Honoring a mother-in-law

​Q: What kind of honor can you give to a mother-in-law who interferes?

A: This is a very big question: What to do with a mother-in-law.  The answer is (it’s not the full answer, but it’s an important answer), what would you do ifyou were a mother-in-law? And probably it wouldn’t be much different.

---

If you get along with your mother-in-law you are going to get a tremendous reward

ou have to consider the mother-in-law as possessing certain rights, certain privileges, and you have to suffer from her.  That’s part of the job of living in this world, and if you’ll get along with your mother-in-law in this world, you have to know you are going to get a tremendous reward.  That’s part of a marriage and that’s a process of smoothing out your character...
​
Lots of mothers-in-law are not at peace with themselves.  That’s an important subject: to learn how to live with yourself, to be happy.  Not to be dissatisfied, not to look for faults in life. People who have acquired a happy attitude are going to get along with others much more readily than dissatisfied and complaining people.  

More than that I will not say but to a certain extent that is a guideline.  Learn to be happy.  Learn to be pleased with everybody and then you’ll see that your mother-in-law is not such a threatening figure as you imagined.  — Under Good Infuence (#332)