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The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.
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After many years of marriage, one woman had grown to dislike her mother-in-law because of how she had treated her husband and herself. Living a long way from them, they had only visited each other a handful of times in many years, and there was not a lot of consistent contact between mother and son.
However, with her 70th birthday approaching, the mom hoped that her son and his wife would come to visit her for the milestone. The younger woman was not happy with the idea, but she was wondering if it would be too harsh to simply refuse to visit her husband's mom.
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Would I be wrong for refusing to visit my MIL, who moved thousands of miles away?
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The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.
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The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.
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While some people felt she was within her rights to refuse, others thought that there was more to the situation.
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38-year-old resists mother-in-law's demand that she and her husband travel 1500 miles to visit her on her 70th birthday: 'She basically abandoned my husband'
The adult parent-child relationship is often a complex one. At its core, it is the result of all the things that the parent did or didn't do while their kid was growing up, as well as the child making more realizations about their parental figure as they grow more mature. It is no secret that this can be a painful process, and in the worst-case scenarios, can result in kids going no contact.
As if that wasn't enough, having a partner and acknowledging their feelings about a parent makes the whole thing even more complicated. Even if you can cope with your parents' idiosyncratic behaviors, it doesn't mean that your spouse can. There are a lot of factors at play in making the whole thing work in a way that gives the best outcome for everybody, and the equilibrium can be easily upset. Ultimately, though, when you are part of a couple, your decisions in that relationship often take precedence over the feelings of a parent.
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