Welcome to the first episode of my Mother-in-Law Series. In preparation, I interviewed women in their mid 20s to early 30s about their mothers-in-law, and one of them said something profound: joining a new family is like moving to another country. You don't know the customs or the language. So we (as the mothers-in-law) get to decide, will I be a friendly local or border control?

In this 5 episode series, we're starting with weddings, because that's often where this relationship begins, and where hurt feelings can begin too. I share my own wedding regret: I tried so hard not to burden my mom that she ended up feeling left out, and it took us years to talk about it.

In this episode:

• Why there's pain on both sides of wedding planning, and why it's usually a communication gap, not a character flaw
• Taking care of your own emotional needs first so you're not easily derailed
• A client's mid-wedding turnaround, and the question that changed her day: who do I want to be in this relationship?
• You're not the first family anymore. If you want to work on a marriage, work on the one you're in.
• Grace from every angle, including for the bride whose brain isn't fully done cooking yet
• Every wedding is different: ask, then believe the answers

If a past wedding still stings, stick with me. Episode 5 of this series is for you.

Free Resources: Visit www.brookeoniki.com and click "Free Resources" for short videos on how to stop spiraling thoughts, how to reconnect after a hard interaction with your child, and how to calm an elevated nervous system.

A new Bridges group just started! Learn more about group coaching, or book a consult call to explore private coaching, at www.brookeoniki.com . Click the "Work with Me" tab!

Welcome to Midlife with Brooke.

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I am your host, Brooke Oniki.

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I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ,

a wife, mother, grandma,

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and a certified life coach.

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On this podcast, we talk about all things

mothering, health and emotional wellbeing.

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I share practical tools and

examples from my life and from the

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lives of my clients to help you

navigate this new season of midlife.

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It can feel tricky and confusing and

a little bit out of our comfort zone

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as our children grow up and they

don't really need us in the same way.

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These concepts and principles have changed

my life and I've watched them change

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the lives of my clients, and I hope that

they can be helpful if there are things

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that you wanna change in your life.

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So let's get started.

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Speaker 2: Hello.

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Welcome to the podcast.

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Today is the beginning of a series

of five podcasts about being a

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daughter-in-law or being a mother-in-law.

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Most of you that listen are probably

more in the camp of being a mother-in-law

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and trying to learn how to do that well.

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Some of you are a daughter-in-law

and trying to do that well, or

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you've been a daughter-in-law for

30 years and you're still trying

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to figure out how to be the kind of

daughter-in-law you would wanna be.

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But this relationship can be

tricky, and lots of people

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don't know exactly how to do it.

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So in preparation for this, I

actually reached out to many girls

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that are in their mid to late 20s,

early 30s who have husbands and kids,

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and I talked to them about their

relationships with their mothers-in-law.

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And I learned so many great things,

and so that's why I'm gonna do a series

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because there are lots of components, not

just, you know, the wedding day, but this

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relationship that you grow over time.

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And one of the really profound things

that one of the girls said is getting

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married or joining a new family is a

little bit like moving to another country.

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We don't know the customs,

we don't know the language.

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We don't really know how this country

works, So as a mother-in-law, we get

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to decide, am I gonna be a friendly

local or am I gonna be border control?

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Am I gonna have a hard time

allowing this person to assimilate

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into our family culture?

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Or am I gonna assume that she's not

even trying and that she doesn't care

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and that we're not a priority to her,

I have found that when we assume that

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people are doing their best, we try to

do our best and we believe that other

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people are trying to do their best,

our ability to learn and understand the

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language and the culture of this new

family that we're creating becomes easier.

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So in these five podcasts, we're

gonna talk about lots of different

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things But we're gonna start

first with the wedding itself.

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I find it very interesting.

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I've had lots of clients talk to me

about weddings, weddings that happened

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20 years ago that they're still

regretting how they handled things.

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Weddings that happened a few years ago

and feeling like their kids or their,

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new in-law overlooked them or didn't

seem to care that they were even there

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and felt like the only thing that

mattered was that they were paying

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for it, and people who felt really,

really hurt by the wedding experience.

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So I know you're gonna

be in different places.

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Some of you had weddings a long time ago.

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Some of you haven't had weddings yet.

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Sometimes some of you are still stinging

a little bit from a wedding in the past.

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And so the goal of this is to just

recognize that there's a lot of

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communication that hasn't happened or

didn't happen at the time that might

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make weddings feel really painful.

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So if you have a wedding

coming up, hopefully you can

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consider some of these things.

