My husband and I are about to divorce because of his mother

Question:

Hello, Prachi ma’am!

I have been married since 6 and half years and I have kids. My mother-in-law turned crazy ever since we got married. She has only one son and his father passed away a long time ago. She was quite jealous since the beginning and since then we have had tonnes of problems. But the issue is that my husband never sees her mistakes. For him it is always me who is the wrong person, not his mother. Every time we have big fights because of her and he never does anything to make her aware of what she is doing. She doesn’t respect me at all and my husband never sees that. Now we are about to divorce because of her. What do I do?

Related reading: How to gel well with your would-be MIL

Prachi Vaish says:

Dear About-to-divorce,

I’m sorry you have had to go through something like this. But what I am thinking is that you have come to us when things have already reached the verge of a divorce. What you’re describing is actually something a lot of women go through and with proper counselling these issues are resolved right at the start.

For an impartial observer, your’s, your husband’s and your MIL’s reactions are all justified, when looked at with individual perspectives. Nobody is wrong here but is acting out of love, possessiveness and insecurities… and meanwhile not realising that it’s not working in anyone’s favour.

I think the best thing for you to do right now is try and opt for family counselling where the therapist can understand your family dynamics and help you and your family understand and recognise the faulty communication patterns and set them straight. If it’s not possible for all three to get counselling, then at least try it for you and your husband. If you two can be brought on the same page, it will take care of a lot of issues – and then you can move forward from there.

I wish you good luck.
Prachi