“How to deal with in laws who ignore you and yet stay calm?” Has this question popped up in your head lately? Has the feeling of being ignored taken a toll on your emotional and mental health?
It is really difficult when you have to live with people who do not value your presence or continuously ignore you. On top of that, you’re anyway struggling with all the wedding adjustments and meeting new challenges each day.
When I first asked myself the question “How to deal with in laws who ignore you?” I realized that most women will do whatever it takes to fit in. However, that is surely not the way to go. Hence, in the current blog, I will elaborate on helpful ways to stay positive and deal with ignoring in laws.
How to Deal with In Laws Who Ignore you?
As a daughter in law, you are going to struggle with adjusting to a new household. You will give in your best to fit in with an expectation of making a place in everybody’s heart. Hence, this ignorance while living with your in laws is bound to affect you in various ways.
Being ignored is worse than being yelled at by somebody. Well, you are not alone. There are a lot of women like you who feel ignored by in laws post marriage. However, what you need to realize is that somebody else’s behavior isn’t your fault. Somebody else’s insecurity is not your problem. Somebody else’s ego is not your issue. What truly is and should be your issue is how you take it. How do you deal with it?
I have been through this like you all, and sharing things helps each other to learn and grow together. Hence, I am sharing a list of 12 traits that you should have in you to discard any negativity arising from in laws who have been ignoring you.
12 Positive Traits to Pursue while dealing with in laws who ignore you
We all have some stories to share and some learnings to impart and in this whole drama of the “in-laws” thing, why not seek solace in building ourselves internally and make us wound proof, because some wounds are purely invisible and that is where we need to focus the most. Staying with arrogant in laws and handling them could be a difficult task, so let me share 12 major traits that will help you stay positive whenever you feel ignored by in law.
| 1. Stop seeking approval |
| 2. Avoid overreacting |
| 3. Give space get space |
| 4. Think of possibilities |
| 5. Talk it out |
| 6. No Self-doubting |
| 7. Accept yourself |
| 8. Stop Overthinking |
| 9. Don’t take the pressure |
| 10. Involve your spouse |
| 11. Maintain your inner peace |
| 12. Let go of hypersensitivity |
1. Stop seeking approval
We are socially conditioned to please our in laws right from day one. As far as I have observed and understood this relationship, you will hardly find any in laws approving of their daughter in laws irrespective of love marriage or arranged marriage.
The very fact that that daughter in laws comes from another house, representing another set of values, upbringing, and family dynamics is enough for in laws to put them on the bottom list of the appraisal. Just continue to be yourself and focus on your marriage, maintain a healthy boundary, and never do things to please your in laws. If you do so, you miss a piece of yourself every time you do it.
2. Avoid overreacting
Many a time, when you feel left out and ignored, there will be a tendency inside you to grow desperate. Thus, you can end up overreacting and take out that rage on people around you. This can lead to bitterness in your relationship with your partner and in laws as the hurtful behavior of your in laws can actually cause you mental stress.
See what you need to understand is this – When you are being left out and ignored, it is what someone else is doing to you or with you. You have very limited control over anyone else’s behavior or the way they feel about you.
What you truly have control over is your own reaction. Stay assertive but don’t overreact. It will only harm you more.
3. Give space get space
In any relationship, you should outline a boundary. It helps to understand things better when you view the situation from a distance. When you try to prove your point, there is a large possibility of you getting into an ugly argument. It only aggravates situations.
The best way is to maintain some distance and respect each other’s privacy., If your in laws cannot do it, you do it for yourself and have an assertive approach, not an unpleasant one. The best way to preserve your sanity.
4. Think of possibilities
When you are in a not-so-healthy relationship with your in laws, making assumptions about their behavior and believing what you think about them and how you conclude things might lead to conflict.
In situations like this, try to think of alternate possibilities. Also, ask yourself relevant questions pertaining to the truth of the matter. Questions like–“If you are ignored, are you really ignored by your in-laws, or is this their way of living?”
Try to put yourself into their mental frame. Try to consider a different perspective. You don’t have to accept their ways but you might end up having better clarity in your thoughts.
5. Talk it out
The best way to deal with a situation is to face it. If the ignorance of your in laws is bothering you and costing you your peace, then speak to them. Reach out with a positive mindset. Try to talk in a light voice and calm pose.
Tell them how you feel about being ignored and how it bothers you. Communicate directly. They might not accept the allegations.. But at least you will know exactly where they stand.
By communicating and standing up for yourself, you will at least feel proud of yourself. You won’t suffer in silence.
6. No Self-doubting
Self-doubting is like self-destruction. In another blog of mine entitled, “how to deal with disrespectful in laws,” I talked about how assuming things and taking things personally will only harm your sanity. The same holds true for self-doubt as well.