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If you have a wedding in the

past, maybe these are some

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conversations that are worth having.

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I know in my own wedding experience, I

did some things that were really hurtful

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to my mom, and I thought I was being

helpful I was 29 when I got married, and

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my sister that was just younger than me

had gotten married several years before.

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And I remember my mom, you know,

making all the food and putting

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it in the freezer, the cookies

and the tarts and the things that

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she was making for the desserts.

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And she was telling me how my

little brothers were eating

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them, and she kept making them.

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And so I remember thinking,

"When I get married, I'm not

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gonna make her do anything.

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I'm gonna just do it all."

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And I was on a very limited budget,

and so it was really stressful for

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me to create a wedding in March.

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I got married in March, which

is not a real summery, pretty

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time to be getting married.

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And so I felt really stressed about

making it pretty enough and nice

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enough for everyone, nice enough

for my new mother-in-law, and

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accommodating for my large family.

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And it was just a really

stressful time for me.

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And my mom, come to find out

many, many years later, felt very

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isolated and unneeded because I

was trying so hard to not make it

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hard for her that I didn't really

include her very well in my wedding.

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And she never said anything about it,

but I knew that I had hurt her feelings.

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But it was years later before

we actually talked about it.

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And so I have some regrets, and

we've talked now and had some

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healing But I don't want you to

have to wait years and years.

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I think these are conversations

worth having and trying to understand

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where people were coming from so that

you can feel some healing if there

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are wounds surrounding a wedding.

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So I'm just gonna talk to you about some

different things that these girls shared

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with me and things that clients have

shared with me that I think could be

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helpful in either preparing for a wedding

or if you've had a wedding and things like

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this have gone wrong, I think they might

be worth talking about a little bit more.

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So number one, we gotta have

some patience on both sides.

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First of all, this bride has never planned

a wedding most likely, and so She may

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not be perfect at communicating what

her needs are, or she might feel like

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she's being coerced to do things that

she doesn't really want to do so much.

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And so let's give her some grace that

she's trying to do her best at creating

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a wedding that feels good to her and fun

to her and what she had envisioned and

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imagined, and also trying to accommodate

the opinions of so many other people.

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So she's got some experiences, and you're

also having some experiences, where maybe

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if you are funding the wedding, it might

feel like you get to have more of a say.

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And that can feel frustrating if

it feels like your opinion isn't

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being acknowledged or recognized.

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But the bottom line is we want

to learn how to communicate.

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And if there's a gap there, we

don't need to assume that they hate

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us or they don't care about us or

appreciate us, but a lot of times,

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We may not have the tools, the

resources, or the skills to communicate

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the way that we would like to.

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And so if we don't, let's be

patient with one another and

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try our best to communicate.

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And hopefully, if you've been listening

to my podcast for a while, you've

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learned a few things that you're

trying in order to communicate in

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more honest and authentic ways.

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The next thing we wanna do is take

care of our own emotional needs first.

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our feelings will be hurt at some

point in the process of planning.

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And the question is, do I have enough

resources to take care of myself?

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Do I know about nervous system regulation?

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Do I recognize when I feel

elevated or shut down?

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Do I know the things that I can

do to try to get myself back into

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a more calm and rational state?

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Can I take a walk?

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Am I getting the rest I need?

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Am I getting the movement and

the nutrition and the sunlight?

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Do I have trusted relationships that

I can turn to so that I'm not just

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turning to the bride and groom, so

that I can work through whatever it

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is that might feel hard or hurtful if

I'm feeling dismissed or overlooked?

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I need to know what my needs are

so that I can take care of them.

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Assuming that other people are

going to understand and take care

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of my needs It's just unlikely.

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So I need to make sure

I'm taking care of those.

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like if I have a daily practice

of studying the scriptures and

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praying, or if I consistently walk,

I make sure I drink enough water.

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Like, let's not give those things

up in a time of busyness, because

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our nervous systems thrive on the

structure of that, and it helps us

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to stay balanced, and level-headed,

and rational in our thinking.

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So when things get busy, not just

weddings, but holiday seasons or

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summertime, sometimes when things

get out of our typical routine,

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we drop the things that help us to

stay in that zone of resilience.

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So if I can stay more consistent with

those patterns that keep me feeling

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good, and healthy, and emotionally

strong, I want to make sure that

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I'm continuing to do those things.

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The next thing to consider is

that the wedding belongs to them.

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It's not your wedding, So I

need to remember that I get to

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choose how I show up in it, but

it's not actually my wedding.

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So I had a client tell me

I could share this story.

