Hello and welcome back to Hey Alma’s advice column on all things Jewish life. Read on for advice from our resident deputy managing editor/bossy Capricorn Jew, and submit your own dilemmas anonymously here.
Hey, Hey Alma,
I’m agnostic, but my fiancé is Jewish from a large, close Jewish community. As we’ve been wedding planning, his mom has over-stepped clear boundaries repeatedly and, frankly, been emotionally abusive to my fiancé. He laughs it off and says “oh that’s just Jewish moms for you,” blaming the behaviors on Jewish culture (which is obviously untrue and problematic from multiple angles…).
How do I navigate keeping the peace while defending my partner without being brushed off as a shiksa who will never understand?
Oy vey! This question has so many layers to it, but before we dive in: Mazel tov on your engagement, and your decision to marry the person you love and want to make a life with! As I was planning my wedding, my Jewish mom reminded me over and over that at the end of the day, I was getting married, not wedding-ed, and the most important part of the whole affair was that my wife and I were choosing to spend our lives together as a team. That was a really helpful way to reframe any anxiety I felt leading up to the day; sure, I wanted my wedding to be a perfect event, but ultimately, as long as my wife and I ended the day married, we could call the simcha a success. I think this is great advice when it comes to almost all wedding-related quandaries, and if we think of it as a guiding principle I think it can help with your specific concern.
So your future mother-in-law isn’t a fan of boundaries and your future husband isn’t too concerned about enforcing them. To be honest, this is less a problem about your wedding day and more a problem that is going to continue cropping up for your entire life. If your mother-in-law can’t respect boundaries for planning an event, why would she respect boundaries when you’re buying a house, or having kids, or even simply hosting Shabbat dinner? You probably have already experienced this, but planning your wedding has put the issue at the forefront of your daily life. But in the scheme of a life, a wedding is actually not the biggest event you’ll have to coordinate with your mother-in-law about… so we really want to get to the root of the issue.
Talk to your fiancé before you talk to your mother-in-law
Before you bring your mother-in-law into the conversation, you have to talk to your fiancé. I notice you use the words “emotionally abusive” when referring to your mother-in-law’s behavior, but you say that your partner laughs it off. This isn’t to say that emotional abuse isn’t happening, but rather to point out that you and your partner have very different understandings about what’s going on. So getting on the same page with your fiancé is the number one most important step. These are the things I’d bring up in this conversation:
- How do you feel about the way your mom is behaving?
- Here’s how I feel about the way your mom is behaving
- Has there ever been an instance where you set a boundary with your mom and she followed it?
- Here are some boundaries I would like to set with your mom
- Do those boundaries seem reasonable to you?
- What are some concrete ways we can work together as a team to enforce these boundaries?
- What consequences are you willing to carry out if your mom does not respect these boundaries?
- It is important for me to feel as though you and I are a team, not like I am up against your mom by myself with you on her side
- It is unreasonable to say “This is just how Jewish moms are” and I’d like us to work on dismantling that narrative, even if it’s one that your family has always held
Whew! Just a casual Tuesday evening happy hour chit chat, right?! I’m kidding, obviously. These are major, life-changing questions. But that’s why it’s so important that you and your fiancé have them ASAP. Your mother-in-law’s behavior is not specific to wedding planning; she will not change unless boundaries are enforced, and even then, she may not change. You and your partner, however, can decide to make changes on your side of the street.
Consider going to couple’s therapy to work through this
As I hope my bullet-points above make clear, this is not a one-and-done conversation. This is going to be an ongoing dynamic in your lives, probably for the rest of your lives! Even if your mother-in-law is an otherwise lovely woman, if no one in her family has ever set a boundary with her, it’s going to be a major shock and adjustment period for her when you and your fiancé do. I say “when,” not “if,” because I believe that if you don’t deal with this issue now, you are signing up for a lifetime of frustration or perhaps even the end of your relationship. A couple’s therapist is a trained professional who can help you and your fiancé have the conversations I suggested above, and who will also be a neutral third party guide in making suggestions and requiring follow through and accountability once you come up with a plan. I think it’s really helpful for all couples to have a therapist, even if there’s no specific crisis. It’s never a bad thing to have a paid professional on your team, who knows you at your best and who can help you maneuver through the worst. And hopefully approaching this through the lens of couple’s therapy will allow you to feel as though you and your fiancé are a team in this — not that you’re “a shiksa who will never understand.”
Set boundaries with your mother-in-law
JK, this tip is not for you — it’s for your fiancé! Here’s the thing: There’s really no way for you to set boundaries with your mother-in-law about you and your fiancé as a couple if he’s not going to back you up. And it’s not really your job to do that, either. You write: “How do I navigate keeping the peace while defending my partner?” I would argue that that’s an impossible task and again, not your job. If your partner says “that’s just how my mom is,” does he want or need defending? If your mother-in-law refuses to stay in her lane, why is it your job to keep the peace? You are well within your rights to set firm boundaries for yourself with both your partner and your mother-in-law — I’ll suggest some of those in a minute — but in terms of the way your mother-in-law treats her son and treats the two of you as a couple, that’s actually on your fiancé to navigate. I once had a couple’s therapist in a previous relationship who explained simply: Each child must deal with their respective parents. Of course over the course of time, as the years and decades stack up, you and your parents-in-law will create your own relationship and this advice may then shift. But for right now, your fiancé has been his mother’s son for a whole lot longer than you’ve been her future daughter-in-law. It’s truly on him to take this on.
Set boundaries for yourself
So I don’t think you should take on the boundaries-with-your-mother-in-law convo. You may be rolling your eyes now and asking, “Well Vanessa, what do you think I should do?! This woman is emotionally abusing my husband and frankly ruining my wedding planning!” And that’s a very fair question! My answer, which will come as no surprise to loyal readers of this column: boundaries! But these ones are for yourself, and you’ll be sharing them with your fiancé so he can support you and (hopefully) be inspired to make some of his own. Some boundaries around this issue that I can imagine being useful for you:
- If your mom wants to talk about the wedding, I’d like us to put a specific time on the calendar to do so. If she can’t commit to only discussing wedding planning during these times, I won’t be able to discuss the wedding with her at all.
- I’m not available to discuss the wedding with your mom if she doesn’t respect our wishes about XYZ. If she oversteps that boundary, I will either change the subject and continue spending time with her, or I will hang up the phone/leave the event.
- It’s really hard for me to watch your mom emotionally abuse you. If you’re going to keep enabling her behavior, I’m going to need to limit the time I spend with both of you together because it hurts to witness.
Without knowing the exact boundaries she is crossing, it’s hard for me to get more specific, but I encourage you to brainstorm a list that is tailored to you and this situation. Here’s a good template for a boundary: If [behavior that is harmful] is happening, I will [action that you can take on without anyone else in the room changing their behavior].
The point of a boundary is not to propose ultimatums, try to control another person or punish anyone; it’s simply to keep you both physically and emotionally safe. I’ve written before about how challenging it can be to introduce boundaries in a relationship with a parent, especially if they’re used to having carte blanche in regards to how they can behave. But it’s really never too late to change a relational dynamic for the healthier, and I think it’s clear to both me and you that in order for your wedding day to translate into a happy marriage, you’re going to have to make some shifts in this particular relationship. I hope your fiancé, and eventually even your mother-in-law, can get on board.
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