A letter to my (future) daughter in law

I have one son. Three lovely, amazing daughters who will grow (hopefully) to be adults with whom I can be friends. But the relationship between a mother and her son is far more complicated. Since my son was born I have come to respect my mother in law in a way that I never could have imagined...afterall, I married HER baby boy. Now I get it.

I adore Aidan. There is no way around it. He is almost perfect in my eyes and so I happily admit that no girl will ever be good enough for him. EVER. And so I write this letter:


Dearest daughter in law,

You get to be the dearest because you are the only one. I am grateful for this. This will be the one relationship in my life that I will have to work hard for.

You might be just about perfect or even just perfect enough. But it is not enough for my son. For this I apologise. There is nothing that you can say or do, no way you can look or act that will change my mind about this. I really am sorry. I wish it could be different but I don't see how.

You will steal my son from me. Not exactly I know...but until you, I will be the biggest place in his heart. It will be painful for me to let that go. It will be painful to me that every day he will tell you he loves you but days and even months may pass between the times that I hear those words. So you can understand how it will be difficult for me to love you.

But I will try. I will try because my son chose you. Only you. And that has to be enough. And I will remind myself everyday that you are making my son happy and that is high priority in my life. So please, I ask you to be patient with me. And try to remember that Aidan is the result of our love surrounding him during his most vulernable years.

Remember please that he is sensitive. Emotionally attached and easily heartbroken. That he is funny and playful. That he is serious and smart. And I will try to remember that he is no longer a child but your husband and respect the boundries of that relationship.

Yours sincerely,

Aidan's MOM



The good news is that Aidan told me not even a month ago that he is never getting married because then he might have babies and having babies is a LOT of work. Hmmmm. Maybe he's smarter than I've given him credit for. Is it alright for a mother to wish her son might be gay...just a little?