Happy (late) Mother's Day.

So, my friend K chimed in on last week's letter, from the "crippled, female undertaker":

When my work was dicking me around I finally made a threat about checking what the labor board thought about the way they were treating me. They suddenly were more then happy to accomodate.
Might be worth a shot.

Good on you, K! You are to be commended, and I completely forgot about the labour board. I'm not sure what province the undertaker is dealing with, but seriously just google "labour board" and you'll find lots of useful information.

And now, on to this week's letter:

i'm engaged, and i hate the way my future mother in law acts towards me. she's newly divorced and seems to think that if her marriage failed, ours will too. i really think she thinks it's ridiculous that her son would want to be with me when her husband didn't want to be with her, and that she equates me with the woman her husband left her for. she acts like a spoiled child whenever discussion turns to our wedding and our plans for him to move out of her house and into my house (which is happening in the next few months). if we go on a walk somewhere, she ditches us and we find her weeping softly to herself later, miserable that *we* walked off and "forgot about her." she gives me backhanded compliments and passive-aggressively criticizes everything i do, especially for him. my fiance and i have not even talked about this because i am completely at a loss for words as how to explain my feelings to a person who is there and should already be noticing. her behaviour is actually shocking to me and the whole situation seems so obvious it actually kind of hurts me that he hasn't already done something to smooth things over. where do i go from here?


In marrying or just choosing a woman to be with in the long term, a man is on some level choosing her over his mother. Sorry, Mom. That is natural and appropriate, because your spouse is supposed to be your number one.

Of course, you don't ignore your children or allow them to otherwise suffer in favour of pleasing a mate -- which is why you leave a husband or wife who is abusing your children -- but you are not to place your children above your spouse because they are not supposed to stick with you for life.

For similar reasons, children cannot and should not be expected to side with a parent over a partner. It sucks that her life has played out the way it has (and hey, maybe he left her because he was tired of playing second-fiddle to his kids and feeling like a big piece of shit for being rightfully discontent with that) but it's not up to her son to fill the void a partner is supposed to, especially not now that he's got you.

You couldn't blame the woman for speaking up if she believed you were actually mistreating her son, or depriving her of a relationship with him (more on that later) but if your mother-in-law had any sense of the appropriate, she would not be making such a damn nuisance of herself by effectively demanding that he choose her over you.

Above and beyond that, I guess it *would* be really dumb to let an important relationship die just because of some dumb bitch.

But, two things.

1) You have to remember that this actually isn't just any dumb bitch. I've said it before, but, you know, if I could only give one piece of relationship advice to straight women for the rest of my life, it would be: Don't ever underestimate the role of Mom.

She is actually always important. Obvious: If a guy loves his Mom, like he should, it would be in your best interest for her to be able to stand you because he's going to want to leave some room in his life for her, and you don't want any unnecessary unpleasantness for him or for you or anybody. However, if a man is in any way disrespectful towards his mother -- and that can be as low-key as secretly thinking she's an idiot or just ignoring her -- it is in fact an indication of the way he will treat or regard you.

So, you definitely want to talk about this to him, but you want to be very careful of what you say, and that you don't ask for things he's incapable of granting, and that you don't ask for things that only sound like you would want them, like for her to be unimportant to him.

He can't choose his mother over his fiance. He shouldn't be made to choose his fiance over his mother. He should be able to choose both.

Therefore, above and beyond any results that come of this talking business, consider this: for the sake of your relationship, can you not hate her, tolerate her, refrain from injuring her, despite her faults and apparent dislike for you, for having carried him, given birth to him, and helping to shape him into the person that you fell in love with? Can you just swallow your pride and ignore her? A good first start would be to ease up on analyzing her too much. Sometimes it's disrespectful to walk around feeling like you have a person pegged. It's apparent you feel somewhat superior to her. And, the fact that the situation and its ins and outs and causes and effects seem so obvious to you is likely testimony to how much you dwell on this. You'll make yourself (and likely people around you) nuts if you go too far, and a key to not being so bothered is... not bothering, if that makes sense.

If not... if you really can't...

2) ... If his mom really is a dumb bitch, and he doesn't handle it well and is not prepared to try to handle it well -- he's blind to her craziness and/or he's not willing to make her understand that she has got to show you some respect -- and this is insurmountable for you (it would be for most, I think), then that leaves the question of whether your relationship is actually that important to you, and there is no shame in thinking critically about this.

Even though you're already engaged and if the wedding doesn't happen people will be disappointed and blah blah blah. If the thought of being with him forever isn't enough to make you not want to barf at the prospect of a lifetime of forced politeness in the face of backhanded compliments, that is actually ok. It just means you shouldn't marry him. You can't be faulted for dumping a guy because of the way his Mom treats you, because if you can deprive yourself of him for this reason, you simply don't love him (enough?), and that is not your fault.