In-laws and Married Couples

Handling in-laws

Here are some questions that if you have answers to can help you deal with in-laws in a marriage.

What are your expectations?
Often, it is not easy to see what your expectations really are. Clearing your mind and seeing if you’ve built unrealistic expectations is a crucial first step toward bridging your family relationships. Stop fantasizing that your spouse’s family is going to change and be anything more than they are. Take a real look at the people in your wedding album, and let go of how you think things are “supposed” to go.

Do you have a set of boundaries and limits?
Talk to your husband about what your “family values” are going to be. Do you like company stopping by unannounced? Whatever you and your husband feel is the limit, should be applied to all guests (including the in-laws).

Are you empowering your in-laws too much?

The female partner empowering her parents too much

Many in-laws give unsolicited advice about child rearing or home maintenance or job hunting strategies or retirement plans. What you have to remember under these circumstances, is that this is just one person’s opinion. Agree to disagree and move on without feeling berated or tortured. You don’t need to change their opinion or internalize their judgments.


How do you handle conflict?
In any family, conflict will often arise at some point. Maybe planning the wedding was stressful enough for the first fights to occur, or maybe you actually made it past the honeymoon phase. Either way, it’s important to deal with disagreements right away and not let them fester over the years, leading to an inevitable explosion. Address problems as soon as possible, and ask for an apology for slights that occur. Don’t hold grudges, and don’t take things personally. Also, communicate directly with your mother-in-law and father-in-law, if you have an issue. Don’t ask your husband or wife to do the talking for you. This is the mature things to do.

Are you thinking of the future?
We meet people in life to learn lessons from, and none more than our family members. They are part of your family tree now, and those roots go down deep, and the branches extend wide. Once we have children, those in-laws become grandparents, with relationships that eclipse our own possibly strained relationships. No matter how dark the hour, remember that they raised the person you fell in love with, so they obviously did something right.