Creating Healthy Ties
There was a time in our country when a newly-wed couple would live with either of their parents until they were able to either, afford to live on their own, in a small house on the same property, or perhaps just next door in the same neighborhood. Today we live in a very different era where we are much more transient, mobile, and private. Couples getting married today have many more options for living out on their own, leaving family behind.
Studying about young couple getting married and learning to deal with in-laws and other family dynamics has been rather enlightening for me. Marvin J. Ashton stated, “Certainly a now-married man should cleave unto his wife in faithfulness, protection, comfort, and total support, but in leaving father, mother, and other family members, it was never intended that they now be ignored, abandoned, shunned, or deserted. They are still family, a great source of strength. . . . Wise parents, whose children have left to start their own families, realize their family role still continues, not in a realm of domination, control, regulation, supervision, or imposition, but in love, concern, and encouragement”. I believe Ashton is saying newly married children should not forget their parents are still alive.
Did I mention I had two children get married this year? Case in point: One of our newly married children keeps in touch each week with her parents (us), usually a short skype on Sunday evenings along with her new spouse, a text or two each week or when a question comes up, and they made a long trip to join us, the parents, for Thanksgiving. The other newly married child joined a skype call on Mother’s Day, and attended his sister’s wedding with his new spouse, but other than that has mysteriously vanished from contact. This is leaving the parents (us) baffled and bewildered.
James M. Harper and Susanne Frost Olsen in Creating Healthy Ties with In-Laws and Extended Families counsels “The first task of a newly married couple is to separate from the families in which they grew up. . . . It helps a newly married couple to think of themselves as existing together inside an invisible fence. They share information and behavior with each other inside that fence, and that information and behavior is not meant to be shared with others outside the fence—not with future children and certainly not with parents or parents-in-law”. This really is good advice for the newly married couple. Often sharing private and personal information with parents, in-laws, siblings, or close friends can be seen as betrayal by the spouse. However, I don’t believe Harper and Olsen mean that the newly married couple should close all family members out of their lives.
So, what about cutting off all communication with parents and/or in-laws, to keep all of them outside their “fence”? According to Ashton, this may be a bit drastic, and it may have negative effects in the long run. My personal feelings on this are mixed, trying to understand their needs, while trying not to feeling forgotten. I believe our vanished new married couple needs their space to figure out married life on their own, and develop their own holiday traditions together, so I can’t be offended when they turn down invitations to come for a holiday visit. Invitations need to remain open, with love, kindness, understanding, and patience. Would I love to have them in our home for even a quick visit? Absolutely! But it has to be in their time. Thinking back to when I first got married, we didn’t have cell phones, skyping, emails, or sometimes not even a quarter for the pay phone to call home. We wrote letters, and not many, or very often. Actually, our parents probably didn’t hear from us for months, or maybe longer. So what am I even worried about now? No news is good news, right?
Being Good In-Laws
Is there such a thing as “good in-laws”? The media would have us think in-laws are the devil. They are often portrayed as interfering, meddling, judgmental parties that create havoc for the married couple. Harper and Olsen give some good advice for in-laws in their writings: “. . . five things that every parent-in-law should avoid. They are giving advice, criticizing, pinning down children-in-laws as to the specific reasons they are missing a family event, criticizing or taking over the disciplining of grandchildren, trying to control everyone and everything including children’s beliefs, and unclear and indirect communication. Conversely, when parents-in-law do things right, their influence is remembered and felt long after they are gone”.
I guess I just want to be remembered as a good parent-in-law by all of our children’s spouses. This will have a tremendous impact on the next generation, which I hold very dear to my heart!
Side Note:
Pondering on these, our two children who married this year, and seeing the difference in their “settling” into marriage and how they have handled in-law relationships in the process, one couple very open and interactive, and the other couple very closed and non-interactive, I believe the thing that has made a difference is the fact that the open couple dated for two years before getting married, and the closed couple dated for three months before getting married. Most of the “settling” for the open couple took place over the prior two years. Perhaps the more closed couple still needs those two years for the “settling” to take place. We definitely need to love them all where they are, and let them know we respect their decisions. That’s what in-laws need to do!
Marriage with a Capital M 