You employ smear tactics
Smear tactics refer to someone’s efforts (in this case, yours) to damage someone’s reputation. You constantly badmouth your son or daughter-in-law to other members of your family or friends, trying to turn others against them and making sure everyone’s on your side. It’s your passive-aggressive method to keep things under your control.
You’re extremely critical and judgmental
You are like a judgmental Terminator…relentless. No matter what your son or daughter-in-law does, it’s just not good enough. You feel the need to interfere and show how things should be done, from cleaning their home whenever you visit to rearranging their closet and cooking for them because what they eat is not to your taste.
Even your small gifts are offered as a sign of disapproval; you offer clothes because you don’t like their fashion style, you offer cookbooks because you don’t like their cooking and so on.
