I Don’t Want To Be The Mother-In-Law Cliche — So I Took My New Daughter-In-Law To The Bahamas

“A daughter’s a daughter for the rest of your life. A son’s a son ‘til he takes a wife.” I’ve heard this old chestnut sporadically throughout my life as a mom of four boys and it has always felt to me like a foregone conclusion. A veiled threat. Even among other moms of sons, it’s a sort of shrug like “oh well, it’s the way things go. What can you do?”

I don’t want to be finished with my sons when or if they marry but also I don’t want to fall into the mother-in-law trap. I’ve heard the complaints and the stories from my friends; they all claim they really want to like their mother-in-law, but she’s controlling or bossy or just too involved or whatever. There’s always some reason, always some excuse, but the overarching theme for most of the stories seems to be that mothers-in-law are the natural enemies of daughters-in-law. They’re all locked in a centuries-old battle for the man they both love, and no one ever wins.

So I decided to try something different when my son got married on a gorgeous sunny day in June. A few months afterwards, I took my daughter-in-law on a little weekend getaway to Sanndals Royal Bahamian in Nassau, Bahamas. Our own honeymoon, I told her as a joke, but really what I meant was this: Let’s go be women together in a beautiful place where we are spoiled and taken care of and don’t have to do anything except remember who we are outside our roles. Two people who could be friends.

First things first: We got separate rooms. Separate villas, in fact, with our own plunge pools and patios and even a butler, if you can believe it, because why not go all out? Neither of us had ever been to the Bahamas and Jessica had never been to an all-inclusive, and I thought both of us should have a bit of space to discover on our own. I also worried that sharing a room with me would make her feel infantilized, like I was turning her into one of my kids. Not the vibe at all.

We started the day hitting the bar for Bahama Mamas and a game of corn hole in the sand. The view of the sea had us both getting a bit giddy with excitement. Like girls, I thought, like we were kids on a sleepover who got to do whatever we wanted for a whole weekend. Kids who didn’t have any responsibilities or homework and could just tell secrets and eat food and swim and be silly together.

That night, I picked her up at her room for dinner at the resort’s French restaurant. Jessica answered her door in a dress and asked me how she looked, something that felt so tender to me right away. Her uncertain smile, her sweetness. That little tug on my heart.

We ate well. Drank beautiful wine. Bonded over the resort decor which we both loved, a mix of tropical and French art deco. I was ready to do whatever she wanted for the night. Drinks by the pool, head down to the bar for dancing. Stay up past midnight and be wild if that was something she needed. I would do anything. Really anything.

She wanted what I wanted, it turned out. To go back to our rooms early, curl up in our big beds, and watch television. HGTV for me and Buffy the Vampire Slayer for her. The same but different. Like us.

We made grand plans for our weekend at first. Borrowing a convertible Mini Cooper to explore Bahamas and I was going to let Jessica drive, that’s how generous I was feeling. We planned to go have lunch on Sandals’ private island. We planned and planned but it rained and rained. No car, no ferry to the island. No madcap adventures that would anchor us to each other forever. This could have spelled disaster for a typical long weekend.

We didn’t let it.

We went into Nassau for drinks and snacks at the lovely little bespoke cocktail bar Bon Vivants, a nod to my son’s love of craft cocktails.

We went on an eating tour of the resort because why not? We both love to eat, love bonding over our food. I even noticed we both do this little happy dance in our seats when our food arrives, a happy surprise. We ate brunch at Kanoo, pizza at Tesoros, coffee and ice cream at the cute little pink food truck Sweets N’ Tings. We swam in all of the three pools when the rain let up every once in a while. We played BINGO by one pool, joined in with the music trivia and failed miserably, dined on conch fritters and mac and cheese from Coco Queen.

Mostly, we talked. About her life, her career, our family that was now OUR family. Their wedding. Their future. Because I wanted her to understand I know it’s their future. My son is now her husband. Their future is theirs. And I realized on our last night in the Bahamas, when the rain cleared for good and we sat out under the stars, soaking in a hot tub and laughing, that I did not mourn this. I realized I was ready for this new stage.

On that last night, Jess and I each showed up at the hot tub with a glass of wine for each other. A symbol, I think, of how we were both thinking about what the other woman needed. How we wanted to become each other’s family. Each other’s friend.

We flew home together, lighter. Closer. Better. Glad for this weekend and what it helped build for our future together.

Jen McGuire is a contributing writer for Romper and Scary Mommy. She lives in Canada with four boys and teaches life writing workshops where someone cries in every class. When she is not traveling as often as possible, she’s trying to organize pie parties and outdoor karaoke with her neighbors. She will sing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” at least once, but she’s open to requests.