It is always easy option to doubt our nature and abilities when someone treats us unequally. But here you need to understand that if simply by being a victim of ignorance, you will doubt your own self, then you too will be a major culprit of your present situation.
By self-doubting yourself, you are allowing people who don’t understand you to take control of you. Therefore, never let the control of your own life go into someone else’s hands.
7. Accept yourself
With acceptance, I will not say that you accept your in-laws the way they are and that is the whole point of these seven traits on how to deal with in laws who ignore you.
Accept your in laws the way they are. Don’t allow them to mistreat you but accept them in their true nature. Also, accept yourself with pride. Your job is not to change somebody’s innate nature. However, by accepting and letting go, you know exactly what has been affecting you.
You need to accept yourself first, and know your limitations, your capacities, and your willingness to hold and let go. Introspect, pause, and breathe. This way, you will gain more energy to survive such unpleasant episodes in your house.
8. Stop overthinking
Thinking too much will only multiply the problems with your in laws. Overthinking is like a disease to your mind. It will only cost you your mental peace. When you overthink, you cannot think with clarity and it creates more damage.
Whenever you find yourself trapped in an over-thinking and not problem-solving zone, try to shift your focus to something else, something useful.
9. Don’t take the pressure
Do not pressurize yourself for anything which is beyond your control. Your in laws don’t hold the key to your sanity, you do. Just be a better version of yourself, do good, stay good, and let nothing change your attitude towards life.
When you pressurize yourself too much to fit in and to get accepted by your in laws, you break. You lose yourself and then you feel miserable about not being able to do anything about it.
10. Involve your spouse
Your marriage is not everything about your in laws; they are a part of your marriage and your family. But your husband is your life partner, the one who is the co-founder of your marriage.
Right from the beginning have a very subtle approach to sharing things with your husband. Make him understand that you are not complaining, but you want him to know exactly the status of your relationship with your in laws.
11. Maintain your inner peace
Maintaining inner peace in a chaotic environment might be challenging but at the same time, you should understand that anything which costs you your inner peace needs an exit from your life. then how to deal with in laws who ignore you?
When you are staying with your in laws, it is hard to escape from the daily drama created by them but at the end of the day, you must be willing to let go of things. Please do not indulge yourself in too much overthinking. Else, it will lead to a damaged mindset and a damaged household.
12. Let go of hypersensitivity
Being sensitive in nature is acceptable and needed to a certain extent. But only when it is beneficial to others living around you, the day when your hypersensitive nature is not able to take even a little air of negativity, you damage yourself internally.
Do not take things to the heart. Never allow the words of others to ruin your inner peace; if you don’t let go of it you will find yourself in the no-hope zone in the near future.
Why do In Laws Ignore Daughter in Laws–Societal Causes
How to deal with in laws who ignore you? Patriarchy, stereotyping, and casting females in fixed gender roles are wholly responsible for some of the most vicious traits in human beings.
While daughter in laws has this attitude of submission, the majority of in laws have this habit of dominance. Both of these are morally wrong for any mentally healthy being.
In contemporary times, when laws for women are strong than ever before, most in laws inhibit their need to dominate loudly. Instead, they ignore daughter in laws as a way of silent dominance.
The fact that you are being ignored tends to make you crazy and you end up doing exactly what your in laws (not the good ones but the insecure ones) wanted from you all along – submit. This is a trap, my dearies. So do not fall into it. Just be more thick-skinned and understand the nature of your reality.
What should Daughter in Laws do when being Ignored?
Next time the question of, “How to deal with in laws who ignore you” pops up in your head, know that it is the societal conditioning that is responsible for the treatment meted out to you by your in laws.
However, just knowing isn’t enough. Speak about it and do not allow ignorance to harm you. Remember, it is not your fault. The onus of ignorance and stereotyping lies with the perpetrator.
How to Deal with In Laws who Ignore you – Final Thoughts
For anyone of you who seems to be advocating equality in your household, start asking yourself the following simple but important questions –
- Before advocating equality to the world, how about you start paying more attention to the needs of daughter in laws at home?
- Before expecting your daughter in law to change her overnight for you, how about you learn to adapt as well?
- How about letting go of all regressive beliefs that make the daughter in laws emotional slaves in their own homes?
- How about you start treating your daughter in law as a human being and not an enslaved animal?
Every woman passes through the phase of adjustments after marriage. However, nobody, and I mean nobody should be humiliated into ignorance.
Next time, when this thought of how to deal with in laws that ignore you passes through your mind follow all the 12 traits discussed above. These amazing and positive traits to have a healthy approach towards in laws who ignore you will make you more confident without losing your peace of mind.
