CHAPTER 19

WHEN YOU CAN'T GET ON WITH YOUR RELATIVES — AND IN-LAWS

Here is what I said to a wife who couldn't get on with all her husband's relatives:

I AM afraid that the things you accuse your relatives-in-law of are the very things you are guilty of yourself. In other words, you are evidently jealous and resentful of everything they say and do, and when your husband stands up for them you imagine it is because he doesn't care for you. Can't you realize that in an argument of that kind a man always stands up for the under dog — for the person who is being back-bitten?

Quit saying spiteful things about your husband's relatives and he will stop "flaunting" them in your face. Learn to feel with them and to love them and forget and forgive their faults, and they will certainly reflect to you your treatment of them. You are reaping the harvest of what you have sown.

You have had money and you have lorded it over those two sisters-in-law until the money is all gone. Now they have a little chance to lord it over you, and you take it very ungracefully. If you had always shown the right spirit when you had money you would find them showing the right spirit now. As it is they are giving you back exactly what you gave them.

Of course you can leave your husband if you are determined to do it. It is certain that there are only two courses open to you — either stay there and adjust yourself, forgive, forget and live your best and sweetest to help your husband and those around you; or else go away from them and leave them in peace. I am quite convinced from your letter that you are the disturbing element; that you are the key to the situation. You can either adjust yourself and make the best of your conditions and win the respect and love of your husband and his relatives, or you can shirk the whole matter by leaving. It seems to me that the way of the strong woman would be to stay and adjust herself, eat humble pie gracefully, set herself to be a helpmeet to her husband, and a real friend and companion to his relatives. The strong woman would accomplish this. The weak woman always turns tail and runs when she gets herself into a mix-up which doesn't untangle readily. If you will be truly honest with yourself I think your conscience will tell you to be the strong woman. Of course I cannot be certain of this — nobody can be a righteous judge in this case but the spirit of good within yourself.

I am quite sure it is not because you have been a working girl that your sisters-in-law think you are not their "equal." It is not for what you used to be but for what you are that they look down on you. If they knew me and would write me as frankly as you have, I think they would say that you are a quarrelsome, stiff-necked, hateful old thing, and that you show your quality by being so hateful and jealous and suspicious of them! For they think they are in the right, just as you think you are in the right. They are doing what they consider the best thing under the circumstances.

It seems to me you are trying to do the best thing under the circumstances to uphold your pride. Pride goeth before a fall and it is time for you to fall gracefully, right down to the very bottom. Be the humble servant of those about you, in spirit and in truth — not in mere pretense. When you land at the bottom and begin honestly with yourself and those about you — when you begin trying to express love and kindness — then you will find yourself on the right track.

Resignation and renunciation of self-will are the first steps toward peace. And peace is the foundation of every structure of true prosperity and happiness. You will not find true peace by shirking your responsibilities and your lessons. You will only find yourself by adjusting yourself to conditions and learning from them, and working patiently and lovingly until you have made yourself a center of attraction which can draw to itself the willing kindness and service of others. As it is now you are a repelling power because you are bound to do what you want to do, whether it pleases anybody else or not. You are bound to do what will pamper your pride regardless of other people's feelings or pride or rights.

Oh, of course you don't think so! — but I am sure it is a fact just the same. The reason you don't think so is because you let pride get between you and the true image of yourself.

And here is another letter I wrote to E. F. P., whose mother-in-law didn't please her:

I think your husband and your mother-in-law are right and that it is up to you to adjust yourself to the family conditions and go visit your mother-in-law at times and be just as nice and polite and entertaining to her as if she were somebody else's mother- in-law. If you can't be congenial with her, then at least keep yourself on the footing of friendly acquaintance. You can ignore her shortcomings and put your own best foot forward in all cases. If you have any love whatever for your husband you will be glad to make things as smooth as you can for him. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to a man who tries to live his life between two loggerheading women. If women only realized how perfectly small and contemptible such resentments are, they would cut them out at any cost.

What if your mother-in-law is sarcastic? I haven't a doubt that you have faults that grate on her just as badly as her sarcasm grates on you. And I know that you can both overlook and ignore each other's faults and each of you can be as kind and pleasant as possible when you are together. I know that each of you can look for the good points in the other and magnify them, rejoice in them, and you can minify the unpleasant features. I know that you can be friendly to each other for the sake of the man you both love. I know you can keep yourselves remembering that every human being has his faults which should be overlooked by those about him, and that he has his good points which should be appreciated, praised, and called out by his friends and acquaintances.

It is your duty and privilege in life to magnify God by magnifying the good (which is God in expression) in each human being; and you can train your eyes so that they will be like God's eyes, "Purer than to behold evil" in those about you.

You can quit trying "to make her your friend," and you can simply be a friend to her; without ostentation, without doing anything to express your friendship except when you think she will receive it kindly. I know you can quit being "perfectly miserable" when your mother-in-law does something that displeases you. And I know that above all you can forgive to seven thousand times seven — which means to forget it too — you can do it for your husband's sake if not for your own and your mother- in-law's.

