Dealing with toxic in-laws
When you get married, you do not just marry a person, you get involved with a whole other family. While a lot of people are lucky enough to marry someone whose family welcomes them warmly into the circle, there are many who have to deal with unpleasant situations with their in-laws. There are times when […]
When you get married, you do not just marry a person, you get involved with a whole other family. While a lot of people are lucky enough to marry someone whose family welcomes them warmly into the circle, there are many who have to deal with unpleasant situations with their in-laws.
There are times when some in-laws complain about the kind of wife or person that their son or brother is married to and from complaining the try to make sure that they make life unbearable for the woman in question. They fail to realize that they are to help to put the home in order instead of trying to destroy it.
The biggest issues that arise when it comes to in-laws are the extremes of intrusiveness and meddling in the affairs of their relative’s marriage. Though the relatives of the man might think that they are demonstrating love and care but in actual fact they are really intruding in the privacy of the couple and not allowing them to mature into their marriages. They need to be given a chance to be able to solve problems on their own without the intervention of a third party as most of these couple have a bad habit of spreading false and negative stories about the woman of the house.
A healthy relationship with in-laws can be an important indicator of the success of your marriage because unhappiness with an in-law sometimes leads to decreased marital bliss. Excessive involvement or detachment of in-laws can put pressure on your marriage. Sharing a good relationship with in-laws is difficult but vital.
One Nafisa Sule, an Abuja-based housewife, said: “In-law relationships need a touch of civility. If you do not know how you handle you in laws they will just end up pushing you out of the house as is the case with African mentality and culture. The man is still attached to his parents even when he is married. Not that I am against him relating with his people, but then there are boundaries. They can be terrible, especially in our culture that allows them to marry more than one wife. If they are against one, they make sure that they frustrate the one that they do not like at the expense of the favored one, forgetting that all in this world is temporal and would not last a lifetime. I was once in this terrible situation and the bottom line is that if your in laws do not like you, there is nothing that you will do that will be positive but with a lot of patience and prayers you will be able to overcome the hurdles and challenged they have lined up to make life miserable for you.”
Remaining calm is a necessity as you try to keep civility a priority in your relationship with your extended family relationships rather than wallowing away in anger and frustration. Hostility from in-laws can really be traumatic for a marriage.
“It is a terrible situation for any woman to have in laws that want to be abreast of every situation in your home. I passed through that situation and it was not a bit funny as they said things to bring me down and portray me as a bad person. You can never please in-laws, as they think that their son or brother is just focusing on you, which is not necessarily true. Remember that if someone says bad things about you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a bad person. More often than not, the bad things said are a reflection on the one that is saying them and not really you.
Try to be nice and hold your composure. Not that your being nice is going to help ease the situation in anyway. Do it for yourself. Do not stoop down to their level and they will be put to shame,” says Clara Olamide, an Abuja-based housewife.
Some in-laws are just busybodies and are just bent on making life miserable for the woman of the house. Do not sacrifice your opinions or what you know to be right simply for the sake of getting along with your in-laws. When they do something you do not like, tell them in a civilized manner where they have gone wrong. Try and be conciliatory by explaining what is acceptable, but again, not at the expense of your beliefs or self-esteem.
Couples should learn to solve their problems within themselves as the more they involve family the more the in laws tend to take sides which in the long run will only cause rifts in the relationship. Setting boundaries about what they are willing to share with family and what is best left between them will go a great deal in curbing the excesses of these meddling in-laws.
Couples must set limits with in-laws at the beginning, because the longer they allow interference to go on, the more negativity creeps into the marriage. Your in-law can either hinder or lend tremendous support to your marriage. Maintain a good balance between your spouse and in-laws to enjoy love in your marriage.