Reply to If your Son-in-law confided in you about marriage troubles, would you talk to your daughter?

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Reply to "If your Son-in-law confided in you about marriage troubles, would you talk to your daughter?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am of West African origin(born and raised there), and this question made me smile.

Many of us do this when the going gets tough. A significant number of the marriages in my family would have failed without this practice.
If you and your spouse have issues, and you feel like you have tried your best to resolve it with them. you take the problem to your spouse's parents(or older siblings).

It actually works but not in the way that one would think. While the problems are not usually resolved after the parents have spoken to their adult child, this puts the adult child on notice that the issue has been escalated. That is sometimes enough notice to get someone to think about how serious the issue is. Secondly, the parents get a general feel from their child about whether they want the marriage to work but are just finding a really hard time addressing the issue. The parents usually do a great job convincing the other spouse that the parents' child is committed to the marriage but just struggling. The parents find ways to support their child's spouse(or make their child's spouse feel heard and understood) while their adult child is figuring out how to resolve the issue.

I once complained to my DH's sister(both of European ancestry, born and raised in US) about my DH. My DH was so embarrassed that he resolved the issue almost immediately. lol. It was nothing horrible but it was creating a lot of resentment from me. I had spoken to him about it a million times, and he failed to resolve it. I guess he never took it serious because it seemed harmless. The moment his sister got involved, it was done. lol

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My DH is East African and his family is much more communicative about marital issues with extended family. I think in a context where this is the norm and more openly accepted it can be helpful (although, in his family, things can get gossipy fast) but I think it is different if this is not the standard in your family. My DH’s family is in almost constant communication and people are somewhat involved in each other’s marriages, child rearing etc. so it wouldn’t feel like a betrayal to discuss marital issues with family, it’s what everyone does. If OP is from a family where this is not done it would be seen as crossing a major boundary. The daughter would not be used to this type of behavior and would very likely not find it acceptable and would feel singled out and ganged up on. In my family of origin, for example, marital issues are viewed as something to be worked on within the marriage, full stop. Talking with extended family would be viewed as gossip and airing one’s dirty laundry. [/quote]

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