Today’s guest post is from Lauren Hanna from The Encouragement Express–a great blog site for engaged couples.
10 Great Ways to Embrace Your Inlaws
I think for most of us when we hear the word “in-laws”, something akin to the music in Jaws or Psycho starts playing in our heads. We immediately think of every awful, judging scenario Ben Stiller had to deal with in Meet the Parents, and we cringe.
As an engaged person, one wonders: What am I getting myself into? Meeting and dealing with the in-laws is a whole different ball game. I personally think it can be a wonderful experience. My fiancé, Will, and I are now two months out from our wedding, and by the grace of God, we have had remarkable success in this area. Getting married is one of the biggest transitions in life we’re ever going to have. Emotions are high, and that’s when the best and worst often come out in people. So here’s some tips that Will and I have learned on how to navigate the in-laws, so that everyone is left feeling valued and important. Also, I HIGHLY recommend Danny Silk’s book, Keep Your Love On. It has been a life saver for me through this experience and is all about how to communicate and confront others lovingly and with honor.
1. Set Boundaries
This is the number one thing I have heard as marriage advice in dealing with family members. You and your fiancé are going to have to set boundaries with each of your parents, together. It may not sound fun at the time, but it will pay off! A few weeks ago my family was trying to change my entire wedding, because it didn’t meet their expectations. I got this long phone call from my mother, telling me the 101 reasons why I needed to change it. Instead of getting all upset, I thanked her for her opinions, let her know that I valued them, and let her know that for us that the current option we have is the best one. Get this, she then apologized for stepping over the line and has been better since. Now not all boundary setting interactions will go this smoothly, but as long as you honor them and stand your ground, they will respect you – even if they don’t agree with you. To quote from Danny Silk’s Keep Your Love On: “It’s your responsibility to set a boundary for how many disrespectful or damaging exchanges you will endure. The moment you pick up a dueling sword, you are equally guilty for whatever blood is shed.”
2. Be Slow to Offense
Like I said earlier, emotions are high during this time. Unfortunately more often than not, something is going to get said that is offensive. Instead of taking the bait of provocation, take a deep breath and ask yourself “Is this worth getting upset over?” I guarantee you, 99% of the time that answer will be “No.” The deep breath is a miracle worker, because it calms you down instantly. Instead of acting out of emotion, you’ll now have a better chance of being reasonable. Furthermore, when you choose not to take offense to something, and set a boundary if needed in that situation, you are setting a standard for your relationship with that person. You are saying, “I choose to value our relationship above all else.”
3. Remember, They’re Grieving
This piece of advice given to me, before I was engaged, has been a HUGE help to me during this time. Getting married is a time of celebrating what God has put together in you and your fiancé. Although your parents and in-laws will be happy for you, for them there is often another emotion… loss. For them it is the final thing reminding them that their baby is all grown up and moving on with life. That can create a sense of grief, which can manifest itself through control, manipulation, distance and selfishness. Once you realize it’s actually grief, then you can help assuage that by reminding them that no one is losing anything. You’re creating your own family now, and that is an exciting thing. “Each display of love, no matter how seemingly small, is a powerful act of spiritual warfare that removes anxiety from the environment and replaces it with freedom and safety.” – Danny Silk.
4. Plan Things for You All to Do Together
A great way to ease the tension with the in-laws is to do stuff together. Get to know each other better. Try and find some common ground. You and your fiancé can take them out to dinner or to a movie or some fun activity. For example, one of the things that Will and I are going to do for his parents is take them whale-watching. Neither of them have ever been, and it’s been something they have both been wanting to do. So ask about their interests and do stuff together! If you’re in different places, talk on the phone or have Skype dates! It’ll show them that you are excited to become a part of their family, as well as welcoming them into yours.
5. Have Them Be A Part of the Wedding Planning Process
I know some of you just cringed at this, especially if you’ve been dealing with controlling in-laws. My wedding planner suggested to me to have each set of parents in charge of something when this happens. If they’ve been unpleasant in the planning part so far, make it a small thing. Something that won’t be the end of the world to you if it isn’t exactly what you want. Since our parents are so different, we decided to do that, so there would be no toes stepped on. We made my parents in charge of table decor. We made his parents in charge of hotel services. We also sent them pictures/info on decisions we were making and asked their opinion. Each time we thanked them for their opinion, regardless of whether or not we went with it. This makes them feel valued and included, as they should be.
6. What’s Their Love Language?
Watch your in-laws. How do they receive/give affection? Is it through words of affirmation, acts of service, spending time with you, gift-giving, or physical touch? When you notice, respond in like manner. This will communicate to them that you value and appreciate them.
7. Be Thankful
Make sure to sincerely thank them every time they bless you. If they give you a gift or pay for something, send a thank you note at least. This is so simple, but it is not done very often and will go much farther than you realize. When our parents let us know that they wanted to help us out financially with the wedding, Will and I each sent them flowers with a thank you note in them. They loved it! I mean who wouldn’t? So gratitude… it’s a big deal.
