Creating Healthy Ties with In-Laws

When evaluating a person as a potential mate, many people fail to consider one very important dimension: the other person’s family.  Often, they begin to fall in love before they’ve ever met the family.  While I’m not suggesting that your choice to marry someone be dependent on the type of family they come from, it is a very important dimension of the relationship that needs to be taken into consideration.

While the commandment is to “cleave unto” your spouse (Genesis 2:24), it doesn’t mean that your family of origin is to be “ignored, abandoned, shunned, or deserted” (Marvin J. Ashton, as quoted by Harper and Olsen, 2005).  You have to accept that even in “estranged” families, there is going to be some interaction with the in-laws (especially when grandchildren arrive), and whether or not this interaction is positive will have a great impact on your marriage. 

When I was dating my husband, I didn’t consider the influence of my in-laws as I should have, and in hindsight I wish my husband and I had agreed on certain parameters before we were married.   When we were dating, our contact with his family was very limited, and I assumed it would remain that way after we married.  His family has a very different belief system – on life in general as well as religion.  I felt somewhat uncomfortable around them, and I didn’t plan on forming any lasting relationships with my in-laws.  That all changed when the children were born.

I was somewhat overprotective of my first-born, and this conflicted with my in-laws newly developed interest in our family.  It created a lot of tension between my husband and me.  He saw our reaching out to them as a missionary effort, but I felt that going to their home put our child at risk.  After more children came and my oldest became more aware of his surroundings, we finally reached a compromise where we would meet his parents on what I call “neutral ground”.  When it came time to visit his hometown (they never came to our home to visit us), we would tell them we were in town and ask that they meet us at a local park or McDonald’s “so the kids would be better behaved” while we visited.  Although I know that they had reservations about this arrangement, they were cooperative, and I felt like it was a good compromise.

It wasn’t until ten years after we were married and my husband’s uncle died that I started to feel like part of the family.  I took the initiative to take a group family photo at the funeral, edit it, and distribute it to members of the family.  This small act of service opened doors that had been literally locked in the past, and our relationship improved vastly.  Unfortunately, it was just four years later that my husband’s father passed away suddenly.

4 Generation Photo, Taken in 2005

Harper and Olsen (2005) give some great advice for creating healthy ties with in-laws and extended families:

• Be faithful and supportive to your spouse, but don’t forget their parents.
• Frequency of contact and communication that does not interfere with each other’s being first in the marriage is an important step for building relationships with parent-in-law. 
• Use negotiation and compromise when deciding how much involvement should exist with extended family.
• Establish your own household if possible.
• Share more with your spouse than you do with your parents (confide in and counsel with your spouse.  Any counsel from outside sources should be considered prayerfully by both spouses together.
• DO NOT use your spouse as a mediator between you and your in-laws.  This will create strain on your marriage and can make your relationship with your in-laws worse.
• Find ways to personally build relationships with your in-laws as individuals. 

Since my father-in-law’s passing I have learned to not only forgive but also love him.  Essentially, my perspective has changed as I’ve matured.  I am grateful for my mother-in-law and her parents and am trying to establish better relationships with them despite our differences.  Though differing opinions between families can be still be frustrating, I know that my efforts to reach out to my in-laws means a lot to my husband.

References:

Harper, J. M. & Olsen, S. F. (2005). "Creating Healthy Ties With In-Laws and Extended

     Families." In C. H. Hart, L.D. Newell, E. Walton, & D.C. Dollahite (Eds.), Helping and

     healing our families: Principles and practices inspired by "The Family: A Proclamation to

     the World" (pp. 327-334). Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company.