Does your husband’s family give you stress? Has this been like forever or you have been stressful lately due to the increased tension with your in laws?
Stress is such a condition that is somehow not visible but it definitely creates a lot of mental pressure and physical restriction in dealing with day-to-day activities.
In this blog, we will discuss how to respond to stress caused by your husband’s family and try to overcome it by adopting a few helpful practices in day-to-day life.
Does your husband’s family give you stress?
Stress affects men and women equally, the reasons for stress could be different and their way of dealing with stress could vary from person to person but stress does affect relationships and harmony of the house. If you are stressed it will affect your day-to-day routine work, your behavior towards your children and it could also affect your health conditions in the long run.
Does your husband’s family give you stress? It could be a yes if it affects you emotionally and physically but the sad part is people often ignore the physical part, many of us do not even believe that stress could lead to emotional as well as physical damage in individuals. We do not concentrate on the motions of our thoughts, which in the long term starts multiplying and affects our physical self.
Five ways to identify stress
To work on a problem, we need to identify the core reason for the problem, where it begins and where it ends, if it ends at all. We can try to make things work for us only with a sane mind and a little bit of alertness. What causes stress in daughter in laws? To find the stress triggers, you need to understand the mind of your in laws, which is difficult to understand I know, but only when we will leave that anger and think mindfully we could arrive at some solutions for our problems and ways to deal with stress.
Does your husband’s family cause you stress or is it your nature to overthink, worry, or panic over things? We are generally blamed that we are simply overthinking and worrying over things, why don’t just leave and let it go. For some people, it is easy to let go and for some, it becomes difficult until they find closure, a solution.
| 1.) You are under stress when you are pressurized |
| 2.) You are stress when you are compared |
| 3.) You are under stress when you criticized continuously |
| 4.) You are under stress when you are ignored |
| 5.) You are under stress when you are dealing with toxicity |
Let us try to understand what triggers stress in a daughter in laws and how it affects us emotionally.
1.) You are under stress when you are pressurized
Aren’t you under performance pressure all the time? Don’t you want to be perfect at everything you do to please your in laws? Don’t you want to be in their good books, to win their hearts? And does your husband’s family give you stress despite you trying hard to fit in? You feel miserable for not making it up to their expectations and even feel sorry. This builds up stress within you and it affects you.
2.) You are stress when you are compared
Does tension with in laws cause you stress? You feel stressed when you are compared to someone else. It is a very general way for a mother in law to compare her daughter in law to someone else, just to show that she is just an ordinary person. Eventually, these little tensions lead to stress and anxiety in an individual.
3.) You are under stress when you are criticized continuously
When someone criticizes you you feel very stressed, who wants to be compared and criticized all the time? When your jealous mother in law criticizes you for petty things you feel overwhelmed and it starts affecting you internally.
4.) You are under stress when you are ignored
Being a family member you expect to be loved and cared for, but when you see yourself getting ignored as compared to other family members you feel left out and if this happens frequently you start getting stressed, you feel uncomfortable and it only worsens over the period of time.
5.) You are under stress when you are dealing with toxicity
This is a known fact that when we’re surrounded by toxic people we are under stress be it your nasty mother-in-law, competitive sister-in-law, or a chauvinistic father in law. If you are surrounded by people who don’t like you much you are bound to feel stressed.
How to respond to the stress given by your husband’s family
It is very essential that we find our IKIGAI, The Japanese secret to a long and happy life. I recently finished reading this book and found it extremely exquisite. I loved the very concept of finding your own muse, your meaning of life. Unless we make efforts to find what works for us we will never really understand the potential life holds for us.
In laws, relationships are part of our life but it becomes a problem when stress starts building in relationships. I never understood why a mother in law chooses to be disrespectful or arrogant towards a daughter in law, she can very well treat her as her own daughter and accommodate her in life with grace, which will ultimately make the daughter in law feel responsible for the reactions too.
