One thing I had always released in my first marriage was that my
mother in law and husband were too close. They would have hour long
conversations and I couldn’t manage even a fourth of that with my husband. It
was something I always struggled with but really couldn’t define and I relied
on my sister too heavily as a confidant to compensate. Neither of us identified
that we had a communication issue and that we relied on others to bridge the
gap we had with each other.
It
was very hard for me to be around his family, everything about me was different
than how they operated. Even to the bright colors I chose to wear compared to
their mostly black attire that the other women in the family wore. Reading
through the article “Creating Healthy Ties With In-Laws and Extended
Families" I could see a lot of similarities in my experience.
One
of the biggest ones is I never was accepted as part of the family and instead
of working with me to fix that my first husband was at first impassive thinking
it must all be in my head because of the idea he had on how loving, accepting,
and welcoming his family was. Later on he fully entrenched himself in the idea
that I was not his family and that his nucleus family was all he considered to be
his family. With hind sight clarity I could see warning signs from the first
meeting of me with his family and yet I didn’t have the knowledge and tools to
assist with that situation.
Thankfully
it has been a complete 180 with my current in laws from what I had before. I am
able to enjoy a very healthy relationship with them where I feel loved,
accepted, and respected. I live 15 minutes away from them and at first this was
something I was concerned about. With my past experience I was worried that the
proximity would lead to over involvement. With my first marriage this was
something that I never had to worry about as we always lived states away from
any immediate family members. I enjoy the security and benefits of living so
close to parents while still being able to have that independence and couple
identity that is needed.
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