Family Matriarch

matriarchA man in his forties is engaged to be married. His mother doesn’t like the woman.

It doesn’t really matter if she has good cause or not. She does not like the woman, she is never going to like the woman; consequently no one in the family is going to be at ease, until and unless this man dumps this woman.

That’s how much power the family matriarch holds, in many case. In most cases?

A lot of people don’t understand this. They focus on themselves or on the partnership, and do not worry about fitting in with the family.

It’s easier to get away with this, if you’re young. But if you’re marrying into an established family where there a kids and grand-kids involved, it’s important to realize what you’re up against. It’s best if you get in there and address the situation, which is often delicate.

With few people marrying when they are young and staying that way, this scenario is common. If you have Cancer or Capricorn in your chart, or the 4th/10th house emphasized, I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.

Sound familiar, anyone?

30 thoughts on “Family Matriarch”

  1. I married late (35) but wasn’t cursed with this problem. Both of us were welcomed into each other’s family. Very glad to have dodged a bullet like this one.

  2. This goes both ways. Sometimes the matriarch likes the new lady well enough because she can see she will be a good stepmom, and a quality matriarch should always be looking out for her grandchildren. But then the husband makes a different choice, and dumps the lady pre-approved by the matriarch. The newly chosen lady may think she’s a goddess, but the matriarch and the scorned lady may conspire to deflate that balloon, with the help of said youngsters, even if the matriarch and the scorned lady never officially see each other again. What to think about before you homewreck…

  3. Luckily, I am accepted by the SO’s mother. Whereas my family does not accept the SO.

    This is common in dramas and my life is like a drama.

  4. Yep – way back when, being young and impulsive, I made a mistake that precipitated a long detour in my life. I came to realize that marriage for me is not only to a woman but also to her family. And, both turned out to be un-fulfilling. I eventually chose to be grateful for the experience and be wary. (Aries rising, Mars in Cancer widely opposite Capricorn MC (9 degrees) and inconjunct Saturn).

    Thank you Elsa.

  5. I explained this to someone the other day… she thought I was nuts.

    Thank you for verifying my thoughts in this matter.

    I make it a rule if the mother likes me, then our relationship has a chance.

  6. If his mama doesn’t like you, ain’t nobody gonna like you.

    This sucks even if you are way better than the first wife.

  7. I married a divorced man. Unbeknownst to me at the time he had not told his mother about me or that we were getting married. I met her after the marriage. After struggling to gain her acceptance for five years I finally just gave up. I have been excluded from the family for over twenty years. At first it was very painful now I really don’t care. We live very far away from all of his family (and mine) and he was already estranged from them when we met. He became further estranged as the years went by and now he speaks to them perhaps once a year by phone.

    My MIL and I share a sun sign (out of aspect), mercury sign (out of aspect), and our shared sag. are Venuses conjunct. However, her Saturn is opposing her venus therefore it opposes mine too. My 8th house virgo Uranus is conjunct her chiron/north node conjunction.

    As the years have passed and I’ve gotten to know her through my husband sharing his childhood experiences and by hearing about how she reacts to her family members I have come to realize she is a deeply damaged woman. She is in her 70’s now and has found herself increasingly alone because her immediate and extended family are weary of dealing with her incessant manufactured drama. That sounds judgmental but it really isn’t—I do have compassion for her and am grateful that she came into my life to teach me a lesson—and that lesson is how not to act towards my children’s significant others.

  8. I was able to surmount this obstacle. however, it required my complete obeisance to the situation, surrender. most are not willing to do that. you can do it and still retain your pride and power. I don’t know if it is possible in all situations, but it is sometimes possible. but you do have to surrender and commit.

