Is it important for you to like his/family to say yes or you don't care?

[Anonymous]

If I knew my ILs were broke, would want to move to US to live with us, DH would be obsessed with his duty towards them and his siblings would guilt him for not doing 100% while themselves refuse to do even 1% ,i would've not gotten into this enmeshed equation.

A close knit and loving family is great, being part of a care system is great, even them being occasionally annoying is fine, but being 100% physically, mentally and financially responsible for an enmeshed family not so much.

[Anonymous]

My in-laws are awful but my husband isn’t close with them and we don’t see them anymore after their abusive ways turned towards our kids. I wish I had good in-laws but it is what it is. Had my husband been close to them I never would have married him because then he would have been just like them instead of the opposite. So there is no yes or no answer to your question.

[Anonymous]

Yes I wish I’d considered that they don’t have money and that would make life harder

[Anonymous]

My family of origin is a hot mess. My husband can overlook this partially because my husband is a kind person. But, it is also much easier because I have a ton of boundaries with them. I would never vacation with them, etc. My husband sees them in small doses of a few hours 6 times a year with maybe one of those extending to an overnight. None of them interfere in our day to day lives.

And my family is “high functioning toxic” which means they aren’t going to make some big scene or insult someone to their face and mess up Easter brunch. If they ever did something like that, I would never see them again.

That said, we had some early fights in our marriage because my husband wanted me to “be the bigger person” or “extend an olive branch.” My husband needed to just stay out of it. I think he now knows that his proposals on these points were naive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My family of origin is a hot mess. My husband can overlook this partially because my husband is a kind person. But, it is also much easier because I have a ton of boundaries with them. I would never vacation with them, etc. My husband sees them in small doses of a few hours 6 times a year with maybe one of those extending to an overnight. None of them interfere in our day to day lives.

And my family is “high functioning toxic” which means they aren’t going to make some big scene or insult someone to their face and mess up Easter brunch. If they ever did something like that, I would never see them again.

That said, we had some early fights in our marriage because my husband wanted me to “be the bigger person” or “extend an olive branch.” My husband needed to just stay out of it. I think he now knows that his proposals on these points were naive.

I am a woman who wrote earlier about my husband having crazy ILs. I’ve always wondered whether the dynamic is easier when women are the ones who come from the difficult family.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t know at the time how important it would be - the enmeshment between them, their narcissim and selfishness - has all negatively affected my marriage for years.