I am often asked if I really enjoy living with my mother-in-law as much as I say I do. It is assumed that she must regularly overstep and I must have a long list of secret complaints. 

To give full context, let me take you back in time to 2017, we were living in Scotland, had just bought our first home, and didn’t yet have any children. I love to have people in our home and during this time I was hosting as many people as possible, as often as possible. I would often become frantic when they were coming to visit because the house had to be in perfect order before they arrived. This created some degree of contention between my husband and I because my husband appreciates a tidy home as much as the next guy, but not at the expense of his wife’s sanity (#relateable, anyone?).

One day, he asked me a question that literally changed my life. It went something like this:

Are you tidying up because you enjoy having a beautiful home? Or are you compelled by guilt and shame? 

There is nothing at all wrong with enjoying beauty and order – these things come from the Lord himself and are wonderful things to pursue. If, however, my messy house was producing guilt and shame and was filling me with anxiety because it was evidence of my failings, there was something disordered inside of me. My husband and I both knew which of these things produced the frantic motivation to tidy our home that day.

Of course, this was very annoying at the time and I didn’t immediately thank him for his invaluable wisdom. I probably shot an irritated glare at him and continued to ensure our home was “guest-ready”. However, throughout the days, weeks and years that followed, I saw evidence that people can be welcomed into a messy home and still have a lovely time. I relaxed (maybe too far) and learned to prioritise a peaceful home over a tidy one and adopted the mantra “people want to feel welcome, not impressed”. 

Throughout my journey into motherhood I have been rediscovering the necessity of order and the joy of beauty in my home, but it has not induced the guilt, shame and anxiety that it once did. In His grace, the Lord has re-ordered my heart towards peace and has established my value as being totally separate from my domestic prowess (or lack thereof). 

This brings me back to my mother-in-law. 

There are lots of things about Carolyn that make her a great mother-in-law to live with, and I’ll share more about those things with you as we get to know each other better. However, I think that our experiences often have more to do with what is inside of us than what is outside of us. The thing that I would be most inclined to struggle with – and indeed sometimes do struggle with – would be my hurt pride. I often have dishes on the counter, food under the dining table and books and pencils EVERYWHERE and Carolyn sees it all. 

Carolyn is retired and often potters about the house, restoring order as she goes. It would be so easy for me to feel like this is a slight on my ability to keep house, a show of how I haven’t trained the children to pick up after themselves well-enough, or simply a shame that my mother-in-law has to pick up my slack when she has raised her own kids, worked hard and earned her rest. Despite her encouragement, these are all things that have crossed my mind. 

The truth is, Carolyn loves to serve us in this way, and it is an enormous help to me. She says that it adds substance to her day and her preference is to create space for me to spend more time enjoying my children, rather than helping by watching the children while I tidy. This is one of the many joys of intergenerational living. Carolyn remembers the struggle and is happy to help alleviate it for me. 

I know that not all in-law relationships are the same (and that I’ve hit the jackpot) but I do think there is something in this. 

What if we got candid with them and shared the tricky parts of our day. What if we let them see our mess? 

What if we invited their help around the house? What if we asked for their suggestions and ideas about how we might manage things differently? Humility changes the way people relate to one another and pride divides us.

Have you tried this? What are your in-law relationships like? I’d love to hear from you!