I HAVE been dating my fiancé for a year and a half, and our relationship is close to perfect. However, his mother is a huge issue. Ever since the first day I met her, she seemed opinionated and judgmental. My fiancé seems to think she isn’t. We are doing everything possible to save money, work hard and provide a great life for us and our future children. But she doesn’t see that. When she told me we needed to start saving, I told her we save every dime we make. Then she put her hand in my face and said, “I know that, but you need to start saving early.”

She makes herself out to be a saint who has the right answers to everything. I have a great family that would support me throughout anything, but because I come from a broken home, she once told me, “You aren’t used to normalcy.”

Recently, my fiancé’s brother got a very underage girl pregnant, and, of course, his mother thinks this girl is perfect, and is excited for her grandchild to be born. I mean, what the heck! She doesn’t think I am good enough for her son!

It hurts my fiancé when I tell him how I feel about his mother, but I don’t know who else I should vent to. He thinks I should sit down and talk with her. I feel he should be the one to stand up and say something first, and if it continues, I will sit down with her.

When I am around her, I don’t disrespect her. I answer her questions but don’t make conversation because she finds a way to nitpick what I say and turn it into something else. I’m at the point where my blood pressure goes up just thinking about her.

My fiancé and I got into a fight about her yesterday, and he got upset and said he didn’t know if I loved him or not because of how I feel about his mother. That’s far from the truth. I love him with all my heart, and everyone else in his family is great. It’s just her.

Liz,
What if we stripped the humanity out of your letter and pretended your letter is about chimpanzees. What would we see? An old matriarch struggling to maintain her superior position. This matriarch wants to call the shots in the family group.

That’s why she eagerly embraces a young pregnant female, because an underage girl is easily controlled. But a mature female, one with wherewithal and the foresight to save bananas for a rainy day, is a threat. The old matriarch knows this female may be beyond her control.

That’s the most base way of looking at this. It is not, however, the way your fiancé looks at it. For him, his mother defines the mother role. He has been raised by her, she’s acted this way all his life, and he doesn’t notice what she is doing.

When she talks about your “broken home,” we see a woman trying to knock you down a peg. And when she put her hand in your face, well, we’ve seen the same gesture in zoos.

Mother-in-law letters always come down to one thing: Will the man stand up for his wife or not? If he will, the marriage can be strong. If he won’t, the question is how much the wife will put up with before she pulls the plug.

The alarming element in your case is your fiancé sees himself and his mother as a unit. He doesn’t align himself with you, but with her.

He must let her know her relationship with him depends on respecting his choice of a wife. If you sit down with her, it won’t change anything. She is impervious to your influence. Only her son has the power to cage her.