In-Law Relations (wk 13)

The movie “Monster-In-Law” perfectly captures the problems a lot of people have with their in laws. In the movie, Charlotte and Kevin are engaged, but Kevin’s mother is firmly against the match and schemes to break up the relationship. She is on her best behavior around her son, and he doesn’t understand at all the intensity of the situation. Charlotte is left to deal with the nightmare almost entirely on her own, and she’s not willing to give up her man either. 

Why do so many people have in-law problems? In an article titled “Creating Healthy Ties with In-Laws and Extended Families,” James M. Harper and Susanne Front Olson discuss the issue of enmeshment. When a parent and child suffer from enmeshment, they feel like they always need to be together, that they need to be first in each other’s lives, and anything other than that is a betrayal or serious offense. Enmeshment can also cause problems because the parent is likely to expect the new son or daughter-in-law to be a lot like them. 

It’s not a problem to have a close emotional relationship with your parents, but the marriage relationship should come first. Sometimes daughters will turn to their mothers for advice, help with stressful situations, and general encouragement, when in fact this is more of her husband’s responsibility now. Harper and Olson also said, “Mothers can help sons or daughters by not continuing to be their primary confidante after they are married.”

I am pretty sure I won the in-law jackpot. I have really great in-laws who have completely accepted me into the family. They don’t try to undermine me in the way I choose to parent, they respect the autonomy of our marriage, and they have fully supported us from the beginning. I have never felt like an outsider in my husband’s family. They even include me in family Facebook groups and family emails and texts. I was loved and welcomed right from the start, even before our relationship had progressed very far. In the past, I have attended family functions with my husband’s family when my husband couldn’t come and I didn’t feel the least bit out of place. In contrast, there’s no way my husband would attend a family function with my family if I wasn’t there as well. He definitely feels less accepted and more of an outsider. 

Interestingly, in the same article Harper and Olson inform us that family support significantly affects the success of the marriage. They cite one study that found that in couples whose marriages had ended, 80% of them had not had parental support or approval for their marriage. I found that to be very interesting! Many people might say that they will not support a marriage because they can just see that it won’t work out, or they can see the problems, but their lack of support is actually one of the things pulling the marriage down!  The article states the importance of parents working to create a personal relationship with their children’s spouses. This is something my in-laws have definitely done. I feel as much their child as my husband is. 

Going along with that, the article states that stronger bonds are formed when children can call their in-laws Mom and Dad. I have a rather embarrassing story about this. I have been married for 8 years now, and right from the beginning my in-laws told me I could choose what I called them, either their names or Mom and Dad would be fine with them. I had no idea what to choose. I wasn’t fully comfortable with either choice. So I didn’t choose. Until about a year ago, I just avoided addressing them directly. I would speak to them, but I would always figure out a way to not have to say any type of name. My brother-in-law discovered this one Christmas and made fun of me for days about it. I finally decided to just call them by their first names, and I am getting used to it. I don’t know why this choice was so difficult for me, and I still feel like it’s weird when people call their in-laws Mom and Dad, but evidence points to that being a positive thing, so…maybe one day I’ll change camps too! 

Sometimes, our negative relationships with in-laws are because we are not following the “family rules.” Bernard Poduska said, “The degree of harmony between the husband’s family’s rules and the wife’s family’s rules greatly determines the degree of difficulty in adjusting to marriage.”  Every family has rules that govern how they act and what is important to them. For instance, in my family, an unspoken rule is we don’t joke around or make fun of each other because someone’s feelings might be hurt. In my husband’s family they are always poking fun at each other, laughing, teasing, and having a good time. When he came to my house and started to act this way, it wasn’t taken very well by some members of my family. In fact, there was one time when my younger sister started to tease my husband back about something, and she got in trouble for it! 

I think one of the most important things a couple can do is make sure that the other person knows they are the priority. A husband must take his wife’s side even if it means crossing his mother. A wife needs to take her husband’s side even if it means upsetting her family. The marriage relationship is the most important. If parents or other family members are not understanding, things can be gently explained to them, but even still, the couple may need to set up some boundaries.