Advice to my Mother for future MIL role

Re: SS, advice to my Mother?

hi, Iam not SS or Ria (who always give wonderful advice), but i think that i can give you a few pointers. I have had, and still have many il's issues, i don;t want this life for my bhabi. SO my sister and I always help our parents be good il's to my brother;s wife.

FIrst i always remind my mother to be FLEXIBLE...i remind her that it is better to have a happy dil, then an unhappy one(a happy dil will also make her husb happy)! For eg, my brother bought a house (close to my parents place) sson after he got married, my parents thought they would stay together for at least a few years, that didn;t happen, BUT me and my sis, talked to my paerents, calmed them down and told them, it;s better to have a dil come to their house with a smile on her face, today ( few years later) my bro and his wife are always at my parents house, helping etc., my bhabi comes by herself too, because my parents learned to be flexible, and also learned to LET GO!!

Second, We have told our parents, always discuss things (family, financial etc...) with bhabi present, do not make her feel left out. my il's alsways go behind closed doors to talk to their son(my husb), how rude?!!!!! Dil is also a part of the family, she should be included in decisions and her opinion should count and be asked for.

Third, as a SIL i understand my responsibilites, i dont; interfer in my brother;s matters, if they come to me for advice, i will give it, otherwise i don;t give it. Also as a SIl, i never gossip about my bhabi with my mom or my sis, that;'s what my husb sis, and my mil do to me ALL THE TIME!! i feel really bad!

Fourth, Whenver i talk to my bhabi (usually oince a week), i will ask her how her family is doing, how are her parents, brother and sister? After all we all feel happy when someone asks us about our family . I treat her like a sister, a friend, i do do take her advice sometimes(even though she is younger) and Most importantly i give her RESPECT!!!
(sorry this is such a long post, but i have 2 sons, and i have already thought about how i will treat my DILS, i will never make their life miserable!)
It;s really nice that you are thinking of your future bhabi, good luck to you and your family!

sash:bowdown:bowdown:bowdown

 

Re: SS, advice to my Mother?

Hi,
My brother was also married last year and my mom and bhabhi share a healthy relationship.
Here goes some tips which i gave to my mom
1. Always think what do you expect your daughter's mil in the present situation and do that or she can ask us what do you expect from your mil in this situation and do that.
2. Give few gifts to dil on every festival.
3. Give more love to dil's kids.
4. seeking advice from dil in situations.
5. Dont advice to dil any thing without asking .
6. love dil as the daughters.
These r the few tip. Hope it will help you

 

Re: SS, advice to my Mother?

Hi there,

Even though the thread is addressed to SS & I am taking the liberty to give few more tips.
And I 100% agree with the two previous posts.

I like to add few more to it.

• First, one has to remember Marriage is not a union of two individuals but it is the union of TWO FAMILES.
• After marriage, you will definitely see some changes in your brother’s behavior & that change is absolutely ‘<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Normal</st1lace></st1:City>’, as they say every change is positive, so you & your parents need to accept that change gently.
• Second thing is ‘freedom’, Newcomer to a family will take some time to adjust & settle down, pls.do give them there own time, pace & space to settle down.
• Comparison- this is the terrible thing, which I had experienced with my in-laws.

Tell your mom, daughter is always a daughter & ask her to avoid comparing daughter with daughter-in-law. Both are different & unique in their own way.

• If they (your mom & brother’s wife) have good rapport definitely as a S-L you will have a good relationship with your bhabi.
• Finally, if two ladies share & have good relationship then two families will be united.

Wish you all the best & Congratz in advance

 

Re: SS, advice to my Mother?

Dear jpstar,
Thank you so much for such kind words for me! So nice of you.

I am down with a severe flu and stomach virus for the last 2 days hence haven't been able to reply to your post. In fact, last night I dreamt of a few points I wanted to write to you! But don't have energy to type much yet.

I'll be back in a few days.

Until then gals, take care and enjoy your good heath!
SS

 

Jpstar

Thats very sweet of you. Thanks for the kind words. And I am glad that you dont mind my changing the title to more elaborate one.

As far as , Advice to mom for being good MIL, I am sure your mom has seen lots of life events to first adapt herself for the upcoming transition. Mothers are as fexible as mother nature, they know when exactly to bend and when to stand tall. With all due respect to her wisdom and experience, I would list some good things I have observed in my own MIL. I love her to the core. Sometime my husband feel jealous that he has to share me with everyone in family. And sometimes he gets the feeling that they love me more than him. Which I know bottom of the heart he knows but he get those vibes that His parents would have loved me the same If I was born as daughter to them.

- Best thing in Initial one year is to just give affection and have least expectation in terms of gestures of respect or any ritual following. Because each family has their own ways of raising kids. Somewhere we all define a line between socially acceptable and personally convinient balance of modernity and tranditionality. So until we get the whole grasp of where the other family stands, we should take it slow in expectation. I would love the way my MIL just told me, she has taken quite convenient approach in following least traditions, but she would love if her DIL wants to follow. So believe it or not, I am the more traditional one! But thats how we struck the balance.

- Allow things to become less formal. Very often we want affection and distance at the same time. Which is quite mutually exclusive , when we want close affection, we should be ready to see some deviations from standard roles. Like in my house, I am the fixer of household issues. I love to help FIL whenever I am around with fixing stuff in house. I still rememeber the sweet gesture of my MIL on first week of marriage. All the relatives had gone back and I was stll wearing those salwar-suits and all. She asked me once , I am sure you do wear jeans and all. So where are your jeans? I said, mom told me to wear salwar suits only intially. She laughed and said.. Dont tell your mom, but I like gals in jeans, And I always wanted my Daughter and DIL to wear it. So feel free and pack your suits inside and take out jeans. I know it suits you a lot. I was zapped. But within hours I was in Jeans.. But then you get to have heart to heart bond when we ease out other's life.

