What do you want from me? : learning to get along with in-laws

200 Pages·2009·0.85 MB·English

by  Apter

What Do You Want from Me?
ALSO BY TERRI APTER
The Sister Knot: Why We Fight, Why We’re Jealous, and Why We’ll Love Each
Other No Matter What
You Don’t Really Know Me: Why Mothers and Daughters Fight and How Both
Can Win
The Myth of Maturity: What Teenagers Need from Parents to Become Adults
The Confident Child: Raising Children to Believe in Themselves
Secret Paths: Women in the New Midlife
Best Friends: The Perils and Pleasures of Girls’ and Women’s Friendships
(with Ruthellen Josselson) Altered Loves: Mothers and Daughters During
Adolescence
Working Women Don’t Have Wives: Professional Success in the 1990s
WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?
Learning to Get Along with In-Laws
TERRI APTER
W. W. NORTON & COMPANY
New York • London
Copyright © 2009 by Terri Apter All rights reserved For information about
permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Apter, T. E.
What do you want from me?: learning to get along with in-laws / Terri
Apter.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN: 978-0-39307288-4
1. Parents-in-law. 2. Interpersonal relations. I. Title.
HQ759.8.A68 2009
646.7'8—dc22
2009013159
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction

CHAPTER 1
The Inescapable Power of In-Laws
CHAPTER 2
Why Does It Go Wrong?
The Primary Source of Conflict
CHAPTER 3
Are You Really Part of My Family?
Insiders and Outsiders
CHAPTER 4
Why Is It So Hard on the Women?
Ideals and Competition
CHAPTER 5
Whose Side Are You On?
Why It’s So Tough to Get Support from Your Spouse
CHAPTER 6
What Is Happening to Me?
Becoming a Mother-in-Law
CHAPTER 7
Is Any of This My Fault?
Hard Lessons for Ordinary People
CHAPTER 8
Who’s the Mother Now?
Becoming a Mother, Becoming a Grandmother
CHAPTER 9
What Do I Owe You?
Gifts and Debts; Love and Gratitude
CHAPTER 10
Who Do You Think You Are?
The Unexpected Impact of Siblings-in-Law
CHAPTER 11
Are We Still Family?
Divorce and Connection
CHAPTER 12
Getting Along and Looking Forward
Rifts and Reparation Across the Life Span

Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
What Do You Want from Me? emerges from the rich stories provided by the
people who have collaborated with me by being “subjects” of research. I ask a
great deal of my interviewees: I ask them to reflect on difficult problems; I ask
them to expose family tensions; and I ask them to tease out details of their own
and others’ behavior that, ordinarily, they would prefer to ignore. They made
records of family gatherings, sometimes by writing diaries, sometimes by taping
their own commentaries on fluctuating thoughts and feelings and observations
during family holidays, weekend visits, and even, in one case, a wedding. To the
49 families and 156 people who participated in my research, I owe everything.
I am so lucky to have Jill Bialosky at W. W. Norton as an editor who
responds to proposals with imaginative and critical sympathy. Meg Ruley and
Kelly Harms at Jane Rotrossen Agency were outstanding champions of this
project from the outset, and guided me with keen eyes and good humor through
a series of proposals.
My colleagues at Newnham are always ready to engage with my ideas; they
offer valuable ongoing conversations in which I can test the resonance of themes
that emerge in my research. Jenny Mander and Sheila Watts never let me let go
of the subject of in-laws. Susan Golombok, Liba Taub, and Diana Lipton, with
understated persistence, assured me that in-law relationships were worth further
exploration. Their interest and encouragement kept this project in the forefront
of my mind for many years.
Beverly and Alan Freid, with their Web site www.motherinlawstories.com,
brought my work on in-laws to a global audience; they also brought me stories
of people desperate to make sense of these compelling, challenging
relationships. Since 1999, they have shared their fascination in this subject with
me.
Even a brief conversation with Carol Gilligan can reframe entrenched
assumptions, and, as always, I am grateful for her creative, imaginative
engagement with my ideas. Janet Reibstein offered me the benefit of her many
years’ experience as a marital therapist, and guided me through the structures of
common interactions. Jeannette Josse generously set out a psychoanalytic
template that explains common patterns of conflict.

A FINAL note about grammar: Following rules of grammar strictly sometimes
leads to awkward-sounding phrases; in this book, I often follow my ear, rather
than strict rules of grammar, in using the plural and possessive forms of “in-
laws.” Also, I sometimes use the plural “they” in cases that grammatically
require the singular “he” or “she.” And I sometimes use “she” or “he” to
designate “any person” when the matter is more likely to involve women or
men; this is not intended to exclude anyone of either gender from the full range
of experiences. The words I use are chosen for ease and immediacy, and I hope
my choices will be tolerated.
Introduction
WHEN I was first married, as a very young woman, I believed that I was
embarking on a partnership between two people, and only two. As a typical
twentieth-century woman, I imagined that once we called ourselves grown-ups,
we snapped those childhood bonds to parents, and slipped into adult life with
neat, clean boundaries. I had no inkling of the range of influences or the pull of
old bonds that would gradually be exposed—strong, stubborn, and exacting.
Consequently, I lacked foresight of the power that would be wielded by a family
who I initially supposed were mere add-ons to my husband. In short, I failed to
measure the impact my in-laws would have on my marriage, my personal life,
and my well-being.
At the same time, one of the many things I found so attractive in my husband
was his capacity for love, loyalty, and attachment. I admired the spontaneous
decency that bound him to his mother, his father, and his sister. Oblivious to my
inconsistency, my view was skewed by self-interest. I saw his family ties as
indicators of strong future attachments to his own wife and children, but without
force in and of themselves. Not only did I assume that my parents-in-law would
be marginal players in my own life, I expected that whatever impact they had
would decrease further as we established ourselves as a couple, the primary
group of our very own family. Growing up, I thought, meant that the older
generation ceased to matter.
I never expected that my in-laws would shape as many of my day-to-day
thoughts and moods as they in fact have, that they would color my sense of who
I am and what I’m worth in the family, or that their needs would stake such a
large claim on family decisions. In short, like many people embarking on
marriage, I failed to gauge the inescapable power of in-laws.
Now, as a parent facing the transition to motherin-law, I have a very
different view, though this new perspective is perhaps equally skewed by self-