{"id":20122,"date":"2025-01-16T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T10:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20122"},"modified":"2025-01-16T10:24:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T10:24:27","slug":"moms-gripes-about-sister-in-law-put-daughter-in-a-bind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20122","title":{"rendered":"Mom\u2019s Gripes About Sister-in-Law Put Daughter in a Bind"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Well\u2019s new Ask the Therapist columnist, Lori Gottlieb, helps a reader who is sick of being her mother\u2019s dumping ground.<\/p>\n

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My mother is hypercritical of my brother\u2019s wife, to the point that she blames my sister-in-law for my brother\u2019s \u201cfailings\u201d (not getting a better job, not taking better care of his health, etc.). It has gotten worse now that there are grandchildren. My mother constantly criticizes how my sister-in-law is raising the kids, who are lovely and adore their grandparents.<\/em><\/p>\n

Although my mother will occasionally raise criticisms with my sister-in-law and brother, I am mostly her audience.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have a great relationship with my sister-in-law, and when my mother goes off on one of her rants, I defend her. I tell my mother how lucky she is to have such wonderful grandchildren, and point out that my brother is an adult who makes his own decisions. This just leads to an argument between my mother and me.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I finally told my mother how much it hurts me to hear her say these things about my sister-in-law, she said that she needed to air her frustrations with someone. I want to be there for my mother, but I don\u2019t like being put in this position. How do I navigate this?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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From the Therapist:<\/strong> The short answer to your question is that you can navigate this by no longer engaging in these conversations. But I imagine you already know this. What you might be less aware of is that you aren\u2019t being \u201cput in this position\u201d of supportive daughter, protective sister-in-law and unwilling confidante. You\u2019ve chosen it, and it\u2019s worth examining why you\u2019ve signed up for a job you don\u2019t want \u2014 and what makes it hard to resign.<\/p>\n

Usually when we find ourselves repeatedly engaging in uncomfortable family patterns, it\u2019s because they echo familiar roles from our childhood. It sounds as if you\u2019re struggling with enmeshment, a relationship pattern in which boundaries between family members become blurred or are nonexistent.<\/p>\n

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Well\u2019s new Ask the Therapist columnist, Lori Gottlieb, helps a reader who is sick of being her mother\u2019s dumping ground.My mother is hypercritical of my brother\u2019s wife, to the point that she blames my sister-in-law for my brother\u2019s \u201cfailings\u201d (not getting a better job, not taking better care of his health, etc.). It has gotten worse now that there are grandchildren. My mother constantly criticizes how my sister-in-law is raising the kids, who are lovely and adore their grandparents.Although my mother will occasionally raise criticisms with my sister-in-law and brother, I am mostly her audience.I have a great relationship with my sister-in-law, and when my mother goes off on one of her rants, I defend her. I tell my mother how lucky she is to have such wonderful grandchildren, and point out that my brother is an adult who makes his own decisions. This just leads to an argument between my mother and me.When I finally told my mother how much it hurts me to hear her say these things about my sister-in-law, she said that she needed to air her frustrations with someone. I want to be there for my mother, but I don\u2019t like being put in this position. How do I navigate this?From the Therapist: The short answer to your question is that you can navigate this by no longer engaging in these conversations. But I imagine you already know this. What you might be less aware of is that you aren\u2019t being \u201cput in this position\u201d of supportive daughter, protective sister-in-law and unwilling confidante. You\u2019ve chosen it, and it\u2019s worth examining why you\u2019ve signed up for a job you don\u2019t want \u2014 and what makes it hard to resign.Usually when we find ourselves repeatedly engaging in uncomfortable family patterns, it\u2019s because they echo familiar roles from our childhood. It sounds as if you\u2019re struggling with enmeshment, a relationship pattern in which boundaries between family members become blurred or are nonexistent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20124,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20122"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20125,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20122\/revisions\/20125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}