Real life Monster in Law

By

The minute I set eyes on her, I felt what can only be described as a poisonous burst of hatred.

Chemistry is instant and I instantly knew that we had none. Worse, that we were so different, so preternaturally unsuited, that it was unlikely we would ever see eye to eye on anything.

But, as I tried to silence an inner voice that was screaming 'get out of this woman's world now!', I idiotically told myself that we did have one crucial thing in common - we both loved her son.

Anna Pasternak says there was a bad chemistry between her and her former mother-in-law from the instant they met

And in my addled naivety, I felt sure that love would conquer any differences between us.

Perhaps, I tried to tell myself, in time, some sort of woolly affection could develop for the thin, icy woman who was to become my mother-in-law.

So yes, I was one of those poor deluded women who brush their immediate dislike for their mother-in-law aside, foolishly convincing themselves that you marry the man, not his mother.

But the two are so entwined that the umbilical affection a man has for his mother, and vice versa, means that a power struggle between the two women in his life is, sadly, often inevitable.

A mother wants to mother her son; a wife wants to mould that son into the man she wants to marry.

And unless you are blessed with the golden union that some of my friends have, where a mother-in-law thinks it's not her son who walks on water but her daughter-in-law, sparks are set to fly.

In my case, 'Mater' won the battle of wills hands down every time.

That's why I was so relieved to read this week that I am not alone; nearly two-thirds of daughters-in-law accuse their husband's mother of 'unreasonably jealous maternal love', according to Dr Terri Apter, a Cambridge psychologist.

Dr Apter reports: 'As they struggle to achieve the same position in the family as primary woman, each tries to establish or protect their status and each feels threatened by the other.'

As the mother of two sons then in their mid-30s, my ex-monster-in-law enjoyed her Queen Bee status as the only woman in the household.