When you got married, how much did you really think about marrying into your spouse's family?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We dated for 2.5 years before getting engaged and then were together for another year before marriage. After about a year, we started joining family events as a couple. We had 2.5 years of family events to gauge what our soon-to-be-inlaws were like, so we went into the marriage knowing what the status quo would be. Both sides have issues, but we deal with both sets of inlaws as a family unit and we prioritize our own nuclear family. To make things easier, we discuss and then the spouse that is related to the inlaws handles the communication of our family priorities to the extended family. But we do get along with both sides well.

Do you have kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you got married, how much did you really think about marrying into your spouse's family?

Were you happy about joining your spouse's family? Or did you just think that you can be married to your spouse without having to deal with his/her family?

Not enough. I thought it would be an issue because her family lived very far away (thousands of miles) and we only saw them 2 or 3 times in 13 years.... but.... what I learned is you can take the wife out of the family but you can't take the family out of the wife... she could not get past some of her childhood experiences... remained angry with her mother and her boyfriends and projected that anger onto the nearest man (me). Where the spouse comes from is very important. They are a product of their childhood. I lean towards the thought that families should be "matched" i.e. equal in many ways.... (traditions, moral attitudes, income, etc.) just makes understanding each other easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you got married, how much did you really think about marrying into your spouse's family?

Were you happy about joining your spouse's family? Or did you just think that you can be married to your spouse without having to deal with his/her family?

Not enough. I thought it would be an issue because her family lived very far away (thousands of miles) and we only saw them 2 or 3 times in 13 years.... but.... what I learned is you can take the wife out of the family but you can't take the family out of the wife... she could not get past some of her childhood experiences... remained angry with her mother and her boyfriends and projected that anger onto the nearest man (me). Where the spouse comes from is very important. They are a product of their childhood. I lean towards the thought that families should be "matched" i.e. equal in many ways.... (traditions, moral attitudes, income, etc.) just makes understanding each other easier.

+1000

IL'S make tons of inaccurate statements and assumptions about me. It would be easier to just get to know us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't think about it as much as I should have.

+2

+1,000

Same

Agree.

Me too. Also a lot of their family issues/history were kept from me until we had been married for some time. Things like depression, suicide, Physical/emotional, and drug and alcohol abuse. Had I known all of this before the marriage it would have shed light on some of DH's behaviors that didn't seem like such a big deal, but now are becoming problematic. Had I known the history, more red flags would've been raised early on.

Plus a million.

+1000

Here, too. It is a shame, the ILs consider themselves "stoic" - anyone else considers them secretive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh my goodness. This thread is making me sad. I love, love, love my in-laws. My MIL is a role model for me in many ways--she is sharp, loving but not at all overbearing, fun, and very, very funny. My BILs and SILs are all good people, too, and one SIL is now a close friend.

I probably would have married DH anyway but honestly, his family was a huge selling point.

I have the opposite. Understand that some people would kill to have what you mentioned!

[Anonymous]

Oh, boy. Let's just say it's way more important than I realized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We dated for 2.5 years before getting engaged and then were together for another year before marriage. After about a year, we started joining family events as a couple. We had 2.5 years of family events to gauge what our soon-to-be-inlaws were like, so we went into the marriage knowing what the status quo would be. Both sides have issues, but we deal with both sets of inlaws as a family unit and we prioritize our own nuclear family. To make things easier, we discuss and then the spouse that is related to the inlaws handles the communication of our family priorities to the extended family. But we do get along with both sides well.

Do you have kids?

Yes. 3 yo twins.

[Anonymous]

Clearly not enough.

[Anonymous]

I really didn't think too much about my spouse's family before we got married. My spouse's family lives across the country. So, I only see them once a year or once every other year. It's been a blessing that way.

[Anonymous]

My husband's family was openly critical of me and to me. His father stares (for minutes) at my chest. Other family members interjected themselves into our lives with questions and suggestions about even our daily domestic duties and who does what. I've had to fight for him to stop being a doormat. Once we got engaged they were much less open with any criticism. I don't forget for a second thought. I'm not faking nice anymore. I'm civil, not angry or impolite but at this point the feeling is mutual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't think about it as much as I should have.

+1. I didn't think about them at all. Knew he had parents but somehow they didn't matter. If I was reliving my life again I would be looking much more closely at the family

Me too. Also, it's one thing for these nutty people to be your in-laws. When they become your children's grandparents, it's a whole new ball game. I did not think about that at all and really regret it.

This. His family is tearing us apart. Had I known DH was this tied to his Mommy and afraid of her as a grown man, I'd have thought twice. That and I should have been a bitch from Day One with my MIL to eliminate a power struggle with her. If I'd have put her in her place and not been so focused on making friends with her, perhaps the resulting estrangement would have allowed DH and I to mature as an independent married couple.

+1 waisted 10 years trying to get on my narcissistic MIL's good side.
I am an idiot, I get mad at myself thinking about it.

[Anonymous]

Meant to write "wasted"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't think about it as much as I should have.

+2

+1,000

Yep. I knew there was dysfunction (serial abortions, mental hospitalizations, substance abuse, etc), but I really thought we'd leave MoCo and raise a family elsewhere. His family was a factor in our divorce and I feel sorry for his fiancée.

[Anonymous]

I was an idiot marrying into wife's family. Its the dumbing down effect of interacting with ignorant people.

[Anonymous]

Definitely not enough. Young and lovestruck, thought his family was a little odd but NBD. WRONG.

A PP mentioned thinking families should 'match' to some degree and I think I can see how much easier that would make our life. The income, religion, location, and lifestyle disparity is really hard to deal with for us.

There are a number of things that irritate me now about DH that I see stem from his family. The fact that I see his MIL responsible for those things makes it so much worse, somehow (totally inane things, even, like leaving sharp knives hanging over the edge of the sink so they stay 'clean' after using them).