When my husband and I announced our engagement, his sweet and entirely nonthreatening mother morphed into the devil overnight.
Dread followed me to every visit with Lucifer—I mean, my future mother-in-law. At any opportunity, she’d say or do something that made me want to smack her in the head with a brick. After a while, I tried to ignore her, allowing the surrounding walls to absorb her spiteful words.
It didn’t work. So then I prayed—yes, prayed—as if instructed by God, that she would permanently move to Africa, or Alaska, or Fiji so I wouldn’t have to see her as often.
You may be wondering how I can expose my mother-in-law’s early antics. Two reasons: First, she doesn’t read this magazine. And second, 10 years later, she has finally cut the crap (for the most part).
When a couple becomes engaged, the emotions and attitudes of the people around them mutate. The announcement of an engagement drapes a blanket of certainty over a relationship, and with that certainty comes pressure from all directions.
Never fear. Two experts, Ellen C. Ranney, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Missouri, and James Fox, a licensed professional counselor, have worked through just about every premarital dilemma you can imagine.
Setting your eyes on fire to avoid seeing your future in-laws probably isn’t the smartest idea. According to Fox, tension with a future mother- or father-in-law is common and fixable. Parents are accustomed to the girlfriend/boyfriend relationship, Fox notes, but when a child gets engaged, they often have trouble wrapping their minds or hearts around the new dynamic: “The parents’ role is tested when their child becomes engaged. Tension with the future son- or daughter-in-law is really about the relationship with the son or daughter.”
Ranney concurs: “A parent may be asking, ‘Will my son or daughter still be emotionally available to me?’” Consider these parental feelings and find ways to reassure your parents that this new union is a gain, not a loss. Fox suggests that a newly engaged couple “present a unified front. The child of the parent who’s causing the tension has to stand by his fiancée and say, ‘Hey, Mom. You’re not being appropriate.’ There’s no room for shenanigans. If a child is passive about his parent’s behavior, it gives the parent permission to continue the behavior.”
Becoming a part of a close family is like being the new kid in a senior class whose members have known each other since they were embryos. Have “a lot of respect for the rules that have held that family together,” Ranney urges. “Someone else’s family has developed differently from yours—and the members are usually not even aware of their own rules and expectations.” In other words, adapt, be flexible, find common ground. Fox believes in setting up opportunities for natural interaction: “It takes time, but creating an environment where people can naturally relate to each other is important.” Someone in a tightly knit family must act as a bridge between her family and the family she’s creating with her fiancé.
One thing’s for sure: The more time you spend with your betrothed, the more time you’ll spend with your future in-laws—and get used to each other. And one way to do that would be moving in together. (If the notion of premarital cohabitation goes against everything you believe in, skip this section. If not, keep reading.)
Our two experts take decidedly opposing views on living together before marriage. Research indicates that premarital cohabitation does not benefit the couple, says Ranney: “No matter what, the marriage creates a different expectation. When the legal, permanent contract has been made, it brings a whole new dynamic to the relationship.”
To Fox, not living together before marriage is akin to taking a chemistry class without a lab: “Marriage is abstract until you’re in it. Living together is the lab. We don’t take marriage as seriously as we used to or as we should.” Fox feels that the engagement period should be a trial period to see whether the relationship will work: “People think, ‘We’re engaged; we have to make it work!’ No, not really.” For Fox, engagement is a time to explore the depth of the relationship to see whether you should remain together.
All you need is love ... and communication and trust and work, more work and even more communication. The reward is living happily ever after—with your spouse and in-laws.
To find a marriage and family therapist in your area, visit www.moamft.org.
