Note: This was published in the monthly ask-the-therapist column of Jewish Echo Magazine

Dear Mindy

Thank you for your wonderful and insightful columns. My question is as follows. I don't get along with my mother in law and would prefer to not speak with her unless I must I.e. at a simcha.(I guess the easiest way to describe it is - I'm from Mars and she is from Venus )  I do also understand that she is the grandmother of my children and my husband’s mother and should have a relationship with them. How do I make this work when I don't want to visit her with the children and can't leave them with her alone as she is getting older and can't deal with several small children on her own without me being there  

Thank you 
Daughter in law 
Mars

Dear Daughter-in-law,

Within the past five years I have become a mother-in-law and a grandmother a few times over. The experience has been humbling, to say the least. And if Hashem is good to you, eventually you will become a mother-in-law too.

You don’t give much information as to why you don’t want to have anything to do with your mother-in-law except that she is from Venus, and appears to be elderly.

I will confess that until recently, I thought I not only raised perfect kids, but I also knew I raised such great ones because I was a great mother. And then my children married these perfect strangers who are quite wonderful people. (They must be because they became my children’s spouses!) And suddenly, I realized the terrible truth: everything I modeled for twenty years has impacted my children. So that’s great for the eighty percent of good mothering I did; but the twenty percent that was not me at my best has come back to haunt me. With a vengeance.

So here’s the terrible truth you will need to accept: someday, not only will you become someone’s mother-in-law, but you will also one day be the elderly one. And possibly, some daughter-in-law will avoid you, too.

Unless your mother-in-law is deliberately hurtful to you in some way, undermining, nasty, malicious, selfish, and cruelly thoughtless, then for the sake of your own mother-in-law hood, you may want to invest in your present mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship. Similarly in how you put away money today for your retirement, even though you can’t imagine ever retiring; you need to put away an even greater investment that involves your relationship with your children.

If you want to know what your relationship with your children and daughters-in-law have to do with your relationship with your mother-in-law, the answer is very simple.

A person who has the capacity to cultivate family relationships even under duress and even under unpleasant situations not only uses that skill and talent for her whole life, but also draws into her sphere of influence like-minded people.

So, if you are able to become that person who can create a relationship with your mother-in-law, because she is family, because it is important—as you yourself admit—then this skill will enable you to remain connected to your children as they grow older and present new challenges, and develop those same positive connections with their spouses and children, despite the inherent challenges.

Even more, a person with these values will automatically connect with others of similar values.

I realize you are not in the shidduchim parshah, but what I have noticed in both my personal and professional life is fascinating to observel. Our values shape how we listen to shidduchim. So that is why the intelligence of a future daughter-in-law plays a crucial role in what determines one person’s interest in a shidduch; while for another, the number one deciding factor descriptions of a boy’s kindness over academic abilities.

When people sneer at others who exhibit a preference for what they perceive as inferior quality sons-in-law whose lack is compensated by wealth, accusing those of “selling” their children for money; I view it quite differently. If a child grows up in a house that values money beyond intelligence or kindness, then that is the value he has imbibed as well; thus, wealth will be more important than other factors in his marriage.

If you value familial relationships, and have positive relationships with all family members, then without realizing it, when you marry off your children, you will be drawn to like values in other families, gifting your children with in-laws who are skilled in relationships, treating your child as one of their own. Otherwise, going along the path you are now, your daughter may one day be burdened with a mother-in-law with whom she cannot form a relationship; or create a situation in which she cuts off a relationship, depriving herself of the benefits of another loving woman, the grandmother of her children.

Wouldn’t you think that if you married your husband, it is to your mother-in-law’s credit in some great measure that he is the person you love?

So let’s talk tachlis.

How do you overcome the space and light years between Mars and Venus, between young and elderly?

Here are some suggestions you may want to try.

Sit down a make a list of all the reasons you will benefit directly and indirectly from a good relationship with your mother-in-law (improved relationship with your husband, gifts, extra soup in the freezer, potential good relationship with your own future daughter-in-law, gifting your daughter with a good relationship with her grandmother, and eventually with her own mother-in-law, a more cushier seat in Olam Habah…). Finished? Okay.

Now that you are sufficiently motivated to have a relationships, make a list of all the things that create barriers and distance between your and your mother-in-law. Did you make that list? Good.

Choose one thing on that list that you can change.

For example, perhaps your mother-in-law is a boring conversationalist and only talks about her knitting. Is it possible for you to ask her to teach you knitting? Ask her to teach your daughter to knit? Can you read up on knitting and share some interesting things you have learned? Can you wear the sweater she knitted for you even if it itches? Find ways to involve her in chessed activities involving knitting; for example, to knit a gartel for a poor Chassidic boy who is becoming bar-mitzvah? Or a carriage blanket for newborn twins whose parents are short with money? Can you choose the wool with her? Take an interest in the project? Go out with her for coffee to schmooze about it?

She can’t be that boring if she raised your husband (unless he is boring, too?).

More often than not, when a person puts away their prejudices against another person, and engages in a conversation with the intent to form a relationship, the other person actually becomes interesting to listen to. Criticisms and complaints, awkward silences and forced conversation, take a back seat to the relationship.

I’m sure you remember those old ladies you visited in the nursing home back in your high school days, and how you couldn’t understand why these people’s children didn’t come visit them, when you had so much to talk to them about, and they had such interesting stories to tell.

Perspective. Perspective. Perspective.

It is very easy to be the arrogant Martian when the awkward Venusian comes to visit and are most certainly not on their home turf—as often the mothers-in-law and elderly are not. It is worth to be hospitable, so that when it is your turn to live on some alien planet peopled by these strange daughter-in-law creatures whose only redeeming traits are these fantastical little grandchildren they create, you will feel right at home, almost like family!

My book, Therapy, Shmerapy, can be found in bookstores or online