  9. Interesting stories guys. I was involved with a man who had a decent relationship with his parents. He had previously left a long term unhappy relationship and was going through a messy separation. His parents and I had a very strong connection. They also had not seen or got along with their sons ex for years, absolutely no love loss between them. Not a lot said about her but a lot defiantly ‘unsaid’. I more or less had their approval as a suitable partner for their son. Although I didn’t need it or cared what they really thought, it was nice to feel a deep connection with the man I loved parents. However on the other hand the two adults sons that he fathered from the unhappy union could not handle me near their dad. It was such messy jealousy and insecurity…. Bringing up a lot of inner child hood wounds. No matter how much I stepped aside and let the boys have their dad, it was never enough. They could not and would not let me near my love or him near me. Weirdly enough they had a terrible relationship with their mother which added to even more dysfunction. The relationship is over now and his mother still talks to me regularly from a long distance. But it is like a code we don’t discuss what went wrong or other people just what plants we are growing and what we are cooking. Small talk. Broken hearts and memories.

  10. This sounds like my cousin and his now ex-wife. Mom made her life hell.

    What do you do about moms who will hate anyone who “takes their baby away,” though? I guess those men and women just can’t have love in their lives that isn’t maternal.

  11. Cappy here, Cancer ascendent. Oh yeah….my mother in law hated me so much, she assualted me – without any provocation – in front of her husband and my then boyfriend. She liked me THAT much. I broke up with him afterwards. I realized the problem for me was not mom, but him. He went on to marry someone else, but not after she gave her hell as well. Mamma’s husband left her, son married and moved to the other side of the planet. He wrote recently to say sorry. I said Oh no, Bless you and yo’ mamma. Nobody wants to live in hell. And she sure spared me the misery of the next 30 yrs with her as a mother in law.

    1. p.s. My natal Moon is Scorpio on the 4th. Mars in the 10th, Taurus. Oh boy. I never had an enemy until her (the ex mother in law). But she saved me somehow. If I ever get to see her again, Imma give her a hug like, Thank you bitch! You saved me from marrying yo’ baby!

  12. I had this very issue and would probably still have it if his mother hadn’t passed away when we were married 6 years (we dated for almost 5 and have been married for 22 years).

    4th house Capricorn.

  13. My Aqua mother in law hates my guts. She is just not going to deal with me at all. She pretends I don’t exist. No matter what I tried, it was not going to work. She hated me so much she even ignored my kids during the holidays and expected him to come to her house and leave us at home. I laugh out loud when I think back to some of the silly stuff that went on.

    She hasn’t been in my home since 2006. Its sad to think of how much she has missed because she wont except me. She wanted her son to marry a woman who would give him lots of children even though he didn’t want any children of his own. He wouldn’t have had children with anyone.

    He stopped communicating with her in 06. She only has two sons. I cant imagine going 8 years without seeing my kids. I would be shriveled up to nothing.

    She taught me something though. If I want to see my children I better treat their spouse well no matter how I feel about them. I don’t understand why a mother cares who their son marries as long as she is good to him and they love each other. A good dead to my child is a good deed to me. If you love my child, your IN!

  14. I have lots of 4th and 10th house action, and a Cancer midhaven. Interesting post! Significant others, always mothers, including my own Scorpio mother, have been a big factor in every single relationship I’ve had: undermining, working against me, actively plotting my undoing! It really doesn’t matter how sweet I am or what a good daughter/daughter-in-law, they are always jealous and working to take my man, and they always win eventually. It goes all the way back to infancy for me. I wonder, how do I break this chain?

  15. I always had a hard times with my boyfriends moms. Whenever I met them hostility was front & center. So I never took the relationship seriously. Then I met my husband’s mom. She loved me. And I finally found a mother to replace mine. 21 years later, the siblings grew up, mom got older & bitter & I became beautiful. Well his sister’s got nasty with me over me growing my hair long, mom got mad at me because her son spent his money on me instead of his sister’s, and mom got vicious with me over my hair too. Wanted to know “why did I need all that hair?” Now everyone is mad because we’re buying a luxury car, which we can afford after driving around in a beat up Honda civic for 7 years. Everyone else has a new car but I got anger(they gave me the middle finger) because I want a nice car. So every year, I get backhanded comments, do I really need that? Birthday parties for my son? Honestly I do it for the kids. They have so much fun. As I told my husband, you need to protect me from them, but he won’t. So it’s not helping any other underlying issues. Drama with family yeah, cancer MC 10th house & Capricorn 4th house. Yeah I’m done & let him know it.

