How to Deal with Difficult In-Laws Without Losing Your Cool

The following post is from Reborn: 101 Short Stories, Essays, and Insights to Improve Communication Skills

I was watching a Tik Tok recently of a girl who said she hated her sister-in-law and mother-in-law.

It got so bad that she gave her husband an ultimatum.

Either them or me….

The husband chose her.

He cut off all ties with his sister and mom.

This was a situation where this lady won the battle to most likely lose the war.

Eventually, the husband will resent her for being put in that position.

He’s going to expect her to make drastic life changes for him too.

If she doesn’t, then he will say:

‘I made a mistake cutting off my sister and mom for a woman like you.’

Annoying in-laws are not a problem to scoff at.

Other than financial reasons, annoying in-laws are in the top 5 reasons that lead to divorce.

Here’s a mental hack I have for dealing with unruly in-laws:

• View them as acquaintances rather than friends.

I dislike sarcasm.

I never found that humor style funny.

However, some people are sarcastic to the core.

That’s just who they are.

None of my friends are sarcastic.

If they were, I don’t know if I could be friends with them.

Guess what though?

A lot of my acquaintances are sarcastic!!

If my barber is sarcastic, I don’t mind that at all.

I am way more patient when I have a sarcastic barber.

When an acquaintance annoys us, we aren’t that fast to react.

It’s because we don’t see them too much.

It’s similar with in-laws.

The problem is when you view your in-laws as your friends.

When you view them as your friends, they will get under your skin more.

They’ll say something and you’ll feel compelled to say something back.

It’s like if your friend disses your haircut, you’ll snap back:

‘Well, what about your hair??’

But if your barber disses your haircut, you’ll think:

‘Let me hear him out…He does work with hair for a living.’

We behave differently with friends vs acquaintances.

It’s tougher if you actually live with your in-laws.

But if you’re only seeing them on a family trip once or 3 times a year, then view them as acquaintances.

There is a cooler demeanor to you.

It’s easy to confuse in-laws as friends because they’re a part of your family.

You may accidentally group them in the same category as your parents.

I don’t think that’s a smart thing to do.

With your parents, you can view them as friends (depending on the culture).

They can see more sides to your personality and vice versa without y’all personalizing it.

However, with in-laws, I think it’s smarter to draw hard boundaries.

Keep them a bit at arm’s length.

Sister-in-laws and brothers-in-laws included too.

When you view your in-laws as friends too much, then you start to get affected by them more.

Soon, you issue ultimatums after one big disagreement.

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– ArmaniTalks