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It's Either Her or Me: A Guide to Help a Mom and Her Daughter-in-Law Get Along, by Ellie Slott Fisher
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THERE’S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT—YOU’RE NOT LOSING A SON AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE GAINING A RIVAL.
For a mother who’s accustomed to having been number one in her son’s life, the arrival of a girlfriend, fiancée, or wife can be a complicated, confusing, and emotionally challenging event. Likewise, coexisting harmoniously with the mother of her partner can be an overwhelming challenge for any woman. Sons, often caught in the middle, are sometimes understandably reluctant to take sides.
In It’s Either Her or Me, relationship expert Ellie Slott Fisher examines the complex dynamics of these potentially fraught relationships and how they can be made rich in rewards for all parties. As a wife and the mother of a grown son, Fisher has been on both ends of the spectrum. She recounts her own experiences and those of the mothers, sons, girlfriends, fiancées, wives, and even sisters she interviewed. With the help of psychologist Dr. Beatrice Lazaroff and licensed professional counselor Esther Ganz, Fisher offers practical solutions to help women on both sides cope—and thrive—in this most sensitive of relationships. Discover how to
• gauge when it’s time to voice an opinion—and when it’s best to bite your tongue
• reach out to the woman in your son’s life without being overbearing
• handle the partner or mother-in-law who’s truly impossible
• show respect to your partner’s mother
• ensure that your partner’s mother respects your boundaries
• deal with jealous sisters and other difficult family members
• and much more
Also including welcome advice on what he can discuss with either woman, It’s Either Her or Me is an invaluable resource for women and the men they love.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
- Sales Rank: #975845 in eBooks
- Published on: 2010-03-18
- Released on: 2010-03-23
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
“Ellie Slott Fisher tackles the trickiest of all family relationships with wisdom, wit, and laughter. It's Either Her or Me: A Guide to Help a Mom and Her Daughter-in-Law Get Along offers the practical step-by-step advice both women need to tackle the challenges each must face to forge respectful and affectionate family ties. This book is a must read for mothers with sons of any age, wives/girlfriends, sisters, and the men themselves. —Leah Klungness, Ph.D., psychologist, co-author of The Complete Single Mother and co-founder of Singlemommyhood.com
“This book deals with a topic that is generally given very little attention and yet has enormous significance for the relationships between families and the way people interact. Ellie Fisher has drawn from a wide experience to deal with countless issues and countless contacts. This should be most enjoyable and insightful reading to all of us who deal with the challenges of making life work – particularly when it involves the developing of new and yet quickly important relationships.” —Herbert Pardes, M.D., CEO, New York-Presbyterian Hospital
“An engaging, insightful and psychologically astute take on the triangle between the woman who raised him and the woman who bed and wed him."—Susan Shapiro, author of Five Men Who Broke My Heart and Secrets of a Fix-Up Fanatic
From the Trade Paperback edition.
About the Author
Ellie Slott Fisher is the author of the critically acclaimed Mom, There’s a Man in the Kitchen and He’s Wearing Your Robe. A veteran journalist, Fisher has written for numerous magazines as well as the anthology Single Woman of a Certain Age. A dating mom herself, she lives in Yardley, Pennsylvania, and has two children.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
Moms and GirlfriendsVie for First
For most moms, it comes about quite unexpectedly. All of a sudden the little boy who refused to part with his well-worn Toy Story pajamas, despite the fact that Buzz Lightyear’s face had faded to obscurity, is wearing aftershave. And he doesn’t even shave. That child who shrieked “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” when you returned home from work now grunts “Uh- huh” and “Nah” in response to your questions. Yet you overhear him speaking animatedly and loquaciously to someone on his cell phone.
This new, redesigned little boy has moments of unexplained extreme pleasantness, offering to take out the trash before you even ask. (Don’t get too excited; these moments are fleeting.) You attribute these changes to his entering puberty with its typical hormonal shifts and turns. While this certainly is true, what’s also happening is that your son has embarked on a journey to find a new—and different—love of his life.
Oh sure, you’ll still get the requests for money (you may actually recall with fondness his five-dollar allowance) or for help, but that pedestal you’ve been on for the past fourteen years or so is starting to crack. Now that your son has discovered girls—not just in a stealing-their-lunch-on-the-school-bus way, but as potential intimates— your relationship with him will change.
Meanwhile, as the girlfriend, you hadn’t considered how his mother could affect your relationship. You’ve fallen for a guy who may act one way when he’s with you, and another way—not all that pleasingly— when he is with his mom. You’ll find yourself treading carefully around this woman, knowing that regardless of what happens between you and your boyfriend, she will always love him.
It is rare that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almost always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.
—Alexandre Dumas
Who’s on First?
