How to Be a Good Mother-in-Law and Still Say Close to Your Son

My son, Paul, and I are so close that I even wrote a book about the mother-son bond. When he told me he was going to marry his long-time sweetheart Afroz, I expressed my worry that our relationship would change in a NextTribe article. To address my concerns, I dedicated time and energy into figuring out how to be a good mother-in-law.

I was confident in my prediction—we would stay close. Paul is a wonderful son, and I assumed he’d be a wonderful husband. Love was not a zero-sum game. It would be easy. Of course all this bravado belied a basic truth: I knew exactly nothing about what it would be like.