Give the Gift of Collaboration

As I watch friends plan and attend holiday parties and also participate in holiday festivities myself - I observe there is the pressure of enjoying the holidays, in combination with spending time with people we don't get along with during the year. I have devoted the last couple of months to the in-law relationships, hoping additional insights into familial interactions, will help people enjoy spending time with family members that often spend time in conflict with each other.
Raised by a woman without a Mother and not having a traditional school experience with other females, learning to get along with female in-laws represents a unique challenge for me. Rejection, criticism and marginalization were all experienced in the "world." At home, the expectation was that of inclusion, and finding ways to get along with others. The vulnerability that came from relationships with women, because they are important to the men in your life, can emotionally bring a person to her knees over and over again, because they don't follow the same rules I grew up with. This is a forced vulnerability because they have access to all your weaknesses, struggles, and pain, without the choice of choosing the relationship with them (the important man in your life brought the relationships together). No wonder conflict can ensue.

What do you want from me? By Terri Apter provides incredible insight, case studies, and research into in-law relationships. Primarily focusing on the main areas of conflict - the Mother/daughter-in-law relationship. My favorite quote describes the way that the forced vulnerability of the in-law relationship could be used to their relationships advantage. "Each person could win if the relationships became collaborative, if each, instead of confronting each other, would celebrate and reassure each other." Terri Apter.

It spurred on so much thought into how inflexibility causes destruction to relationships.  I have seen and experienced within in-law relationships, that it becomes an experience of learning to live, relate and plan without the other, whether it is mother/daughter/sister-in-law. That is a dangerous precedent to set - because the other person will learn to live, relate, and plan, without you. Negotiation, respect, and appreciation for the role each woman has in the family is important. Real inclusion as defined by Terri Apter "Involves acceptance of who you are and respect for your thoughts in wishes." It is my hope that this may be experienced this Holiday Season, as this reassurance recognizes each woman as the primary woman, in her primary family, and allows for the diversity of each family to enlarge and bless the entire family.

Merry Christmas!! And Happy New Year!!