I want to tell you about my wonderful, gracious mother-in-law. She was my mother-in-law for 42 years, until her death 3 weeks short of her 99th birthday.
After a couple of decades of hearing you take calls from women whose husbands would not support them against their mothers, it occurred to me I literally do not know whether my husband would support me or not. I don't know because my mother-in-law never ever put her son in a position where he had to choose.
The Christmas after we were married, his mother knit sweaters for her two daughters and me, the same style in different colors. The next Christmas she knit sweaters for her son and her son-in-law. Even as an insecure twit, I recognized the gesture as a sign she considered her children-in-law as her children.
In the early years, any time she caught herself making a remark in conversation that might be construed as a suggestion like, "Isn't that blue a pretty color?", she would quickly add, "But of course, you should do exactly as you please." When she and I were out and about and we ran into someone I knew, I never introduced her as my mother-in-law. I always introduced her as my husband's mother, because she did not deserve the connotations of "mother-in-law".
Beth