Also, we have heard a lot about controlling or overbearing father in law, the one who dominates and it affects not only the daughter in law but his own son too. We can certainly not control other’s behavior but we can always work on ours. Does your husband’s family give you stress? Let’s deal with it:
Ten ways to handle stress given by your husband’s family
Almost 80 percent of “In-law” bonds are described in strongly negative terms such as depressing, uncomfortable, annoying, awful, worst, strained, stressed, infuriating, etc. Depending upon the nature of our relationship with them, can we change our problematic or toxic in law’s behavior? Can we work on ourselves? Yes. We can alter every situation in our life if we are in harmony with our mind and body but we do not pay attention.
| 1.Speak up |
| 2. Accept |
| 3. Let it go |
| 4. Dwell into positivity |
| 5. Choose yourself |
| 6. Overthinking? |
| 7. Exercise |
| 8. Meditate |
| 9. Find a group |
| 10. Talk to someone |
1.Speak up
If you are married for a while and you feel overwhelmed by the cold reaction of your in-laws, it’s time for you to speak for yourself. Have an assertive and gentle approach while you speak, but try to make your point, you need to make them understand that their behavior hurts you.
2. Accept
Here I don’t mean that you have to accept them the way they are but you have to accept that your limitations, your abilities. You start going out of the way and do things to please your in laws and then you expect a lot of things in return so you have to accept your limitations and stop expecting anything from them.
3. Let it go
It is disheartening I know but it is very important that we learn to let go not of the relationship which we share with our in-laws but it also applies to every relationship in our life the more you hold up the more you pent up the emotions and the negativity inside you the more stress it will lead to and cause you enormous pain.
4. Dwell into positivity
Dwell into each and every possibility which can bring the best out of you. Stick to passionate people and positive people and do everything which could bring out a little change in your life. The problem is that we stop looking at the brighter side of life once we are entrapped in a stressful environment.
5. Choose yourself
Why do we stop being kind to ourselves if others cannot be kind to us? At least we can show a little bit of kindness and some love to ourselves, don’t we deserve this? We always choose our family, our kids, our husband, or in laws over ourselves and we degrade ourselves we devalue ourselves, why not choose ourselves this time?
6. Overthinking?
Overthinking is one of the major contributors to building up tension and stress. We assume a lot of things, we indulge in unlimited mental arguments. We give shapes to the thoughts and we judge so many things, things which are not even there we, and create them through our negative thinking. Try to keep yourself occupied and avoid overthinking
7. Exercise
Does your husband’s family give you stress? Beat the stress with your dancing feet, run, exercise and release those toxins out of your body, the more you exercise the more you shed that baggage of expectations you carry around yourself. The more you sweat the more you will feel lighter. Exercise is the best way to fight stress when you put your body to work, you sweat out all the toxins and all the negativity inside you and you connect to yourself
8. Meditate
I know it sounds difficult to many especially for the ones who have never tried it, the first thought of sitting in one place and concentrating on one thing brings you discomfort but it is the best way to connect to yourself and be in the moment. Do not stress on sitting for a long time but at least try to sit, close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing it will change you 1% daily, it will give you some resistance power, the power within you, eventually increase the time and you will be in the focus in the due course.
9. Find a group
Find a group, there are so many social groups available on the Internet if you are comfortable online or if you believe in personal touch it will be much better if you could join some support groups available in your area. You just have to find them, reach them, there could be also group meditation happening around so you just have to find the most suitable one and trust me speaking to people and meditating with them will definitely change a lot within you.
10. Talk to someone
I always say this, rather I insist that talk to somebody, talk to someone you are comfortable with do not hold up grudges do not hold up all the emotions and feelings you are holding up since long it will only increase your stress and it might lead you to the mental illnesses which you don’t want to see. You need to speak, need to confide in someone tell them how you are feeling maybe he or she would be able to help you come out of those feelings and comfort you.
In the end, as I always say, you have to take charge of your life. No one else will do this for us we have to do this for ourselves. I have given so many ways to fight out the stress which we go through in our daily life I know it is not that easy but at least we can start doing it right now for ourselves and trust me it is always better to start than to feel sorry about our situation.
We always look for a broader picture and in the process, we miss out on the little things we have in our life, look for a brighter side you always have something to be grateful for but just because of the stress and tension live in we usually forget about what we have but you never know what kind of peace you will find on those little beautiful things in your life. To search for your IKIGAI and try to take charge of your life, be mindful and stay alert, exercise, meditate and just be happy.
Priyanka Nair is the author of 26 Days 26 Ways for a Happier you and Ardhaviram. An NLP practitioner and Founder of Sanity Daily, helping you prioritize your mental health. Let’s build a happy community.