Of course you have tried hard but you have tried to make her over instead of trying to adjust yourself. Now change your tactics. LET her be what she will, and what she is. Adjust yourself, make light of the unpleasant features, be as pleasant and agreeable as possible yourself. Don't go to see your mother-in-law too often. No matter if you loved her she would hate you if you went too often. There is a Bible proverb that says "Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor's house lest thy neighbor hate thee." Don't slop all over anybody. Don't spend too much time visiting anybody. Keep yourself on the footing of a friendly acquaintance, with your mother-in-law and with all other women.

It is your "duty" and your privilege to adjust yourself to these conditions, and to be so good a friend to your mother-in-law whether she likes you or not that you will gain her respect and friendship in time. And you will add to your husband's love immeasurably.

Ask the Spirit to lead you. Be still and know. If your mother-in-law doesn't wish you to voice an opinion in her neighborhood don't do it. Don't cast your opinions before — well — anybody who doesn't want them.

As to the little gifts, she has a right to think them extravagant if she wishes. And you and your husband have a right to indulge in them if you and he wish it. But you are both very foolish to resent her resentment. And you would be just as foolish to forego the things you appreciate simply because she does resent them. If you cannot stand a "hurt," or an "insult," once in a while for the sake of your husband you must be pretty mushy. I know you belie yourself when you say that. You can solve this problem in your life and you can solve it in the one right way that will bring all three of you closer together. Live love, listen to the spirit of love within you.

Here is a letter to A. Y., who couldn't get on with her own relatives:

As to your "rights" in your father's home, after you have been married and away from there for a long, long time, I must say frankly and emphatically that I do not consider that you have any rights in his home.

Your father's home belongs to him and his wife, who is your stepmother. You have no more right there than you have in my home. In other words, you have no "rights" in anybody's home but your own, and you have no welcome in anybody's home except as you bring love and harmony into it.

Judging from your letter, the friction in your father's home when you went to take away your belongings that you had left there for ten years— until you heard your brother was to marry and you suspected he might be given some of them — was wholly and entirely yours. After you left those things with your father for so many years, you should have been glad to let him keep always the things he desired to keep — no matter whether they had been given to you or not! Of course people forget about things like that, and he may easily have forgotten. But he was left in peaceable possession of them for so long that by all legal usage and by the law of love they belonged to him and not to you.

So far as I can discover, your stepmother did not claim any "rights" in your home as a grandmother — she simply came into your home at your request and to show that she bore no grudge, and she tried as well as she knew how to show you that she wanted to be just as good to you and your children as she could be if she were the children's own grandmother. She did not claim the "rights" of a grandmother — a grandmother has no "rights" in her children's home. She has only the privilege of bringing joy to her grandchildren and her children in their home, and whenever she finds that her coming does not bring joy, she should withdraw her foot from their house and trouble it no more until she is asked to come.

To sum it all up, I certainly think you brought your troubles upon yourself by an insistence upon having your way in everything, by being a stickler for exact material justice, by walking in the law of the material mind instead of in the spiritual law of love. Love is always glad to let the other person have his way. And I think that it is up to you to get yourself into harmony with your relatives, by adjusting yourself, and it is up to you to make the first advances and to beg pardon for your sharpness.

If I were in your place I would restore to my father's home everything that he would have liked to keep. Love with its harmony is the greatest thing in the world. Things should weigh nothing in comparison.

And to E. J. B., who doesn't like her daughter-in-law, I said:

You must drop from your mind, so far as possible, all feelings of resentment toward your daughter-in- law, and all thoughts of worry concerning your present and future condition. I realize how very difficult it will be for you to do this. But it is necessary if you are to get out of your present mental condition. When you are harassed by worry you are in no condition to make a right or just decision. Neither are you in any condition to decide as to what your future course should be.

In regard to your relations with your daughter-in- law, it seems to me that you hold the key to the situation. You are much older than she, and you are capable of doing more than anyone else to establish harmonious relations with her. At the very beginning you must put out of your mind all resistance. You can never force her into doing as you wish. You must free her in your own mind and accept her as she is. You must remember that at heart, she is just as anxious to do the right thing as you are.

All of our shortcomings are due to ignorance. The real part of every man and every woman is good. That which seems bad is due simply to ignorance and the limitation of the personal outward self. Hold for your daughter-in-law the thought of her as you wish her to become, not as she seems at the present time to be. Every night when you go to bed relax mentally and physically, deny in your mind all feelings of resentment toward your daughter- in-law, or toward your son, and affirm positively for them those good qualities you desire to see manifest - " You are kind and I love you" etc. Send your best good will to both of them. Do this regardless of any feelings you may have in the matter. Having made your affirmations several times positively, distinctly, drop the thought from your mind entirely and go to sleep. Remember that you are one with the One Life and that this One Life will take care of you.

Ask your own spirit to show you the next step. Get quiet and let the One Life express itself through you. When your mind is occupied with worry thoughts there is no opportunity for you to see "the way out." Get rid of worry and resentment and develop your poise and self-control through this practise of love toward your daughter-in-law and son, and you will then be in a better position to judge as to what the next step ought to be.

HOW TO TRANSMUTE THE FAMILY'S RIDICULE >

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