Situation · Family and friends
“My in-laws criticise everything I do”
What could be going on
Jealousy: Fits if they feel they lost their place with their child to you; check when it started.
In-group bias: Could be outsider treatment; check whether other in-laws or newcomers get the same.
Envy disguised as critique: Fits if criticism lands hardest on what you do well.
Enmeshment: Check whether the family resists any member forming a separate unit.
Triangulation: Check whether complaints go through your partner instead of to you.
Questions to carry
- At the last visit, which criticism stung most, and who else heard it?
- Where does my partner stand when it happens, and what do I want from them then?
Also said as
- my mother-in-law picks at my cooking, my parenting, my house
- his parents never accept me
- my father-in-law makes snide comments about me
- why do my in-laws always find fault with me
- in-laws who disapprove of me
- my wife's parents always put me down