It's the power struggle that blights millions of marriages.
Credit: Huffington Post
As my husband Michael breezed in through the door, I could feel myself bristling with indignation. The satisfied smile on his face and the spring in his step pointed to one thing - a date with another woman.
My devoted husband claimed he loved me more than any other woman on earth, but here he was regularly taking another out to lunch.
And my rival read him like a book. She laughed at his jokes, sympathised with his problems and listened enraptured as he shared the dullest details of his life.
She knew his favourite foods. She knew what films he watched. She even knew his inside leg measurement.
No wonder I felt insanely jealous. I'd defy any wife not to feel the same. The trouble is most women feel too embarrassed to admit it.
How do you confess to yourself - let alone to friends - that you're jealous of the one woman who cannot possibly be a sexual rival. . . your mother-in-law?
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And yet, for many millions of women, the wedding ring is barely on our fingers before we're in deadly competition with our husband's mother.
This tug-of-war between a mother and daughter-in-law is an age-old phenomenon, the stuff of sitcom jokes and Greek tragedy.
Since the time of Chaucer, who catalogued the deadly rivalry between a wife and her husband's besotted mother in the Man Of Law's Tale, writers have found it a rich source of intense drama.
In 1954, one study revealed that only one in four women even liked her mother-in-law, and new research shows just how deep-seated the tension is.
A study of hundreds of families has revealed that nearly two-thirds of women complain they've suffered long-term unhappiness and stress because of friction with their husband's mother.
During the research - conducted over two decades - women accused their mothers-in-law of showing unreasonably jealous love towards their sons.
In turn, mothers-in-law complained that they were excluded from their sons' lives by their wives.
Credit: BLUNTmoms
Dr Terri Apter, a psychologist and senior tutor at Newnham College, Cambridge, carried out the research for her book What Do You Want From Me?, which is published this month.
She explains: 'The conflict often arises from an assumption that each is criticising or undermining the other woman. But this mutual unease may have less to do with actual attitudes and far more to do with persistent female stereotypes that few of us manage to shake off completely.
'Both the mother and the wife are struggling to achieve the same position in the family - primary woman. Each tries to establish or protect their status. Each feels threatened by the other.'
Dr Apter interviewed more than 200 people, including 49 couples, when researching her book. She attended family parties and get-togethers so she could observe women with their mothers-in-law and scrutinise the family dynamics for herself.
Read more at Daily Mail Online.