever. If she, I, and the Mr. Lovebugs are together, I want to feel like I’m on the women’s team…not the kids’ team.

I think she’s starting to understand this. I mean, we’re still negotiating the boundaries of this new, dynamic relationship (she signs emails “Mom”, I turn around and address them to her first name…), but it’s getting better all the time. I count my blessings for such a warm and welcoming woman, because I know she just wants to fill in that hole in my heart, the one shaped like M-O-M.

But, strange as it sounds, I need that hole. It isn’t really empty, anyway.

There’s always room for a friend, however.

Would you say your FMIL treats you more like a daughter, or more like a friend? And how does that make you feel?