Showing posts with label weddings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weddings. Show all posts

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Spinster vs. The Mother in Law

No no no .. My status of Spinster is not being compromised by my going out and getting a mother-in-law... I am, however, getting ready to do battle with a ferocious mother-in-law -- RLF's MIL.  Now, this isn't going to be a post about how all MILs are spat up from the bowels of hell and put here to challenge marriages.  I don't believe that.  Mother-in-Laws that are from the Ninth Circle are not that way because they are Mother-in-Laws -- it is simply because of who they are.  In my experience, a Mother-in-Law who is despised by a son or daughter-in-law is a person who is universally despised anyway.  It's maybe just a little more irksome because this woman came with the 'Until death parts us' package.

I would like to point out that years ago -- before RLF met her husband -- I gave her advice about choosing her mate.  We were watching an old episode of something on television (it was in black and white and I can't remember what show).  Two bachelors were talking about women and one of them said that you always want to get a good look at their mother because it will tell you what the woman will be like when she gets older.  RLF rolled her eyes, "God I hope my boyfriends don't look at my mom and run the other way because of her."  I kept my mouth shut about that, but offered some advice, "The same is true for women choosing a husband, you know."

She rolled her eyes again, "So you look at their fathers?"  I shook my head, "Nope.  You look at their mothers.  How she acts is going to be how she always acts.  While you may think that you can change the man you marry -- you're never going to change his mother and she's always going to be there.  So, if you can't stand the way she acts, you might not want to marry him -- unless she lives more than two hours away."  She nodded in solemn agreement, "That's an excellent point.  It's probably good my mother lives so far away."  My eyes slid sideways to her.  Hopefully she got my point because, as much as her mother drives me crackers, I was talking about a future husband's mother.