A natural order follows the birth of a son. A mother smiles knowingly when his first word is Dada and not Mama, because, as everyone knows, it’s an easier word to form. She directs the barber to cut his hair so he’ll mimic an adorable GapKids model when she dresses him for Easter. She arranges his plans for the summer, artfully working them around the family vacation. She anxiously gets him ready for his first school dance, straightens his tie, and takes a picture.
And then she moves over.
As difficult as it is for a mom to step off first base, in order for her to raise an emotionally healthy son who will enter an emotionally healthy adult relationship, she has to be willing to hit a sacrifice fly.
Most moms understand this, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
Hope, whose married son recently became a parent, says that as much as she has been reluctant to share her only child with another woman, whom she likes, she recognizes that in order to keep her son in her life, she has to allow his wife to take her place. “If you’re going to fight that, you’re going to cause friction,” Hope says. “I’d never want to do that.”
Caroline, another mom with a married son, believes she has been replaced by her new daughter-in-law. “He would talk to me, rather than her, before he got engaged. I do feel replaced,” she says, adding with a little resignation, “but I should be. That doesn’t bother me.”
Family counselor Esther Ganz applauds the way these two moms handle their relationships with their adult sons. As much as a mom might want to maintain some control over her son, and maybe even his significant other, she really only has control over her own feelings. “I would work on myself. It’s not the girlfriend’s problem. It’s mine,” Ganz suggests.
For you moms, this may require taking stock of your own life. Has it become too centered on your kids, and not on yourself? Did you give up a career or hobby or other passion once you became a mom? Have you been living vicariously through your kids so that you fear feeling lost when they no longer need you? (A cautionary note to mothers of younger sons: They always will need you, especially when you’re ready to retire, play golf, and focus on yourself.) As mothers, you chart your children’s development along with your own aging, so the more independent they become, the more ancient you feel. Yet you are really never too old to add a new dimension to your life. You can still get a new job, develop a hobby, go back to school, take a cooking class, learn yoga, travel with your husband or friends. You can make yourself whole. The interesting consequence to all of this is that your sons will be so proud of you—and not feel smothered by your myopic attention to them—that they may even initiate an occasional phone call.
I used to play tennis with a very wise mother of two boys who were a few years older than my kids. When I told her how sad it made me to think of my first child going off to college, especially since I projected a lonely future as a single mom, she reminded me about the universal goal of mothers. That goal is to raise children to be independent, financially and emotionally, so they can develop their own productive lives. It’s why you gave them piano lessons, made them go to Sunday school, and insisted they brush their teeth. And those lives should, in the best of circumstances, include falling in love with your replacement.
Amy gets this. She has a thirty-year-old son who just got married. As close as she has always been with him, she claims she doesn’t feel less important now that he has a wife. “I really don’t. I feel that this is our goal as parents to see our kids become independent, find a loving spouse, replicate what our parents had.” She adds, laughing, “I think my husband feels he’s being replaced more than I do. When our son got married, my husband acted so depressed, like we were sending him to the gallows rather than to a wife!” Her husband insists, of course, that he has no personal take on this.
You should emulate these three women by being content to move over and give your son’s new flame your space, as in a chess game—a kind of queen for a queen, where, if you refuse to budge, you’ll end up in a stalemate. I know you understand all of this without my telling you. But deep down inside, it’s okay to feel a little saddened by this change.
When the boy’s mom readies herself to relinquish her first-place position to the girlfriend, if you are that girlfriend, you have your own set of responsibilities. Coming first in a guy’s life comes with a price. Dethroning this other woman (indulge me as I continue the queen metaphor) doesn’t mean you get to relegate the Queen Mother to the servants’ quarters. No one will tolerate that. And you’ll be unfairly viewed as the wicked, heartless daughter-in-law whose husband, by the way, will probably continue speaking to his mother behind your back. Since first place is yours for the taking, try to be magnanimous to the woman you bested. Hopefully, you’ll even grow to like her.
Twenty-six-year-old Kelly is trying. Even though she doesn’t particularly like her boyfriend’s mom, she genuinely feels sorry for her, believing her insecure behavior is in some way the result of her son’s own insensitivity. Kelly’s boyfriend frequently gets so caught up in his activities that he forgets to call his mom. Because Kelly speaks to her own mother every day, she understands how lonely her boyfriend’s mom must feel. Purely out of a sense of obligation—and not out of fondness—she encourages him to call his mother.
As a girlfriend or wife, your being considerate of his mom—giving your regards when her son calls her, offering to let her sit in the front seat of the car with her son (she should refuse but will appreciate that you asked), thanking her when she gives you that perfume that smells a little like Bubblicious—may not only improve your relationship with her but also stabilize her relationship with her son, which will, consequently, effectively strengthen your relationship with him.
