In-laws: What To Do If The Relationship Is Bad?

One of the most difficult problems for couples to deal with is usually the relationship with the in-laws , usually due to jealousy or power struggles: mothers-in-law who compete for the love of their son with the girlfriend, in-laws who compete for the love of their daughter with the boyfriend, stepchildren and stepdaughters who cannot stand stepparents or stepmothers, etc.

Sometimes, however, it is not about struggles for the attention or love of your partner, but it happens that when we are forced to relate to people with whom we have a vision of the world very different from ours, it is not easy. build a relationship.

Don’t you get along with his family?

We want to be accepted by our partner’s family because we know that the relationship will be easier and more beautiful if their loved ones love us too.

At the beginning, in the early stages of the relationship, generally everyone tries to make the relationship flow. However, time can complicate everything.

If it is already difficult to relate to members of our own family, it is even more so with families with whom we do not share a common past and to whom we are not united by affection or childhood memories.

That is, with our brother-in-law it is easier to be condescending than with our partner’s brother-in-law. With our mother it is easier to be patient than with our partner’s mother. We must analyze where the problem comes from and try to deal with the situation:

• Don’t force the relationship. If you don’t like your mother-in-law, if you don’t get along with your brothers-in-law or stepchildren, if you don’t feel comfortable with your partner’s family, it’s better not to see them.
• Do not agree to do what you do not like. Be clear that your partner cannot force you to share spaces with them. And of course, you cannot force your partner to choose between you or them. And this means that there may be birthdays that have to be celebrated separately, or Christmases in which you have to dine alone, or alone.
• Don’t make him choose. There may be times when you need your partner and their loved ones need it too. It is not fair to pressure your partner to spend more time with you, or to break or diminish his emotional relationships with his family. A relationship is only healthy if it is built from freedom and from respect for the times and spaces of each.

Are your relatives the ones who do not accept your partner?

When we mate, we present our beloved to our people to make the relationship official, show our affective commitment and consolidate the couple.

We care because if our family accepts our new partner, we know that we have a better chance that our relationship will work. And because we know that this way we can share with our beloved people celebrations or special calendar days (birthdays, weddings, Christmas …), family events (births, graduations) or even difficult situations (illnesses, deaths …).

We wish with all our soul that our people accept the relationship we have as it is, with all its virtues and also with its defects. But sometimes that doesn’t happen:

• Analyze why they do not accept you. That our people do not accept our partner can be a sign that something is not right. If the whole family tells us that our partner does not seem like a good person, that he does not seem reliable or that there is something that they did not like … perhaps we have to analyze in depth what is happening. What if we are making a mistake? What if others are seeing something that we cannot see because we are blinded or blinded by love?
• Let them know how that can affect your relationship. If your family does not like your partner, they will also have to assume that you will not be able to spend as much time with them as you would like, that you will have to divide and organize yourself in another way and that, therefore, you will not be able to be as long as you want.

Are you in the middle of a “war” between your partner and your family?

It may happen that our family likes our partner a lot, but it is our partner who does not support our family. Or they may not like each other and any attempt to bond with each other is in vain.

There is little we can do when there is no “feeling” and things don’t flow: if they don’t like each other, if they don’t like each other, if there isn’t a good harmony, there isn’t much to do, except organize ourselves well to divide our time between both of them. You have to set clear limits so that you are not placed in the middle of a war:

• Don’t give in to emotional blackmail. No loved one should force us to choose, we should not allow them to make life impossible for us with their jealousy. We have to be very careful so that neither the family tries to distance us from our partner, nor does the partner isolate us from the family.

You should never let anyone treat the people you love badly, or let them try to take you to their ground to get away from the other “side”.

• Make things clear. If our partner does not like our family or does not get along with them, he will have to assume that we are not going to stop seeing them, taking care of them, spending time with them and celebrating with them whatever you want to celebrate. You decide how you distribute your love and your time, and how you organize the care.
• Do not isolate yourself. It is essential to remember that a new relationship can never destroy our network of affections. A person who comes into your life should never force you to choose between himself and others: love always comes to add or multiply, not to occupy your whole heart or to isolate you from your people.

• Don’t allow cross-criticism. Do not let them speak badly of your partner or that your partner speak ill of your loved ones and, above all, do not allow them to give you a choice or emotional blackmail.

If the relationship is greatly affected by this problem, perhaps it is that there are no conditions to get together: it is very important to talk and analyze if it is possible to love each other when there is no way to relate to the family of your loved one.

You have to weigh the pros and cons to determine to what extent this problem affects us; If it hurts too much, maybe it’s not worth trying to make a relationship work.