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she had been divorced.

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She had a really great relationship with

all of her kids, and her son was getting

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married soon, and she was a little

anxious about her ex-husband and his

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new wife being at all these festivities.

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And she'd done so much work on herself,

and she was in a really good space.

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But she said when we got out of the

wedding, she felt like she wasn't really

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being herself, that she was being more

quiet, and shy, and not as engaged

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as fully as she was wanting to be.

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So she said, "I went into the

bathroom and I just regrouped.

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I told myself, 'I'm not here to

focus on him and his new wife.

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I am here to focus on my son and his

new bride that I love, that I have a

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strong relationship with, and all these

beautiful people that are coming to

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support them, that have loved them, and

cared about them, and loved our family,

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and that is what I'm here to focus on.

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This is about them today.'"

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And she said, "Immediately, I

felt this shift inside of me."

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And for the rest of the day, she was

able to focus on how much she loved

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her son and this new daughter-in-law,

and how grateful she was for all

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the support they were receiving

from so many people who loved them.

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And so not that there's not ever grief,

or pain, or discomfort at a wedding,

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but I can- Have those things and still

decide who I wanna be in that moment.

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What do I wanna focus on?

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What do I wanna be grateful for?

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What do I wanna appreciate?

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would it be nicer if

those guys weren't here?

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Yeah, for me it would be nicer.

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But they are, but I'm not gonna

focus all my energy on that.

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I'm gonna focus my energy on the things

that are the most important to me.

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So that principle of who do I

want to be in this relationship

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is available at any moment.

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This client of mine regrouped right

in the middle of the day, right?

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So we can do that.

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We can be thinking like, "I don't really

like how I'm showing up here today.

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I don't like that I'm feeling

sad," or that I'm complaining about

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something that happened, or telling

someone, "Nobody cares about us.

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They just want our checkbook."

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Like, I can go in the bathroom and

regroup and decide, "Wait a minute.

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Who do I wanna be today?

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What do I wanna focus on?"

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And I can choose to show up in a way that

feels really aligned with what I value.

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I can choose that at any moment.

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That is so powerful and

so important to remember.

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the next thing to consider is that

you are not the first family anymore.

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today a new family was created

with your child and their partner,

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and there's some grief in that.

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There's some loss in that.

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I remember when our first child left

home and feeling like, "Ah, it's never

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gonna be the same," or even at, in

my own growing up home when my sister

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got married, I remember feeling like,

"Ugh, this is ruining everything."

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I don't know what I thought we would

do, that we would all just live with

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my parents for the rest of our lives.

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But when she got married, I kind of felt

like this guy had come in and wrecked our

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family, because this unit as we had known

it was not gonna be the same anymore.

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And so there can be some

pain and some grief.

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I would call it clean pain, where our

lives change in ways that feel sad to us

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So certainly you may have to

process through some grief.

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But on the wedding day, we can just

recognize that this new family has

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been formed, and the mother-in-law

is not the center of that family.

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Think of your own wedding, You were

forming this new union between you

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and your spouse, And it's not between

you and your spouse and your moms.

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And so we can just glory in the fact

that they have created this new family.

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And if you wanna work on a marriage, work

on your marriage, the one that you're in.

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So we'll let them work on their marriage,

and you can work on creating the marriage

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that you want to have, not your child's.

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Sometimes it can feel painful because we

feel like we're losing our motherly role.

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But your daughter-in-law already

has a mother, So you don't need

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to fill that motherly role.

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In fact, on next week's podcast,

we're gonna talk about the role

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that is perfect for you to fill.

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The next thing to consider is that

we can have grace from every angle.

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Let me share some examples.

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One girl shared a story about

feeling hurt by her fiancé.

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So they weren't yet married,

but he had hurt her feelings.

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They were at church, he said

something, she started to cry, told

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him she was going to the bathroom,

went to the car and was crying.

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And a few minutes later, her soon-to-be

mother-in-law came out to the car

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and she said, "She just listened

as I told her what had happened.

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And instead of defending her son, she

said, 'He can be really hard sometimes.

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I'm so sorry.'"

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And she just listened and validated

this new daughter-in-law, and it was

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super meaningful to the daughter-in-law

to feel like her mother-in-law was on

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her side, and that she wasn't trying to

defend her son under all circumstances.

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Another example.

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Daughter-in-law had a bad experience

at a wedding for one of her siblings

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where she felt very overlooked,

very much not a part of the wedding,

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and it really hurt her feelings.