8. Value Relationship Over Being Right
To quote Danny Silk again, “Refuse to let disagreements intimidate you into moving away from one another. Prioritize the connection above the argument.” You’re going to disagree with your in-laws on things. You are different people, and therefore see the world in a different light. That’s okay. Differences are supposed to be used to strengthen us. Don’t let your need to be right kill an important relationship before you even get married. You’re going to be connected to your in-laws for a long time. Is it worth being right if it damages your relationship?
9. Pick Your Battles
Here’s another life-saver piece of advice that someone gave me–it goes hand-in-hand with being slow to offense: Pick your battles. Not everything needs to be fought, and it’ll make your life and their lives a lot easier. Now I’m not saying to let them walk all over you in the name of “getting along.” However, just as there are some battles to stand up and fight, there are also ones that you don’t need to. The ones that don’t need to, are usually dealing with the little things that might be irritating. They might not know that they are bugging you, and think they are helping you out. So give them a break every once in a while. It’ll save your relationship. One more thing, don’t dwell on the battles you decided not to pick. As women we tend to go over things again and again and again in our heads. That’s still choosing to fight that battle. Only now it’s being fought internally. You have enough stuff to do and focus on during this time. Just let it go.
10. Be Excited
You are getting married! I mean that is exciting! The one that you have waited for, dreamed of, thought about constantly is finally here. Be excited! Try not to let all of the stress of planning a wedding, and going through this transition rob you of the joy you should be feeling. The more excited you are, the more fun you have, the more everyone else around you will feel the same thing. Joy is highly contagious. An unsure in-law will come around so quickly when they are dealing with a joyful and excited bride. After all, the joy of the Lord is your strength!
So have fun in the process of being engaged! It is possible to have great relationships with your in-laws, and I pray that each and every one of you feel valued and favored by them. Relationships do take work, sometimes a lot of work, but they are so worth it!
Lauren Hanna is a 25 year old composer based out of LA. She took up blog writing about five years ago when people started asking her to send them daily encouragements. One thing lead to another and now she is the writer of a successful blog called The Encouragement Express. She loves God with all her heart, and loves seeing people become who He made them to be. She is currently engaged to her best friend, and very excited to start this new season of her life.
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“I don”t always embrace my inlaws. But when I do, I use an octopus on a 10 foot pole”
🙂 just kidding.
I never thought about the grieving aspect before. I don’t think my in-laws really did as much, since my husband had already moved out years prior. Makes a lot of sense though!
Sheila, just a quick comment. Today is Tuesday not Wednesday. Your email said Wifey Wednesday.
I know! Duh. I saw that after it went out. Whoops.
I think Anne at Modern Mrs. Darcy offered some terrific insight yesterday that applies to in-law relationships as well as friendships. http://modernmrsdarcy.com/2014/09/4-levels-friendship/
We tend to think that our new family connection makes us close or intimate when we are not. We may get there over time, but it is not guaranteed because family relationships are tricky things that involve the entire family at once. I would have liked to have a close relationship with my mother-in-law, but she was not really open to it for a lot of complicated reasons. Over time, though, I recognized her love languages as acts of service and gifts (definitely NOT mine), so I could look back and see a trail of loving actions and I made efforts to “speak her language”. I was finally able to care for her during her final days and I think that she saw that as my showing her love in a way that she was not open to before. I wish we could have had more, but you can’t force closeness.
It took years of being married to develop anything like a reasonable relationship with my inlaws. I think their grieving may have been a large part of that. I wish I’d seen something like this 18+ years ago!
Also, I misread the title as top 10 ways to EMBARASS your inlaws. Which would be a funny one to do sometime…. 🙂
We never had a problem with in laws. My wife got on very well with my mum (My dad died before I met my wife.) and her parents were the best in-laws I could have had. I always looked forward to their visits eagerly and was sorry to see them leave.
My in-laws are completely insane. They tried to micromanage everything we did (the border on our wedding invitations should have been a pixel smaller, they didn’t like the minister, they didn’t like the guest list, they didn’t like our outfits, they didn’t like that we wanted a small, informal wedding, etc etc etc). It went on and on (with me trying to be as kind as possible) until I finally got tired of it and said “enough. This is our wedding. You aren’t paying for any of it, we are.” Then they didn’t talk to us for a year. Two years later, we’re on friendly terms again. I can honestly say that the absolute best thing for my mental health was just telling them “No.” This won’t be the case for everyone, of course. But for those with ultra-controlling in-laws, the best thing to do is sometimes to just put your foot down, especially if they’re totally destroying the excitement of it. Staying far away from them for that year worked out well, as it gave us a chance to get settled into our marriage without being subjected to constant prying and attempted manipulation.
