Here’s a word that might send a shiver down your spine depending on your luck in this lifetime: in-laws. Yeeeah. I’ll give you a minute to unclench. While your in-laws might make Thanksgiving a royal headache or send you unsolicited articles about your parenting choices, they probably haven’t launched a full-blown smear campaign against you…to your own husband.
On this episode of Confessions, Mia Lardiere is joined by Dr. Sasha Hamdani and Cosmo's deputy editor Madeleine Frank Reeves to tackle this anonymous confession about toxic in-laws:
"My in-laws and I have never gotten along. For context, I’ve been with my husband for 13 years (seven of them married). My father-in-law literally sent a text rant to my husband about how I am 'worthless' and 'not welcome in his home.' My mother-in-law is somehow worse with her passive-aggressive or straight-up aggressive attitude. She literally told me, 'You stole my son.' After therapy and lots of inner work, I’m at a place where I no longer need or seek their acceptance or love and distance myself from them. The challenge is my husband struggles with this as he hasn’t given up on the dream that one day we’ll all be best friends. This dynamic has hurt our relationship. Am I wrong for moving on and prioritizing my self-worth and sanity over reconciliation with my toxic in-laws?
Should you confront your in-laws?
Mia: So Dr. Hamdani, if you were given the opportunity, would you confront your in-laws? And if you would confront them directly, how would you do that?
Dr Hamdani: Yeah, I would. I mean honestly, and this is what I'm talking about in terms of like when to do that. But at this point, the relationship is fractured, right? There's not much to salvage here, and it's essentially both parties are going their own direction. I don't think it's gonna harm things more.
I think that if anything, it could give some clarity and like, say it goes all bad, right? Say it's like, this exploded. Okay, are you really worse off than you were before? No. But at least you know where the other person is coming from. Whereas if you communicate and you're just like, "Oh my God, I had no idea that that was the misconception you were working off of. Let me clarify that for you," that's gonna give you an opportunity. So I mean, it really boils down to that. The other thing that's important about those situations is there's an incredible value in even the overture of talking, right?
So I'm making the effort to open up that dialogue. That's kind of, not extending an olive branch, but you're like, "Hey, I'm open to reconciliation. I want to make this work. I'm putting in the effort to do that." And I think both parties can see that, because if you're like, "This is done, I've closed the door on this," you don't care about talking.
Is this emotional abuse?
Mia: Dr. Hamdani, we're talking about how this is toxic. Some of the things her in-laws have said, "You stole my son," calling this person "worthless," and telling them that that they're "not welcome" in their home. Would you qualify this as verbal abuse or is it kind of just bullying? Where do we stand on what this kind of language looks like and what this relationship is?
Dr Hamdani: It's not good.
Madeleine: It's certainly not good.
Dr Hamdani: It's not great. It's not where you wanna be. The terminology in terms of like, verbal abuse and bullying. I mean, I think those are, I mean that's more colloquial terms, right? That's not like, a clinical thing. You can't say it's exactly this amount of negativity would qualify as this. I don't really know what it is.
What I can tell you is that if it's a pervasive pattern, if this is repeated, if it's consistent in nature if the quality of the relationship is based on interactions like this. It is probably what I would technically classify that is, as a toxic relationship. That's not giving you any sort of positive value and instead what it's doing is it's causing you to question your own self-worth and where you fit into that fabric of the situation.
How to talk to your toxic in-laws:
Madeleine: When somebody says to your face something like, "You stole my son," is there language specifically that she could use? You know, if somebody says that to you, could you say, "That's so interesting, why do you feel that way?" Or, "I'm sorry you feel that way." Like, what do you even say when somebody speaks to you that way? And is there a way to use your language to kind of disarm them a little bit and try to see each other?
Dr Hamdani: I mean, that's just such a weird comment, right? It's like something that you don't necessarily, you can't really plan for it, right? But if you are dealing with a situation where you're faced with a comment that seemingly looks like it's coming out of left field, and it seems absolutely ludicrous. What I would encourage you to do, because right, in your brain, you're like, "This is the craziest thing I've ever heard."
But if there is a way you can understand the root of it. Where is this coming from? You might have a chance at resolving the underlying issues. So for example, "You stole my son." Is the underlying issue, that you're overly close with your son and you never really understood this? Or is the underlying issue, that you don't think I'm good enough for your son and you wish I was someone else? Is the underlying issue, you wish you could spend more time with your son and you feel like I'm holding you back from that?
Like where is that comment coming from? So if I were faced with that, "You stole my son," I would probably say something like, "I need a second to sit with that because I don't even understand where it's coming from, what made you say that?
Mia: Yeah, you can't use your iMessages in that situation.
How an expert would approach this situation:
Dr Hamdani: I think one of the most interesting things about this confession is that it sounds like she's really, really looked at it from all angles. So she was talking about how she's gotten into it with therapy, she's done some inner healing work and, really, really tried to evaluate critically this situation from every side. I think number one, that's a really important viewpoint and I applaud her so tremendously for that because a lot of times when people are in these difficult situations, it immediately becomes a fight and they don't want to look inwardly at all and be like, "Is there anything that I could be doing that could be contributing to some of this strife?"
But it sounds like as she's gone through this, it is truly just a kind of like, a toxic situation that she can't resolve, you know?
Tangible tips of getting through that, I think it boils down to if the situation is not necessarily going to change 'cause you can be responsible for yourself, but you can't be responsible for controlling someone else, right? You're never gonna gain mastery of that. But if you're looking at a situation where you're like, "It's not the time thing, we've had 13 years to kind of deal with it." If this is a situation that's truly never gonna change, then what are the variables that could change to make this more agreeable?
And then it boils down to, okay, within this relationship, if my in-laws are never truly going to respect me within the context of this relationship or even outwardly, is this something where my husband has to kind of take a stand? And then figure out and re-evaluate his relationship? Is this something where I need to kind of distance myself from this family unit and I can still have my family unit with my husband, but it's just never gonna resolve? I think it boils down to what are the variables that really can change.
What are the next steps for you and your partner?
Mia: Dr. Hamdani, just a question for you. At this point in the relationship 13 years down the road, what is the go-forward plan and what would you say as the wife to the husband to get this next step going?
Dr. Hamdani: I feel like if there truly is a communication breakdown and you can't get on top of this, like, if your husband is not getting to the spot where he is getting past this dream of you guys coexisting beautifully, or you've tried it and it doesn't work and he's still not giving up the dream, that's not a you-thing, that's a him-thing.
And that's not just like an anti-man spot that I'm in again, but it's something that like, it sounds like there's a hold up there. And that he probably needs to go to therapy and talk about that, why that is such a sticking point for him. That's a him-thing. And that's not actually that uncommon.
I think what we see within the context of relationships, is that we expect a lot of this work to be like, in this specific example, people assume that the wife is a problem. Well, maybe the wife isn't the problem and it is the in-laws in their entirety, and that's the issue.
You know, couples counseling, yeah it can be helpful, but it sounds like the husband needs to figure out what his connection is at this point and how he fits into this puzzle. If there is a toxic quantity. What is your relationship with that and how are you gonna keep it from bleeding into your marriage?
