[powerstorm]

I have been with SAM for 5 years, my future mother in law thinks that I am not good enough for her daughter; she has done everything in her power to turn Sam against me. She has on certain occasions told me that she controls her daughter. E.g. what she says goes. Usually when I am in her company she will be nice and pretend that she cares, but when she has Sam alone it’s a different story. Sam sees or talks to her mother at least once a day, and believes she is wise and will believe her mother over me.

Her mother is very deceiving, I confronted SAM with this issue for the first time recently after years of trying to be strong. SAM does not like when I say anything bad about her mother and it usually lands up in a fight.

I have distanced myself from her mother as much as possible but this has caused SAM to think that I don’t care about her family. I really care for her farther, brother and sister. But the mother controls them all. I find that I am fighting a loosing battle and don’t know what to do.

Sam’s previous relationship was also destroyed in part by her mother, so I don’t feel alone. I don’t want too loose SAM but I think that her love for her mother will prevail and I will not.

What do I do,

[zman]

Do what my father did, and move to another city in another part of the country with her and get married. This way you create physical and some emotional distance between her and her mother, and increase your influence. Of course, she has to agree to this, which means in some way she has to want to get away from her mother also, or at least love you more. It helps if the excuse for moving is to get a really good job with a great company.

My father moved from Chicago to Fort Worth Texas for a job, and asked my mother to follow him down there and get married. She did, although they got married back in Chicago with all the families there. But then they were out of there. They ended up moving to California and then the east coast for different jobs, but never back to Chicago. Only for vacations to see family.

[HokeyReligions]

You can ask her to choose between you and her mother and tell her that you must come first to her, but that doesn't mean she will agree to that, or have an easy time making an adjustment. If her mother drives you away, then run and find someone who knows who should come first.

It's a very narrow line and my husband had a difficult time dealing with my mother moving in with us and there were times I felt so caught in the middle and so hurt. But we worked it out. Thankfully my mother raised me to know that a spouse comes first unless there are children - then they come first and the spouse comes second and the parent comes third.

If your gf is religious, you may want to talk with her minister about it and suggest couples counseling. She needs to know how this makes you feel. If she's lost one guy and then loses you, she may wake up to the fact that its her mother who is ruining her life and she's letting her do it. Unfortunatly, that means a broken heart for you too.

But just running off and putting geographic distance between them is not an answer. You marry into the family too.