Through­out his­to­ry and cul­ture, a com­mon yet com­pli­cat­ed thread has been wo­ven be­tween the re­la­tion­ship of moth­er-in-law and daugh­ter-in-law. A gen­uine­ly friend­ly or un­der­stand­ing moth­er-in-law seems to be as rare as a uni­corn and you should cher­ish her if you have been blessed with such a gift. In Trinidad and To­ba­go we even have a pep­per-based dish named af­ter a moth­er-in-law’s “hot­ness”. I un­der­stand that not all daugh­ters-in-law have this plight and in some in­stances the daugh­ters-in-law are in­deed the neg­a­tive fac­tor and cre­ate dra­ma/prob­lems. My aim for to­day, how­ev­er, is to high­light in-laws that seem to lack emo­tion and un­der­stand­ing. It ap­pears some daugh­ters-in-law with­in so­ci­ety want to voice their con­cerns. Last week, I re­ceived three mes­sages seek­ing ad­vice about this par­tic­u­lar is­sue so I hope this helps. This is the let­ter that should be sent con­tain­ing a mes­sage that needs to be heard.

Dear Moth­er-In-Law,

First­ly, thank you for tak­ing the time to read this. It warms my heart that you care about my con­cerns and needs. I al­ways wished that hav­ing a moth­er-in-law would be like hav­ing a sec­ond moth­er. Af­ter all you are the per­son that cre­at­ed and raised the love of my life. Be­fore he was mine, he was yours and I re­spect that fact with all of my heart. Wouldn’t it be per­fect if he could be ours in dif­fer­ent ways? You will al­ways be his moth­er and the first woman he ever tru­ly loved, hold­ing a spe­cial place that can be tak­en by no one.

I ask that you try to ac­cept his de­ci­sions and if I am one of them please ac­cept me as a per­son and not just an idea of what you ex­pect I should sound like, of how you ex­pect me to act and of what kind of fam­i­ly you ex­pect­ed me to come from. Re­gard­less of the colour of my skin, my cook­ing skills, the job I have and the re­li­gion I prac­tice, your son chose me to build a fu­ture with, so there must be some­thing worth­while that he saw to make such a big de­ci­sion. If you love him, al­low him to paint his own per­fect pic­ture of his wife and fam­i­ly.

I know you fear he does not know what’s best for him­self but please put your­self in my shoes be­fore you cri­tique every­thing we do and in­quire about every move we make. I promise I will try my best to learn his likes and dis­likes the same way he is try­ing to learn mine. Please don’t for­get I am some­one’s daugh­ter. I know you view your son as a prince but it hurts when you for­get I am my par­ents’ lit­tle princess as well. As a woman I hope you can sym­pa­thise with me. Re­mem­ber how you want to be treat­ed, ac­cept­ed and loved by your in-laws?

Our mar­riage, re­gard­less if it is old or new, re­quires space and at­ten­tion. When you con­stant­ly en­ter our ar­gu­ments, how will we learn to re­solve them as a cou­ple on our own? If you ask your son to place you be­fore our mar­riage what will hap­pen when you are not around to care for him? He should not have to choose be­tween us. If you call end­less­ly when we are spend­ing a lit­tle qual­i­ty time, how can we learn to spend time alone in com­fort? If you tell me how to cook, clean and tend to the needs of my chil­dren, how can I cre­ate a house­hold of my own suc­cess­ful­ly? It can be hurt­ful and em­bar­rass­ing when these things are done in ex­cess.

Your son and I need to learn how to fix prob­lems our­selves and build our mar­riage as a cou­ple fol­low­ing, not on­ly, old tra­di­tions, but, cre­at­ing our new tra­di­tions and mem­o­ries of which you are sure to be a part. I think bal­ance is key and be­lieve me, we will ask for your ad­vice. We will vis­it you and ask you to vis­it us. The chil­dren will al­ways spend time with their grand­par­ents in a health­i­er, hap­pi­er en­vi­ron­ment.

I am hap­py to be a part of your fam­i­ly and I hope we can learn and form a spe­cial bond gen­uine­ly learn­ing to cre­ate a warm, con­sid­er­ate and close re­la­tion­ship. Af­ter all, we have a very spe­cial man in both of our lives, your amaz­ing son.

Love al­ways,

Your Daugh­ter not on­ly

in LAW, but in LOVE.