- Its great way to share some old family secrets and her own initial years to get DIL started. My MIL would tell me, how she was all nervous and how she found so many irritating customs and all.

- Ask her to attempt to have friendly conversations like whats her favorite hobies and other stuff. More girly stuff. Me and my MIL can talk whole night over so many girly stuff. It helps to bond over woman topics.

- Evenif there are loopholes left in mariage set up and rituals. Just learn to ignore it and raise above. Relationship is more important than aving some extra jwellery or some extra sarees.

- Its very imperative to ensure that DIL feels her parents and siblings are respected. Thats the least anyone wants a relation. A basic sense of respect for their roots. Sometimes even obvious unpleasent things may need to be ignored. Because life is not about settling scores. To win a real-warm DIL its minimal cost to pay.

Above all, any relation is two way road. These steps may pave a road to positive and healthy relation. Most of it I have borrowed either from my ILs or my mom's philosophy for her own ILs. She was one of the most admired DIL in her whole colony and relations. so I would assume there must be some truth to it.

Ria

 

Dear jpstar,

Thanks for your wishes for my recovery. I am slowly limping back to normalcy. I think I should be back to normal by the weekend.

Firstly, let me whole-heartedly applaud you for one thing – for your genuine desire for your mom and your whole family to have a good relationship with the future addition to the family! Wow, only if we had more SIL’s like you so many unnecessary battles on the marriage front would not even exist! With so much thought and effort on your part, my sincere wish is that you find a bhabhi that responds equally warmly to you and everyone in your family.

Sashie, I wish all SIL’s were as thoughtful as you. You are living the talk! You have turned your own bitter experiences into a learning exercise and have made sure your bhabhi does not experience any of those bitter things. Hats off to you Sashie! I wish we could clone you and replace every nasty SIL with you! J

Between Sashie, perfectly_perfect, Anushiv and Ria, I think all salient points have been covered very well. You gals have left almost nothing for me to add! As a DIL, what you all have stated is my wish list too! J

In spite of having no first hand experience of being a MIL, I will take the liberty of adding a couple more points from my side. These are in addition to what my friends here have listed.

• 1. This point is actually just my opinion of “how to” achieve all of those ideal things such as - least amount of expectations from DIL, not be overbearing, not be controlling, be non-interfering etc. All of these are highly desirable qualities in a MIL and in any person in general, but we all know these are easier said than implemented.

As humans we all have expectations, no matter how small or how big. It is natural. What really matters is “managing” these expectations as per changing situations. In my little personal experience in life so far, I think the one thing that helps us keep minimal expectations from others is the mantra “Live and let live”. If first we learn to live ourself, only then will we be able to let others live.

So, if I were to tell my mom, I would tell her to live her life to the fullest right now - every single day. Do the things she always wanted to do but could never do, learn new things, pursue her hobbies, cultivate new interests, keep herself gainfully and usefully occupied with things of her own. In my opinion this is extremely important at every stage in our life. The more idle our mind, the more it is prone to straying and worrying about things that need not be worried about. Keeping busy with things that one likes to do, takes away this idleness from one’s life.

The other very important thing this does is to make the individual feel valued and useful. All of us have the need to feel like we are contributing to the family and to our people in some way. As our responsibilities diminish with growing age, this feeling of “what is my use” can easily set in causing elders to meddle more than desired into the life of their kids. Their intentions are holy – they want to contribute, they want to share their experiences and in the process feel useful. But the younger generation wants to make their own mistakes and learn from them. The MIL then feels like she is not being valued for her experience. I think this is where many times conflicts arise.

If we can tell our moms who are going to be future MIL’s, to lead a wholesome life on their own, to go out and explore all the beautiful things that life has to offer outside of the boundaries of the family then I think we can help them be more content and thereby less demanding. Just my opinion.

And as their daughters who like to think forward and positive, we must help our parents reach this state of contentment. We have to help them through this process. We have to help them find things that they like; we have to prod them to do these things if they are not already doing them proactively. So this is going be your role jpstar. You are going to be your mom’s life coach in some ways! J

As for our generation, we must learn to practice this from right now. We have to make every effort to make ourselves happy and content in the actions we do every day. It is not just about our present state of mind but it is this very state of mind that we will carry forward as MILs.

• 2. The other important factor I think is for your Mom to be financially stable and independent. It is a known fact that money is one of the root causes of many evils and bad relationships. So if your Mom does not have to depend on your brother financially for her day-to-day needs, I think it will help greatly in keeping the waters calm. If you can make sure Mom is financially independent and well taken care of right now so she does not need to dependent on your brother and latter, on your bhabhi to take care of her daily needs then I think it will help immensely. Of course, family is always there and should be there for taking care in case of emergencies and unanticipated huge expenses. But in general, I am of the opinion that taking care of our own financial needs goes a long way in maintaining our own self-esteem and saving us a lot of unnecessary dependency on others.

I am confident that with so much care and thought your future bhabhi is going to be very happy to be a part of your family.

Warm wishes,

SS

 

SS - Wishing you a speedy recovery. Hope you feel 100% better after getting some rest this weekend.
Once again hats off to you :hatsoff for such a beautiful response. This advice holds true for all individuals if we want to 'Live and Let Live'.