Reaching Heavenward

In-Laws

Balancing married life and life with parents/ in-laws is challenging.  As newlyweds you are trying to figure out who you are as a couple and how to live life together. This can be complicated to do if in-laws are too involved in their married children’s lives. “Enmeshment” as James Harper and Susanne Frost Olsen define in “Creating Healthy Ties With In-Laws and Extended Families.”

“Enmeshment describes a process in which parents and children feel they always have to be together; to not be so is considered a personal affront. When enmeshment exists, it is difficult for family members to separate feelings, and loyalty issues are distorted. If a married child can’t attend a family event, he feels like he is offending his parents, and his parents will be personally hurt.” To prevent being entangle in enmeshment both the married couple and the parents must work together to establish proper boundaries with love and communication. it’s important to still have a good relationship with your parents after getting married as they can offer advice and encouragement. When the parents have crossed those boundaries is when they try to enforce their parental authority within your marriage, whether that be telling you how you should parent your children or needing to know every detail in your life. Discussing this problem can be daunting to address because it is such a personal topic for you both, but it has to be done to build a strong relationship with your spouse and prevent future problems. 

When my husband and I got married a year ago we didn’t experience too many problems with our parents, or extended family, but as time went on, we have started to notice that my husband’s little sister who is also at BYUI right now would call almost every day. Since my husband’s parents are divorced his sister likes to come to him for almost everything. I didn’t mind in the beginning when she would call because I knew that she was struggling with something, but when she started calling more than once in a day, I started to feel like she was talking more to my husband than I was. I expressed my feeling to my husband, and we discussed how we needed to set some boundaries with us and his sister. After a few days my husband talked to his sister in a very loving way about how we were happy to talk and spend time with her, but we also needed time to be a married couple. After we talked with her about the problem, I’ve seen how we have actually built a healthier and stronger relationship between all of us. 

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