Being an In-law

I really liked and appreciated what Harper and Olsen (2005) stated about becoming an independent couple and yet having a healthy relationship with in-laws. He talked about how when a couple marries, they need to have and establish their own sense of identity. Moving away and having a reasonable distance from in-laws is one thing couples can do to help them establish themselves as a couple and create and establish their own family and family rules. Having the in-laws be understanding and encouraging of the couple creating their own identity is critical. Parents from either side cannot be pulling the couple from either side or direction. In-laws also need to be courteous and not try to make their child feel guilty for not coming to every single family function or spending all of their time with them. Parents need to be there to love and support their children and not try to guilt them into continual submission. 

My husband and I experience some of these issues with my parents. There was a family reunion vacation that my side of the family was having. Many of my family members pressured and made us feel guilty if we didn’t go. We finally ended up going and there were a couple of days of the vacation where we just wanted to spend some time alone as a family. My family then scolded and got upset with us that we weren’t spending all of our time with them. My family also gets really upset if we even appear to favor my husband’s side of the family. My parents blame any lack of a relationship between me and them and my husband and them on me. On my husband’s side of the family, he is/was very dependent on his family. We were living with his mom when we first got married and it was difficult to get him to agree to move out. To try to get him to move out of state to go to school, was like pulling teeth. He wanted to stay in Utah because his family was there. We were spending time with his family multiple times a week. Once we finally moved away, our marriage got better and improved since we were finally able to turn to each other rather than him turning to his family for help. Having that distance as a couple is so needed and necessary in order to establish and have a good relationship with your spouse.