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So fast-forward a couple of weeks, she's

on the phone with her mother-in-law

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and she tells her mother-in-law

how she felt at this wedding.

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And she said as she was telling her she

wondered, "I wonder if my mother-in-law

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felt that way at my wedding," because

her mother-in-law is a single parent

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from another country, so she had come

to the wedding, but this daughter-in-law

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hadn't really asked much of her.

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She didn't know her, had only met her a

few times when they were at the wedding.

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And so on this phone call she asked her,

"Did you feel like that at my wedding?"

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And this mother-in-law broke down and

started to cry, and they had this very

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healing conversation this daughter-in-law

was able to apologize to her mother-in-law

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and they were able to understand each

other in a new way and understand, "Oh,

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I could have figured out a way to include

her a little bit more instead of just

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assuming that I was supposed to do it all

on my own," kinda like I did with my mom.

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Very, very interesting.

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I had another girl say, "I got

married two days before Mother's Day.

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Didn't even think about calling my

mom while we were on our honeymoon.

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My husband didn't call his mom

while we were on our honeymoon."

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She said, "It was probably 10

years before I realized, oh,

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wow, we had them do all of that.

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Didn't even notice that

Mother's Day had come and gone."

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And she said, "So please remember that

your prefrontal cortex isn't fully

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formed generally when you get married,

if you get married in your early 20s.

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And so some of the things that we

did that might have hurt you, over

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time, we, we might see it, but we

didn't recognize it at the time."

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So I think that's also an important

part of grace, that oftentimes

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the things we do that are hurtful

come because we don't have a frame

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of reference for what's going on.

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We don't understand that it's hard

and that there's some emotional

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challenges in letting go of a

child and letting them get married.

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And those are some things that

you don't really know when you're

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22 or 24 because you don't have

a frame of reference for that.

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I remember my sister got married at 7:30

in the morning because that was the only

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sealing time they had available that day.

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And when she was about 40, she said,

"I can't believe I expected everybody

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to get up, get their kids ready, their

hair done, in their bridal clothes,

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And then they had to be there by 7:00

because the sealing was at 7:30."

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She said, "I just didn't

even know what I was asking."

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So if we can have grace for our kids

that they are doing their best to

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figure it out, and it might be a

while before they recognize, wow,

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that was a lot of sacrifice or

that was a lot of work for them.

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so when I go back to the who do I

wanna be during this wedding, I remind

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myself, is this the kind of person I

wanna be, that I fund part of this,

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that I participate, that I make all

the food, I get to decide who do I

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wanna be, regardless of how they are.

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Like, how do I wanna show up

for my child at their wedding?

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And if I can stay aligned with that,

that's gonna help me act from that

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space instead of being reactive

to their level of appreciation.

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The next thing is to just remember

that every wedding is different.

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Finances, family support, how

much the bride wants to take

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charge, they all vary, right?

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So we don't wanna guess.

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We wanna ask as much as we can.

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And when they tell us, we

wanna believe their answers.

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Let's not try to talk

people out of things.

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Let's listen.

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It doesn't mean that we wouldn't

say, "Consider this, consider that."

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Speaker 3: in the case of my sister,

that might have been helpful if someone

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would have said, "Let's consider

how this will affect everyone if

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you have a wedding appointment at

seven-thirty in the morning, and how

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will that affect the day, and how

much time people need to be there?"

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I don't think there's anything wrong

with talking it over and trying to

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help people make a good decision.

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We just wanna be careful about having

a really strong agenda and, and

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really allowing it to be their choice.

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Speaker 2: So in closing,

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You can't control the wedding,

but you can control who you are.

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If my nervous system is

dysregulated, what can I do to

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take care of my emotional needs?

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What am I gonna think?

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What do I wanna focus on?

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How do I wanna show up for these

people that I love during this

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time that's so important to them?

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a good question to ask yourself is,

what do you wish your mother-in-law

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would have understood at your wedding?

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And what might your daughter-in-law

wish you understood?

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And I also want to note that if your

wedding is long past and there are

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still things that feel really stingy

to you, in episode five of this

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series, we're gonna talk about what

to do if you're still feeling some

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hard, hard feelings about a wedding.

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All right.

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That's what I have for you today

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Thanks for coming.

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If you like the podcast, I hope

you'll send it to somebody else

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that you think it would help.

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I would also love it if you went to my

website and signed up for my newsletter,

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then you can get more coaching tips to

help you navigate relationships with

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your adult kids, your husband, yourself,

and other people in your life that

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you want to show up for in good ways.

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So have a great week.

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See ya.