Putting Your Partner First in Decision Making
Say your partner's parents are very religious and they want you to raise your children in their church. While you may not observe any specific religious beliefs, you may not be comfortable with your in-law's religious preference. Whose comfort matters most here? The bottom line is clear: If pushed to choose, your partner must put you and your concerns first in the decision-making process around religious upbringing — or any other major decision about family values in your marriage.
Although clear and nonnegotiable, these issues can be difficult to manage. Parents can attempt to control adult children through monetary bribes, threats to remove inheritances, guilt, tantrums, or emotional exile. This same set of coercive, potentially divisive dynamics can apply in any number of areas of contention: where the two of you will live, how you'll decorate your home, how often you'll visit your in-laws, and, of course, how you'll raise your children.
And while all this may appear to occupy the grayest of gray areas, in actuality, it's black and white; your decision-making process gets to the basic premise of marriage and must be sacrosanct. In the case of religious choice, for example, on one hand you'd like to carry on family traditions, and you may agree that giving children a religious upbringing is preferable to none at all. However, if this choice is not agreeable to one of you, and the other proceeds with it to appease his parents, this will erode your marriage from that point onward.
Your Rights
In any marriage, there are certain rights and responsibilities reserved for you and your partner. Among these:
The two of you alone must determine guidelines and agreements for the household you share
You both alone will decide how to raise your children and how much access in-laws will have to the children
You should expect your partner to put your (and the children's) needs first, above those of your in-laws
You should expect to get his support for any problems you may have with your in-laws and to take a stand with his parents, if need be, to deal with those problems
Of course, you also have the obligation to keep any agreements you make with your in-laws, especially concerning loans or any other financial obligations. There's no more common source of conflict in families than money, especially when someone neglects to repay debts.
With Rights Come Obligations
As a daughter-or son-in-law you need to do your utmost to be gracious, open, and generous to your in-laws with your time and perhaps your home, too, and also offer emotional support when called upon. This is the sort of giving and receiving that is at the heart of what makes a family. There's an expectation that you'll go further and do more with one's family than you might for an unrelated acquaintance. However, setting the actual boundaries for what you will and won't do when it comes to your in-laws will always be an individual set of decisions — whether these decisions are openly acknowledged or not.
Planning Family Vacations and Holidays
A common area of contention between partners and in-laws concerns holidays and special family occasions. Families have traditions and sometimes in-laws are reluctant to embrace new ones or make room for changes to existing habits and rituals. One set of in-laws may take personal offense when an adult child chooses to celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving holiday with his wife's in-laws. Suddenly you feel as if there's a competition between your parents and his, when all you may wish for is a little downtime on a holiday.
A common solution is to alternate holiday visits between two sets of in-laws. Or, you may wish to invite one or both sides of the family to your home for a holiday. Some couples try to eliminate potential friction by setting these alternating holiday responsibilities in stone, removing any room for competition or last-minute differences of opinion. Trial and error is often the best approach for new marriages. Whatever works for both of you must be the bottom line.
