Difficulty in Hosting the Mother-in-law

Hello and blessings, thank you very much for the opportunity to ask, I am not sure if this is the right address for the question but I have no other place... We have been married, thank God, for over 20 years. I have a good and righteous husband, thank God, his mother did not like me since we met and she criticized me for every step and now she is very old and I take care of and host her on holidays and on Shabbat often despite it being very hard for me, my husband does not appreciate this and even once told me that if I did not do this we could not live together... Now we are before the holidays and it is very hard for me that she will have to be here for a long time, what should I do? Thank you very much and good news.

Hello,

It hurts to read about the difficult struggle. I will try to break down the question and maybe it will be easier to deal with each part separately.

A. You need to appreciate yourself very much, for being able to host her regularly despite the hard feeling she gives you. It is not taken for granted, and it is very important that you pay attention to this, because it gives a lot of strength to continue.

B. It is very worthwhile to analyze with yourself or with a professional, the difficulty with the mother-in-law. Many times in a correct and professional analysis, we manage to capture the picture more accurately, and a lot of the difficulty disappears.

[For example, a woman who discovers that the mother-in-law's criticism is not due to a lack of love, but on the contrary, there are people who express their love, towards those close to them, by trying to 'fix' and 'improve' them. It will not become 'pleasant', but the approach completely changes]

C. Regarding hosting on the upcoming holidays, it probably should not be harder than all those times you managed to overcome and host her. And the difficulty, as it seems from the question, is your husband's attitude to the matter, and the feeling that you are making an effort and he does not appreciate it at all.

D. The real difficulty then, is the marital difficulty. And this is indeed something that is hard for a woman to bear.

Of course, I do not know your husband, but such behavior can stem from two reasons:

A. Halachic mistake. A man who thinks he should host his mother despite his wife suffering from it, needs halachic guidance by a rabbi he appreciates, both of you should come together, you should say what you feel about it, and the rabbi instructs him what to do.

B. Misunderstanding towards you. He may really not understand what you are going through, and what you feel, and therefore he may think that you do not want to respect his mother. If this is the problem, the task is to explain yourself properly. Many times the woman thinks that the husband certainly understands what she is going through and he ignores it. And the truth is that he never understood.

From what it seems to me, the moment you see that he understands the difficulty, and identifies with you. You will not have a problem continuing to host the mother-in-law.

I tried really at the end of the fork, I hope I helped.