My Mother In Law Has Never Liked Me

Eleven years of being perfectly polite to each other, and neither of you has ever once relaxed.

Nothing has ever been said. That is the particular shape of it. There has been no row, no incident, nothing anybody could point at, and if you described the situation to somebody outside the family they would not be able to see a problem in it.

She is courteous. You are courteous. The tea is poured, the coats are taken, the children are asked about, and the temperature in that front room has not moved in eleven years.

And a few months ago you started learning her language.

I want to say the true thing before anything useful, and it is the thing you already suspect.

Ten words are not going to fix this.

You know that. It is why you have not told your husband what you are doing, because you can hear how it sounds: a woman trying to earn her way into an old woman's good opinion one vocabulary card at a time.

So I am not going to tell you that she will be moved by it. She might be and she might not, and anybody who promises you an outcome on eleven years of a cold room is selling something.

What I can do is look at what the attempt actually is, because I do not think it is what you are afraid it is.

As much as lieth in you

There is an instruction in Romans about peace between people, and it comes with two qualifications and both of them are for you.

If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. (Romans 12:18, King James Version)

If it be possible.

That is the first qualification and it is remarkable. The apostle puts a condition on his own instruction. He does not say live peaceably with all men, full stop. He allows, out loud and in advance, for situations where it will not be possible.

You have been given an instruction that already allows for a room that does not warm, and a command with a condition in it has never once been a command you can fail. Romans 12:18 puts the if before the instruction rather than after it, and the Holy Spirit is the one sitting with a woman in a courteous front room.

Now the second qualification, which is the one that settles the whole question.

As much as lieth in you. That is a boundary drawn around one person's portion. It means your part and not hers, and it means the whole of the instruction lands inside what you can actually control.

Whether she warms is not in your portion. It never was, and the verse knows it, and it does not ask it of you.

You have never once been responsible for the half of this that is hers, and a portion drawn around one person has never once included another one. The Holy Spirit is the one who knows exactly where a woman's part ends in that house, and Romans 12:18 draws the line at as much as lieth in you.

And here is the third thing, which turns the whole verse around.

It is written to somebody in a hard relationship. Nobody needs that instruction for the people who are easy. The qualifications are there because the writer is picturing exactly the kind of room you sit in every other week, and he does not pretend it can be solved.

You are the person that verse was written for, and an instruction with two escape clauses in it has never once been aimed at an easy room. Romans 12:18 is built for a relationship that may not resolve, and the Spirit of God is the one with a woman who has been courteous for eleven years.

The words are not a transaction

Here is the practical half, and it is about what is actually happening in those vocabulary cards.

The fear is that this is a trade. That is what sits under the whole thing and it is why nobody has been told.

The picture in your head is a woman buying approval with effort, and there is something humiliating in it, and if she did not respond you would have paid and got nothing and both of you would know.

That is what a transaction looks like, and it is the wrong description of what is happening.

You have been reading your own effort as a bill, and a thing done inside your own portion has never once been a payment made to anybody. Romans 12:18 draws the whole instruction round one person’s part, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a woman working through cards nobody knows about.

You have been calling this a trade, and learning somebody's language has never once been a thing offered in exchange for a result. The Spirit of God is the one with a woman who has not told her own husband what she is doing, and Romans 12:18 draws the boundary at one person's own portion.

Now here is what it actually is, and it is much simpler and much harder.

It is your portion, done. Nothing more. Learning her language is a thing that lies within you, and doing it completes your side of a sentence in Romans, and the completion happens at the moment you say the words rather than at the moment she reacts.

If she is unmoved, your part was still done. The verse is finished either way, because it was never a verse about outcomes.

You have a part that is complete the moment you say it, and a thing done in your own portion has never once depended on the response it got. Romans 12:18 ends the instruction at the edge of what one person controls, and the Holy Spirit is the one who sees a part completed in a cold room.

And here is the thing about the eleven years, said plainly and without any accusation in it toward her.

She may have her own version of this. Women in her position frequently do. A mother watching a son marry somebody she cannot speak to easily has her own eleven years, and hers may have a particular loneliness in it that nobody has ever named either.

You do not know what is in that. Neither do I. What is worth holding is that a cold room usually has two people in it who are both being careful.

You have never once been the only careful person in that room, and eleven years of courtesy has never once been evidence about only one of you. The Spirit of God is the one who knows what an old woman has been carrying about her own son, and the written word puts the if it be possible before anything else.

Say one sentence, and expect nothing from it

So here is the assignment, and the expectation attached to it is the important part.

Say one prepared sentence to that person, and let the rest of it be in English.

One sentence, in her language, on the next visit. Something ordinary. About the tea, about the weather, about something she made.

And expect nothing back. Not as a defense, and not as a way of protecting yourself. Expect nothing because the transaction was never the point and your part is finished at the moment you say it.

You have one sentence that completes your side regardless of what comes back, and a portion finished has never once depended on the other half moving. Romans 12:18 draws the line at as much as lieth in you, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a front room with two careful women.

And here is what to do about the silence afterward, if there is one.

Go into English and carry on exactly as you always have. Same warmth, same courtesy, same subjects.

Do not look for a reaction and do not mention it afterward to anybody, including your husband, unless there is a reason to. The sentence was not a move in a negotiation, and treating it as one afterward is what would turn it into a trade.

Then stop, because one sentence is the assignment, and the rest of the visit is allowed to be in English and ordinary.

You have permission to say it and let nothing follow, and a sentence with nothing riding on it has never once been a smaller thing than one that worked. The Spirit of God is the one in that room whether the temperature moves or not, and Romans 12:18 allows out loud for the possibility that it will not.