Dealing with In-Laws

Has anyone wished they had ended things before marriage because of future inlaws? My fiance comes from a Jehovahs Witness family (although he is not anymore). About 10 years ago he left the Church and was alienated from his family for a few years. They wouldnt even have dinner with him!! Since then he is back in good standing and even works for his parents company (not religion related). Anyways, they told him to never talk about or bring by a girl he wasnt serious about. He took me to see them a few weeks before we got engaged in July. I am the only one he has ever been taken to see his parents. In front of me they seemed nice and happy for us. This week I learned they have been working very hard for him to call off the wedding. He is scared they may even fire him. So as of now, the wedding is postponed and I am doing a lot of thinking. I do not think they will ever support our marriage. Has anyone had inlaws who were against you and never changed? Or against you and then did change?

~Rebecca

I'm not married yet but I would have a hard time marrying someone who is more concerned about being fired on top of postponing the wedding because of their parents.

My FMIL has been against us since day one apparently (I thought problems started when we got engaged but no, she hasn't been happy at all) and I don't ever see her changing honestly and that's fine; she can be a stick in the mud all she wants- she doesn't see how she is hurting her relationship with everyone.

Hi Rebeccaf87, welcome to the board!

I would be very concerned if your future husband is more concerned about what his family thinks about the relationship the two of you have.

Would he be OK if they stopped talking to him again? Would he be OK with it if they fired him?

It sounds like he may be allowing his family to run his life and that is definitely not acceptable when it comes to a marriage. Your spouse needs to come first.

I think it is wise that you postponed the wedding.

Rebecca,

Hi. Your boyfriends parents are still trying to control him. Nevermind about being shunned for leaving their church. They are plainly trying to control his choices in spouse, place of work, and very likely would exert similiar influence over other decisions about your marriage, children, children's spiritual upbringing, where you lived, etc.

I think you are wise to postpone the wedding.

What I suggest is you go to a marriage counselor together. I think this type of professional could shed some objective light on his relationship with his parents and how it's affecting you. Obviously what his parents think is very important to him, but if he's making decisions based on pleasing them instead of making choices that affirm his life decisions; he's still under their thumb.

If he wants to marry you I think he'll have to be strong enough to risk being shunned again by his parents. For one thing he needs to find a job that's not in the family company. For another, he needs to recognize what his parents are trying to do to affect his choices. Their edict "Don't bring any girl home unless you're serious about her" is just another form of control. They are clearly exercising "veto" power over his decisions.

Sadlly, if he can't see what's going on and he won't take a stand with his family, I would not marry him. You're life would be anything but pleasant---it would be controlled and influenced by the constant "input" of his parents.

Good luck. Noone says these choices are easy but if you decide not to marry him and go on with your life I'm betting you'll back one day and be glad you didn't.

Best wishes,

Wisdomtooth2020

I think the first thing you need to be very, very clear about is . . . this isn't really about YOU.  It seems that this family is rejected YOU based on who you are not (ie; a witness) rather than who you are.  I also suspect their rejection of YOU has more to do with their rejection of your BF individual values.

You can readily gauge how emotionally healthy a family is by how rigid they are.  Open loving families can easily sway and bend to accomodate new members . . . differing values . . . etc . . .  Closed family systems are not able to make accomodations.  They have strict scripts they feel the need to follow. 

I suspect the best you can hope for with this family is that they can learn to accept reasonable boundaries.  It's highly unlikely they will ever change enough to truly accept you.  The fact that they severed ties with their son/brother for awhile suggests that they are fairly rigid. 

So your BF is going to have to really dig deep and decide if he can withstand his family's judgements.  Can he stand up to them and say (and mean), "This is MY choice for a life partner.  I don't need your blessing.  I don't even need you to like her.  But you MUST respect her.  You must respect ME."?  So often men in his situation find it easier to simply pass their family's disrespect onto their wives.  They pretend that their family's objection to thier marriage has something to do with their wife. 

So the question really is, does your BF understand his role?  Does he understand that their objection to marrying you is just another part of HIS difficult relationship with them (and that is has nothing to do with you)?