Ask Rebecca: My son cheated and I’m stuck in the middle. Whose side should a mother be on?

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You love your son. You love your daughter-in-law. Your son hurt your daughter-in-law. And now everyone seems to want you to pick either Team Son or Team Daughter-in-Law.

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I strongly suggest a third option: Team You.

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You need to protect yourself from getting dragged any further into a marriage you’re not actually in, and that already had one too many. This is between two married people. You are neither of them.

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Instead of asking, Whose side am I on? Ask yourself, What is my role here?

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You are his mother. That’s one role. You are her mother-in-law. That’s another. You are the grandmother of their children. That’s three. Frankly, you have enough jobs in this family.

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You also don’t need to become the judge presiding over a divorce they may or may not have or a couples therapist responsible for preventing one.

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Yes, your son needs his mother right now. But an actual mother. Not some imaginary one who tells him he’s right about everything, dislikes everyone he dislikes, and then shows up with homemade soup. What he needs from you is a mother who can be on his side, without taking his side. You can love him fiercely and still think he behaved terribly.

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Unconditional love does not mean unconditional approval. If that’s not the definition of motherhood, I’m not sure what is.

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Not to point out the obvious, but your daughter-in-law is the one who got cheated on. So yes, take her calls. Let her cry.  But you still need a firm boundary. Do not become the person your daughter-in-law tells every intimate detail of their marriage to. You don’t need information that makes you immediately regret having ears. You already know enough.

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Stand beside your son, close enough for him to know you’re not going anywhere and close enough to look at him directly and say, “I love you to the moon and back. I love you beyond words. But what you did was wrong.”

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Say something simple to your daughter-in-law like, “I love you. I’m here for you. I’m not going anywhere. I think of you as my daughter. I also love my son, and I can’t be in the middle of your marriage.”

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Don’t carry messages between them. Don’t report what one says about the other. Don’t advise either of them whether to stay married.

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Your daughter-in-law gets to decide whether she can forgive him. Your son gets to decide how far he’s willing to go to earn back her trust. Together, they get to decide whether their marriage can survive.

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None of those decisions are yours.

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I’d also stop worrying for now about what happens if they divorce. They haven’t. They’re working on it. If they eventually do, you’ll deal with that then. Your daughter-in-law will still be the mother of your grandchildren and someone you love independently of your son.

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One small heads-up. If they stay together, you will still know everything they told you during the worst weeks of their marriage. If they put this behind them, unfortunately, you don’t get the same luxury.

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But that’s tomorrow’s problem. You have quite enough already.

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For now, stay in both of their lives and stay out of their marriage.

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And for the record, I’m Team You.

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Love, Rebecca

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Rebecca Eckler is an internationally bestselling author, founder of re:books publishing, Rivkah Books, and co-founder of CANREADS. She’s a professional oversharer and observer of human behaviour, and has spent decades writing about life’s messy twists. 

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