Creating Healthy Ties With In-Laws

WHAT IT MEANS TO ‘CLEAVE’ UNTO ONE ANOTHER

One of the most challenging things for me when I was dating my future husband was to understand and to learn to love my in-laws. At the beginning things were easy – because there was not much of a commitment. Once he left to serve a faithful mission, however, the relationship between me and my future in-laws became strained because they did not think that I would wait for their son. There wasn’t a day that went by that my heart was not committed to my best friend and sweetheart. He returned from his mission and I was still there...to the shock and dismay of his parents. When we finally decided to get married, three years after his mission, the challenges of combining family traditions, creating new rules for our new family, and detaching ourselves somewhat from our families became real and not so easy. He was the oldest in his family of six kids and I was the second oldest in my family of eight. Both sets of parents had a tough time letting go. We pulled away anyway, but kept the lines open as much as we could...and should.

I wish I had read Creating Healthy Ties with In-Laws and Extended Families by James M. Harper and Susanne Frost Olsen way back then! In Genesis Chapter 2, verse 24, we are taught, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.” Many children are given a serious guilt trip when they break away and others are applauded by their parents. The applauding parent is the one I would like to be when my children leave home for good to get married. I learned a great deal from this reading assignment about the balance between establishing autonomy as a married couple and the potential dangers of enmeshment between married children and their parents.

HELPING NEWLY MARRIED COUPLES CREATE A MARITAL IDENTITY

What type of adult a child eventually becomes should be a matter of pride and joy for parents, not a matter of disappointment. Watching a child turn into an individual with his or her own marital and family identity should be encouraged by the parents. It is said that “Parents give their children two things: roots to grow and wings to fly.” 

An enmeshed family is one in which the parents simply cannot let go and the child goes along with it. Marriages can be strained and even destroyed by in-laws who cannot accept their child’s spouse with love and respect for their boundaries and differences. Too much contact between the child and parent can eventually lead the spouse to feel that the marital relationship is becoming smothered and distanced. Harper and Olsen note that “One of the great gifts parents-in-law can give to their married children is to recognize early that they must help define and protect the boundary of this new couple.” President Spencer W. Kimball taught with specific regard to husbands cleaving unto their wives that, “She, the woman, occupies the first place. She is preeminent, even above the parents who are so dear to all of us.” That leads us back to the scripture in Genesis regarding cleaving. 

ACCEPTING DIFFERENCES IS VITAL

Gloria Horsley (The In-law Survival Guide http://www.amazon.com/In-Law-Survival-Guide-Gloria-Horsley/dp/0471194239) offered some sound advice concerning five specific things that every parent-in-law should avoid. They are:

1. Giving advice
2. Criticizing
3. Pressing
4. Taking over disciplining grandchildren
5. Trying to control everyone and everything

As President Boyd K. Packer declared that marriage is indeed a shelter, I would like to add that the home is the specific place where that shelter for the family should be created as well. It is important for married couples and their children to establish a place of safety and shelter in their own home. We are all indeed different, and marriage is not always an easy adjustment and transition concerning extended family. But seeking the Lord’s guidance and counsel in every decision as a married couple can sure make marriage and family life a successful adventure. Although we need to declare our independence from our parents and allow our children to declare theirs from us, those roots will always remain with the family unit because we are all ultimately eternally bound.