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.

[/quote]

I'm from East Asia and this was (is?) the cultural norm. It's mostly borne out of necessities, though, as there were no therapist or marriage counseling, so people relied on extended family. I can definitely see why someone would go this route. My own sister-in-law contracted my parents and told them about my brother's drinking problem. It was the only time she'd done it, and it corroborated with what we saw, though none of us had any idea to the scope of his issue. The family intervened and he stopped drinking.

Having said that, I think oftentimes the potential for fallout is high and not worth the risk of getting relatives involved in your marriage, especially when it's not cut and dry one person's problem, as in this case. OP did observe that SIL does bear some responsibility.

As some pp pointed out, think about how your daughter would react if she were to find out that her H has been complaining behind her back and you're taking his side. Would anything you say even help? I think if you agree with his complaints, validate his feelings and let him know he's heard, but for practical reasons you cannot get involved in the middle. Best that they seek neutral third party to mediate. [/quote]

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