My
wife and I are going on 31 years of marriage, and I must say, we haven’t had
any major problems with our in-laws over the years. Don’t get me wrong, we have had our
differences at times with them, but as a married couple, we have always been
able to talk to each other about issue(s), we were having with our in-laws
without taking it personally. Whatever
decision we made to resolve an issue(s), we supported each other in order to
correct the problem. I believe we have
built such a good enough relationship with our in-laws, that we could go and
talk to them about how we are feeling.
In fact I remember at least two incidents involving our in-laws that we
had to deal with in our marriage.
·
The
first incident involved my wife and mother.
When our first child Danielle was a baby, she was having problems with
her stomach. My mother being the helpful
person that she was kept calling my wife giving her suggestions on what she
could do to remedy our daughter’s problem.
My wife came to me expressing that she felt like my mother wasn’t giving
her a chance to learn how to be a mother.
I told her how my mother was only trying to help, but I encouraged my
wife to talk to my mother about the matter.
She did and my mother understood and respected Donna’s feelings and
backed off.
·
The
second incident involved my wife’s family.
My wife grew up in a family that smoked cigarettes. I remember when we were dating always
smelling cigarettes, all over her apartment.
When we got married we talked and decided, whenever we have family
functions our in-laws can come over, but they couldn’t smoke in our house. We ask her family whenever they came over to
visit; we would appreciate it, if they wouldn’t smoke in our home. They respected us enough to comply with our
wishes. I know our in-laws on both sides
haven’t liked every decision we made, but because we had built a good enough
relationship with them, they honored our wishes and complied with requests.
I
share these stories with you because in so many instances a lot of married
couples have problems with their in-laws.
These problems can cause serious conflicts in the marriage, even to the
point of divorce. We haven’t had any
major problems with in-laws, but I have heard of some stories of married
couples who have had their share of problems with in-laws. In most cases it is a wife who is having
problems with her mother-in-law. That’s
why in these series of blogs, we will be providing tips for building and
getting along with our in-laws, and strengthening our relationship with our
spouse. In order to deal with problems
that in-laws can cause in marriage, it must be dealt with properly by both
spouses. In-laws will try to hold our
marriage or family hostage, and try to interfere with our marriage and family
relationship. That’s why as husbands and
wives we must be one together to setup and govern our home.
We
must be in agreement with our spouse in order to handle any situations with
in-laws. If not, it will hinder our
marriage. That’s why the Bible gives us
principles to help us with our marriage, because God wants a strong and healthy
marriage. In fact in Genesis 2:24 it
says, “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to
his wife, and the two are united into one.”
This is telling us as husbands, we are responsible to leave or mother
and father, and become one with our wife.
This doesn’t mean we stop loving and caring for our parents, but our job
is to become one with our wife. Also,
wives even though the command is given to the husband, you must be willing to
do the same to leave your mother and father, and become one with your
husband. It doesn’t mean we can’t even
get advice from our parents or their opinion, but we need to talk with our spouse
first when it involves our family. No
longer are we to keep running to mommy and daddy, but we must handle our
business together as husband and wife.
We will talk more in the next blog about becoming one with our spouse, because that will
help you manage through the extended family of dealing with in-laws in
marriage.
Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback.
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