  16. I don’t know that I could marry a man knowing his mother didn’t like me. I think marriages need support from elders to flourish. It’s hard enough (from what I’ve observed) without that. And I don’t think I’d feel good about causing strife between a mother and her son.

  17. i never had this problem ever,and i was married once before. i feel it’s because i had such a strong will in wanting so badly to be with my first husband, first love and i didnt care what anyone thought: but thankfully, my family is very loving deep down, so i never had to “fight” with them about choosing. Even if my choosing in the past were bad eggs. It happens. the only problem is AFTER the fact, after the marriage failed, or if a relationship failed. I was looked like a failure because i couldn’t make it work, even if i tried very hard to stay with a drug addict, alcoholic, ex-con, ect who clearly never wanted to be on the straight and narrow to this day, years later. (just an example) so i felt like a huge failure. Finding a good marriage where both people actually click, and just feel alot of love and harmony, is true success to me.
    Ironically, in my family tree, my great grandmother, and great greats had very similar to this topic. They were disappointed in my grandfather’s choosing of a wife because she came from a poor family (who used to be well off, but there was gambling addiction in the family, so great grandmother disapproved). But grandpa never listened anyway. My grandmother turned out very good, very loyal to the end.

  18. Sometimes the Matriarch is sick in the head. My mother looooves her meth-head son in law, and the wife of her son who has a barn inside her house (seriously, who lets chickens run around in the kitchen and has 18 cats and 10 dogs?) but my other sister is married to a good, kind man and my mother hates him and has driven both him and my sister away. Long story, but if you’re a *healthy* human being, my mother just won’t like you. If you’re *broken*, then she won’t feel intimidated and will accept you.
    I’d havta be crazy to bring any man of mine around her. Wouldn’t dream of it.

    1. @dog8818, that’s true too,that some mothers/matriarchs in the family need someone “broken” and they can “fix” or relate to, someone who has truly gone down the deep end of life. Maybe they feel intimidated with some and can’t relate? In my family’s case, on my father’s side, it was opposite, and anyone too irresponsible with money (gambling addiction, or any uncontrollable addiction) is going to be irresponsible with raising a family and looking to be future-oriented for their children and children’s children.

  19. I had second thoughts about continuing a relationship (loooooong time ago) with a guy because, although I liked his mother very much and she didn’t care if I wasn’t their religion (ran across that scenerio more than once, along with being a different heritage), the guy was way too tied to his mother’s apron. Glad when we went our separate ways.

  20. Stupid iOS8 keeping crashing my Safari….I wanted to add that it is so true that you are not only involved with the guy (or girl) but also the family. Whatever your approach to family is, it may or may not be the same as his. It’s expectations, responsibilites, roles…..family members may need all kinds of support (emotional, financial, etc) and you just have to know how this plays into your life as a couple.

  21. If a person could be married to a soul mate ,would their ,relationship with In laws also be totally compatable , also?
    I made up,a song , “family dynamics , we all have them. They are crazy!

  22. I’ve been really lucky to have been involved with men whose mothers (if they were still living) liked me and made an effort to include me. The only exception was one boyfriend’s sister and two of his friends, because they wanted him to date a particular woman they all liked instead of me. His mother herself got along with me just fine.

    My last boyfriend didn’t want his parents to know he was dating me, though, and in four years didn’t introduce me to any of his family; it was long-distance and his family members lived elsewhere so they didn’t see each other that often anyhow. He never met my father, either, for other reasons.

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