Having trouble getting on with your in-laws? You are not alone! The impossibility of living in any kind of peace with your partner's family has been a source of woe forever. But knowing that everyone has trouble with their in-laws is not much help in dealing with your in-laws.

If your in-laws were the understanding, considerate sort, you wouldn't be reading this. So they probably fall into another category - manipulative, interfering, critical, demanding. And they 'get to you’. All you want is a peaceful life with your partner, on your own terms!

We all understand that family loyalties are bound to clash when two families come together through the union of two individuals, But we all underestimate the impact that in-laws will have.

You may put a lot of effort in to make things go well - perhaps agreeing to things you weren't that keen on, or not standing up for yourself when criticized - only to find that things get worse rather than better.

Is there no way out? Yes there is. It is possible to have more comfortable relations with in-laws, although there is no perfect answer. We can't like everybody, or be liked by everybody, and the love you feel for your partner doesn't automatically extend to their mother, their father, or their siblings. But it is certainly possible to shape the relationship so that you feel comfortable dealing with them and stressing about in-laws no longer wrecks your life.

Be yourself, if your in-laws don’t like it that then becomes their problem and not yours. Your partner loves you just the way you are and not the way their in-laws would like you to be. You have assertive rights so initiate them right way.

You have the right to:
Be independent of the goodwill of others before coping with them.
To say ‘I don’t care’
To say ‘no’.
To offer no reasons or excuses to justify your behaviour.

Start today and your life will improve.

Author's Bio: 

Maggie was born in Braintree, Essex, an illegitimate baby, put up for adoption and left in a children’s home. She was adopted and brought up in Barkingside, Essex with an older brother and was sent to a private school at age 11 and achieved all the qualifications necessary to become a secretary. Her first job at the age of 16 was with the Legal & General Assurance Society in London where she started out as a shorthand typist, progressing to personal secretary by the time she left to have her family at age 22. Maggie had married at the age of 19 and had three children. In the 1970s Maggie became a Special Constable for three years in the Metropolitan Police. Unfortunately this marriage did not last and she was divorced and then remarried at age 32 and moved to Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

Returning to work when the children were old enough, Maggie worked for the NHS as the secretary to four Clinical Nurse Managers at Rochford Hospital in Essex, and then as the secretary/PA to a Professor of Thoracic Medicine at The London Chest Hospital and subsequently the secretary/PA for a Consultant Psychiatrist at Parklands Hospital in Basingstoke, where she had moved to from Southend-on-Sea in Essex when the children had all left home.

Maggie relocated to the Isle of Wight in 2003, having had a holiday home there since 1998, which was intended to be a retirement home. The move was prompted by the premature death of her next door neighbour just before her 60th birthday.

Maggie started her own secretarial business on the Island, working from home, aimed at small businesses who didn’t want to or could not afford to employ another person. This has built up from just 1 customer based on the Island in 2004 to over 60 clients based all over the world currently.

Whilst on a Business Link course in 2004 Maggie met someone who was undertaking a Life Coaching course with Newcastle College, and it was free at that time. It sounded interesting to her and she had nothing to lose, so she took their two free courses, Certificate in life coaching and Diploma in life coaching, and successfully qualified as a Personal Life Coach. Maggie also discovered that she not only loved coaching but she was very good at it.

Maggie bumped into Jonathan Jay, founder of the Coaching Academy, who she remembered from his stage hypnotic act some ten years before in the holiday camps on the Isle of Wight, at a Small Business Exhibition at the NEC in 2005 and he suggested that she join him at the Coaching Academy to gain even better qualifications, which she did and successfully qualified as a Corporate & Executive Coach.
Maggie met Dawn Breslin through the Coaching Academy and loved the work she did and the way she did it, and took three courses with her to become an Advanced Confidence Coach and a Group Trainer. She loves this even more than just coaching.

More recently Maggie was licensed by Susan Jeffers to present her workshops based on her book “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. This is really effective. Maggie met Susan in November 2008 in London and found her to be spiritual and positive.

Maggie is on a mission to inspire everyone to find and live their passions - to be their authentic, true self. She feels her job is to be responsive, flexible and enabling, to draw out the star in people. In particular, she is skilled in rebuilding people's self-esteem and confidence, enabling them to develop to their full potential. To do all this requires a holistic, lively approach to personal and professional development, from the delivery of the training and coaching through to on-going support. And she is interested in results – no ifs, no buts.

Maggie recently published an e-book entitled ‘7 Steps to re-building confidence in yourself’ which is selling well from her website. Her latest book 'WHAT YOU BELIEVE CREATES YOUR REALITY. THE GUIDE TO CREATING THE REALITY YOU WANT' is currently out for submission to publishers.