A Study of Immigrant Wives' Perceived Conflicts with their Mother-in-laws and Coping Experiences
Abstract This study is performed to verify immigrant wives’ perceived conflicts with mother-in-laws and coping experiences. In order to understand in-depth conflicts between female immigrants and their mother-in-laws, we selected 8 foreign daughter-in-laws who have stayed over 5 years in Korea. We applied van Manen’s phenomenological methods. After the data analysis, 7 fundamental themes were derived and these are as follows: First, mother-in-laws as a prison guard, second, living a conscious life of other’s eyes, third, annoying words from mother-in-laws, fourth, treat married female immigrants as invisible woman not as family members, fifth, saying we are one finger which can overcome pains from biting, sixth, mother-in-laws can’t let her son go, seventh, not distributing love. In addition, coping behaviors were as follows: they just deal with living a conscious life of other’s eyes, making a feeble complaints, accepting it with understanding, resisting the situation, evading and enduring the circumstances. Husband was most reliable supporter and secured hiding place. Her friends were her spirit supporters. Keywords: conflicts, coping experiences, married female immigrants, multicultural family