Our relationship with our partner’s parents holds the potential for mutual respect, joy, and even love. In theory, people gain a whole new family and a wider support network. Most don’t expect to end up resenting their mother- or father-in-law. A 2012 study from Purdue University in the U.S. found that most couples marry expecting positive bonds.
Yet a strong mix of patriarchal traditions, media stereotypes, and pop culture promotes the idea that these relationships are at best tense and at worst toxic—especially for women.
No Rulebook: The Mother-in-Law and Daughter-in-Law Dynamic
One reason these relationships can be tricky is that there’s no clear rulebook. How close should couples live to their in-laws? How often should they meet? What responsibilities do they share in each other’s lives? It’s all pretty unclear.
Gretchen Perry, professor at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury and co-author of In-Law Relationships in Evolutionary Perspective: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, shared her insights. She pointed out that expectations vary widely. While people might have conflicts with their own families, she says, “they’re more likely to agree and share common interests,” whereas with in-laws, “there’s less overlap in shared concerns.”
Why Tensions Flare Between Women
The historical roots of heterosexual family structures partly explain the tension between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. This background lays the foundation for the classic “interfering mother-in-law” stereotype. In some patrilineal societies, parents choose who their child marries, and after marriage, the daughter-in-law moves in with her husband’s family.
As the household’s leading woman, the mother controls the domestic sphere and holds higher social status and decision-making power over the daughter-in-law. “This creates an uncertain environment because the new wife is separated from her birth family and those who might protect her better,” Perry explains. “Depending on the circumstances, it can be a difficult, controlling setting with lots of conflict.” Experts say this partly fuels the ever-present trope of the meddling mother-in-law.
Today, this lifestyle is much less common. Still, statistics support the belief that women are more likely to clash with their mothers-in-law than men are with their fathers-in-law.
One factor deepening tensions between women is child-rearing, which disproportionately impacts women and can intensify existing conflicts.
A Finnish study found that parents were more likely than childless couples to report conflicts with their own parents—and also more likely to report individual conflicts with their mothers- and fathers-in-law. Many young adults noticed that conflicts with their mothers-in-law increased after their first child was born. They felt that the shared interest in grandchildren gave grandparents a new reason to “influence and interfere in the lives of other family members.”