Yes, sometimes you just have to do that. Boundaries are important, and setting them early in marriage is much better than trying to do it 15 years later. It’s wonderful that you and your husband were on the same page about it!
Is it just me, or is it weird to only meet your boyfriends parents when you are engaged? Shouldn’t you have met each other’s parents like, a lot sooner?
I think it depends so much on location. Several of my friends didn’t meet their daughter’s boyfriend until they were basically engaged because they met at school on the other side of the country.
Personally, as a parent, I’m going to great lengths to meet all my girls’ friends, even if they’re in a different city! I think that’s every parent’s duty. 🙂 But I know it isn’t always possible.
The first one on the list is the most important of all. Set boundaries. My husband and I have had years of struggle over this one. While I see that the title mentions “your FUTURE in-laws”, hence the references to the wedding, I can guarantee you that the issue of control will go on and on, long after the wedding. Though we didn’t have issues with the wedding, we’ve had LOTS of issues since then, with the in-laws wanting to exert control. My husband is a pleaser – he wants to make everyone happy – making him very vulnerable to manipulation. But you can’t please everyone by telling everyone what they want to hear, and then “pleasing” the one whose anger you fear the most. Not a healthy plan!
It took a lot of counseling to reinforce the idea that when you marry, your first allegiance is to your spouse, not your family of origin. Doesn’t mean you cut them out – and the article here has a lot of GREAT suggestions for building the relationship ;D – but you do have to realign your thinking. It really helps to anticipate the areas of conflict (with the in-laws) and formulate a “statement” ahead of time. And to practice NOT giving an answer until you’ve had time to confer with each other.
Whew! It’s hard work!
Julie
The best thing I did for my relationship with my in-laws was to have kids! Suddenly all the things they disagreed with us over were not as important to them as seeing their grandkids!
Oh the in-laws topic…in-laws can be quite a struggle! My parents (especially my dad) spent a lot of time attempting to alienate my husband from the rest of the family. Our solution was to stop visiting as much because it wasn’t fair to my husband. We set some firm boundaries down for my parents and while they were met with anger initially, in the long run my dad quit being rude and my mom quit drinking for the sake of seeing their granddaughter. Boundaries are sooo important.
However sometimes they don’t work. Sometimes in-laws have very warped points of view of the world and all the boundaries in the world don’t make a difference. After years of asking my in-laws to call before coming over (9:30 on a work night after our daughter has gone to bed is NOT appropriate), explaining why it was not okay for complete strangers in the mall to hold our child, boundaries being crossed with a physically abusive uncle, and reminding them that yelling is never appropriate in our home, especially when directed toward our daughter who quite honestly was doing nothing wrong, we had to say enough is enough. While we didn’t want to, we had to eventually stop allowing them to visit with our daughter.
It’s been a year and while we’ve reached out to them to explain our reasoning with love, my in-laws believe they are the head of the family until they pass away and then my husband and I can be the head over our own house. My mother in law specifically wrote in one letter, “I’m the mother and as the mother I shouldn’t have to call to come to my own son’s house. I should have top say in everything that goes on at this house.”
Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, reconciliation is not in the near future. So, our family is a prime example of how boundaries can be a blessing or create a rift in a family.
@ Sheila. I have some sympathy for that, but not a lot. My boyfriend and I met each other’s parents and the parents met each other within a month of us starting to date. His parents are a 5 hour drive away. My parents were a 20h 15 min flight away (with one or more stops. In reality its like 25-ish hours of non-stop travel. If you get the flights through Europe it’s 2 12 hour flights with up to 12 hours layover). He also flew back to South Africa with me to meet my family the first Christmas we were together. We’re graduate students. So…
There is also Skype.
I think it’s wonderful that you make a point of knowing your children’s friends. The distance thing is also a compelling argument for not just blithely choosing an out of state college. Many people meet their future spouses in college. Not having your family be a part of that at all seems, less than ideal. There are very few cases that you actually Need to go across country for an undergraduate education.
I agree! I want my kids close to me so that I CAN be part of their lives. I don’t think mommyhood ends when they’re 18; that’s when they’re making big decisions and I want to be there to steer them–more in an advisory capacity, but still there. And my girls do still talk to me!
I think it’s hard when you live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and so people’s circumstances are all different. But to me family was always the most important thing.
Its funny to read these because my in-laws are different from all these examples. They were pretty unhappy about the wedding. Mostly because they thought my hubby was making a mistake. And my parents thought I was making a mistake. My parents were supportive of my decision after we did premarital counseling.
As far as the wedding, it was great. And I’m glad I stuck to the things that were important to me. How many brides can say they had rice crispy treats for their cake and goldfish in mini bowls for center pieces?
I think its super important to talk about what boundaries to have with your inlaws after marriage. A lot of the other advice applies then too.
Um, I actually like my inlaws (no its not always easy). The people you are complaining about raised the one You choose to be with for the rest of your life! Everybody has problems and areas where they need to improve. Quit whining and be grateful.