The situation
My mother-in-law comments on how I keep the house, what I cook and how I’m raising our children, usually as little remarks at family dinners. My partner says I’m too sensitive. I’ve started dreading every visit and reading an insult into everything she says.
Your situation, reframed
AI interpretationBeing judged in your own home, and then told you are oversensitive, genuinely hurts. But once you start expecting criticism, every remark begins to sound like one, and the dread does more damage than the comments. The Stoic work is to sort what she actually says from what you add to it, and to decide how much weight her opinion of your household deserves.
The dichotomy of control
AI interpretationYours to act on
- How charitably you read an ambiguous remark
- Whether you reply, and in what tone
- What you and your partner agree between yourselves
- Your own standards for your home and your children
Not yours
- Your mother-in-law’s opinions and habits of speech
- How she was raised, and what she thinks a good household looks like
- Whether she ever approves
- What other relatives make of it
The Stoics said
Verbatim from the source · full citationsSeneca, On Anger 2.24
… We ought to free our minds of suspicion and mistrust, those most untrustworthy causes of anger. “This man’s greeting was far from civil; that one would not receive my kiss; one cut short a story I had begun to tell; another did not ask me to dinner; another seemed to view me with aversion.” Suspicion will never lack grounds: what we want is straightforwardness, and a kindly interpretation of things. Let us believe nothing unless it forces itself upon our sight and is unmistakable, and let us reprove ourselves for being too ready to believe, as often as our suspicions prove to be groundless: for this discipline will render us habitually slow to believe what we hear.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 42
When any person treats you ill or speaks ill of you, remember that he does this or says this because he thinks that it is his duty. It is not possible then for him to follow that which seems right to you, but that which seems right to himself. Accordingly if he is wrong in his opinion, he is the person who is hurt, for he is the person who has been deceived; for if a man shall suppose the true conjunction to be false, it is not the conjunction which is hindered, but the man who has been deceived about it. If you proceed then from these opinions, you will be mild in temper to him who reviles you: for say on each occasion, It seemed so to him.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.27
When another blames thee or hates thee, or when men say about thee anything injurious, approach their poor souls, penetrate within, and see what kind of men they are. Thou wilt discover that there is no reason to take any trouble that these men may have this or that opinion about thee. However thou must be well disposed towards them, for by nature they are friends. And the gods too aid them in all ways, by dreams, by signs, towards the attainment of those things on which they set a value.
What this means here
AI interpretationSeneca, On Anger 2.24
Seneca lists the small slights people brood over: a cool greeting, an interrupted story, not being asked to dinner. Once you are looking for offence, you will always find it. He suggests believing only what is unmistakable, and reproving yourself each time a suspicion turns out to be groundless; at family dinners, that means taking each remark at its plainest meaning until she gives you clear reason not to.
Translation note: Straightforwardness here means openness, taking people at face value.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 42
Epictetus asks you to remember that someone who criticises you usually believes they are doing the right thing. Your mother-in-law is following her idea of how a home should be run, not yours, and she cannot do otherwise until her idea changes. If she is wrong, the mistake is hers to carry. The passage ends with a short phrase to repeat on each occasion, and it works just as well with her in place of him.
Translation note: Reviles means insults. The true conjunction is a term from logic; the point is that a mistaken judgement harms the person who holds it, not the truth.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.27
Marcus advises looking past the words to the person behind them, and seeing what kind of person they are and what they set store by. Do that with your mother-in-law and her remarks may start to look more like her own habits and worries than verdicts on you. Yet the passage does not end in dismissal; he asks himself to stay well disposed towards such people, whom he regards as friends by nature.
Translation note: Their poor souls means their inner lives, the minds behind the words; to be well disposed is to keep goodwill towards someone.
Together, the passages give you three filters for the next remark. First, is it actually a criticism, or am I reading one in? Second, if it is, it reflects what seems right to her, and that is hers to own. Third, her opinion of your household need not trouble you, though she still deserves your goodwill. None of this means staying silent forever: if a pattern genuinely undermines you or your parenting, raising it calmly with your partner first is part of handling it well.
One action for today
AI interpretationPause before you judge · the discipline of assent
At the next visit, treat each remark as plainly meant unless it is unmistakably not, and answer the barbed ones silently with the thought that it seemed right to her. Afterwards, sit down with your partner and agree on the one or two comments, such as those about the children, that you both want handled differently, and decide together who will raise them and how.
A line to carry
“However thou must be well disposed towards them, for by nature they are friends.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.27