Life is an opportunity for every person to create a new story that can be passed along by generations to come.

Did you realize that when you married your prince or princess charming you inherited the king, the queen, and the whole court? In a real sense, you did marry the whole family. Despite all the “in-law/out-laws” jokes.. In-laws play a significant role in how your marriage goes.

Healthy in-law relationships are a wonderful blessing in any marriage.

Un-healthy in-law relationships can be a continual drain and irritation. so what can you do to build healthy relationships with your in-laws? That’s what this chapter is all about. We want to help you evaluate your present in-law relationships and come up with a plan for building better ones in the future.

We’ll look at what you can do to improve relationships with your in-laws. We’ll also consider what you can’t do to-what is un-realistic in relating to your parents and in-laws and how to handle the reality that some relationships are just closer than others. Then we will give you some tools to help [you build better relationships with your spouse’s parents and siblings. Let’s get started.

The more mutual respect and enjoyment you experience with your extended family, the more security and stability you and your spouse will feel in your marriage. Start by looking at your place on the family seesaw. Are you newlyweds just starting out? Or perhaps you have young in-laws who also demand your time and energy and have parents and in-laws who also demand part of your life. You might even have aging parents who are beginning to experience health problems. If you are a blended marriage with his children, her children, and “ours,” you could have extended family members all up and down the family seesaw. Wherever you are on the family seesaw, it will be a balancing act. How can you build your marriage and love your in-laws at the same time? Let’s start by evaluating your present relationship with your in-laws.

LEAVING AND CLEAVING.

In the beginning God created marriage and it was very good. And in Genesis 2:24 he gave three foundational principles for making marriage work. It is not surprising that the first principle deals with in-law relationships. We read, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife” Why is leaving so important? Aren’t we always to love and respect our parents? Absolutely But we’re also commanded to leave.

In Genesis 2:24 leaving is switching our family allegiance. If one mate refuses to realign his or her priority from parents to spouse, that marriage will have problems. When most modern-day couples marry, they physically leave their parents homes. But they also need to leave on another level-on the emotional level. The realigning of our priorities means we need to move our allegiance from our parents to our partners.

We don’t stop honoring, respecting, and loving our parents, but they are no longer the number one priority relationship in our lives-or they shouldn’t be!

Understand What You Can and Can’t Do

We like to say, “You can do what you can do and that’s what you can do,” We might add “that’s all you can do” may be you are blessed with parents and in-laws who are positive and loving. Or you might be in a more distressing situation, and your parents and in-laws are negative and critical.

Whatever the situation, whether your extended family has a positive or negative situation can depends more on you than on the situation. A negative situation can bring you closer together as a couple as you seek to find a solution you can all live with. One couple in our survey decided to turn down an offer of financial help from their parents because it was perceived as a means of control. They would rather be poor than manipulated by their parents.

Also, we need to face the fact that some extended families are just closer than others. Your extended family will not be as close as your nuclear family, nor should it be. Everyone struggles with family relationships. And the older we get, the more complex family relationships become. Also, we assume that if we had a closer-knit family growing up, that closeness will remain when we add in-laws. But having a great nuclear family doesn’t translate automatically into a great extended family.

Evaluating your own unique situation will help you understand what is and what isn’t realistic to expect from your in-law relationships. Stop for a moment and think about the following questions:

1 What is the best aspect of my relationship with my in-laws?

2 What is the major tension with my in-laws?

3 What is the best way to communicate with my in-laws?

4 What kinds of things pull us together as an extended family?

In the following pages we want to share with you some of the answers we received from couples in a survey we conducted about how they were attempting to love their in-laws, and also share with you some practical suggestions that will help you do what you can to build better relationships with your own in-laws.