And as the boy’s mom, you should recognize how difficult it is for the wife or girlfriend to fit in with your family. She tries to be on her best behavior but she feels ill at ease with your daughter, who acts possessively toward her brother, and with your sister, Aunt Jean, who relishes every opportunity to criticize, and with your elderly father, who resents her different religion. Just like the girlfriend, you, too, should offer to take the backseat—figuratively and literally.
One more word on the subject of gifts. My mother-in-law looked forward to giving me an Estée Lauder gift box every Christmas. I loved the gift the first year, but then by the seventh or eighth Christmas I had stockpiled so much makeup, I could have worn a different shade of lipstick every single day. I never had the heart to tell her I no longer wanted it. She also used to fill her candy dish with pastel- colored mint candies. Being polite, I once told her I liked them. I didn’t, but they turned up enclosed with my birthday present and Christmas present every year that followed. Today, four years after my mother-in-law has passed away, I’ve actually run out of makeup, and I’ve found myself searching store after store for those tasteless mints.
There will certainly be times that, despite the efforts of the mom and the girlfriend, the guy will do something to hamper their relationship, sometimes unintentionally. Jill, the mother of a twenty- four-year-old son, says her son’s girlfriend expects to be with him constantly. But when he needed to buy a suit for a job interview, he asked his mom, rather than his girlfrie...
Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Amazing and insightful read into improving your relationship with his family.
By Kim T.
Where was this book ten years ago? I have been dating my boyfriend for nearly 11 years and have always wondered about how I could improve my relationship with his family and vice versa. I will readily admit I have harbored concerns and fears about whether or not I was doing enough or involved enough, and Ellie Fisher's book offers advice and insight that should be seen as common sense for anyone entering a new relationship or looking to improve a current relationship.
Coming from a family of all girls, It's Either Her or Me offers critical insight into what the mothers of sons are thinking when a new woman enters his life. For all the stress and pressure we girlfriends put on ourselves, it was reassuring to learn that this internal struggle is also shared from the mother's perspective. They too need to navigate the fine line between wanting to protect their sons and welcome this new woman in his life. As Fisher points out, rather than walking on eggshells around one another, it is critical that their is communication and respect from both parties. I have learned both his mother and my mother from their difficult experiences with their respective mother-in-laws, whether it was not speaking to one another for years, or learning quickly that your way would always be wrong, that to overcome these issues takes time, effort, communication, and most importantly respect.
While I am still navigating my own relationship road, and before the ring is on the finger, I thought it was important to take the time and effort myself to learn what I could or should be doing differently. Some of Fisher's pointers I have tried - using the man as the proxy, biting my tongue, respecting his time with his family, among others - but some tips were so obvious I was ashamed I had never thought of them. Why haven't I thought to ask her out one-on-one to a movie or dinner? Why don't I call or email more frequently? Rest assured that these questions are helpful reminders of areas of improvement!
More importantly, Fisher's book offers helpful advice on the wedding planning process. I have witnessed enough friend's wedding preparations to know that fun and stress will go hand-in-hand. Learning to pick my priorities, and remembering to keep both families involved in the process is important and I know it will go a long way towards ensuring our future is just as bright as our past.
It's Either Her or Me is a book I should have had on my bookshelf long ago. Not only will I be leaving this spring read on my boyfriend's nightstand, but I know that It's Either Her or Me will be a wonderful (and helpful) wedding shower/bachelorette gift.
For full disclosure, I received a copy of It's Either Her or Me from Random House in order to craft my review.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
So so
By Lily
This book was not as good as another one I read on the same subject. If the scenario presented doesn't affect you then I just skip those parts and there were many. Such as ethnic marriages,or when one person has kids already etc. What I would like to see more of is the dilemma of the actual two sets of parents. What do you so with the feelings of intense jealously and competition? Especially when grandchildren come On the scene. Thank goodness I have one daughter because I think it's much better to be the mom of the girl,the advantages are tremendous especially if you and your dtr are close. I do not like being the other of the boy,from the wedding to the amount of time the couple spends with her family as opposed to yours,you must take a backseat and I don't like that. Books acknowledge this but I get the impression us On my way! Of boys have to shut up,Bizet the bullet or risk losing our sons. I am not jealous of my dtr in law,I know she must come first in my sons life for it to be .a healthy marriage but I hate that her family is always in the know before ours just that being the very nature of girls talking more then boys and girls stay closer to the family. I have always said and my friends laugh,best case scenario is if your kid marries an orphan. I'm sure most people feel this way and just don't talk about it.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Great information for any mother of sons or daughters
By LGW
As a mother of two sons...this will be my guide for continuing a great relationship with my children and their future spouses or partners. I really appreciated the summation at the end of each chapter. This will give me easily available information at any time without having to skim through the chapters. I found the book to be an easy read filled with great information....LGW
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