Are Your Parents The Problem In Your Relationship?

There was a time when I thought my family was the only one with enough secrets to write a book. I never wanted to repeat the troubled relationships I saw. Many of us just shoot for the opposite extreme of what we witnessed growing up. Until I had the chance to witness what that relationship looked like too. I realized that’s not what I want either. And to add to the flames, parents don’t want to lose their children and can cause issues in their children’s relationships by being overbearing and sneaky. To tell you the truth I didn’t know how I was going to handle this when I got into a serious relationship.

Before we got married, of course, we went to pre-marital counseling. It happened to be a group counseling session. I wanted to cancel and go somewhere else because I didn’t think it would allow us to get to our own issues while listening to other people speak. It turned out to be quite the opposite. Listening to other people gave us more to talk about on our ride home. There are things we haven’t experienced together. While other people brought up their concerns, issues and methods for handling these situations, we had an opportunity to take note on what we want or did not want to try.

One topic in our counseling session included a questionnaire for parental wisdom. For those of you like me, who have no clue how to talk to your parents about how you want to start your own family unit, this was super helpful. A simple way to get started is to ask your parents how they believe your relationship with them will change when you get married. NOTE: Before you ask, definitely make sure you and your spouse have a chance to talk about your answers to things like where you will spend holidays, where you want to live and if you are willing to loan money to family (a real discussion for some of us, it was suggested to pick a hard limit, first come first serve and that’s all you are willing to give.) Think about what you believe may be concerns for them and what are concerns for you so you are prepared to discuss.

Some parents will be more understanding than others, but I feel much better addressing it head on rather than waiting for it to become a problem later when they find out I am flying out of town for vacation with the in laws or for his parents to expect us to visit them and find out we are going with my family.

Share how your conversation with the parents went.