Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: It’s frustrating when your extended family has any negative effect on your marriage. After all, your relationship really is about two people – and only two – you and your husband. This relationship should not involve anyone else. That’s the ideal anyway. But this ideal doesn’t always happen. The people who love you more than anything often feel like they have a vested interest in your level of marital happiness.  So sometimes, they step in and give you their opinions. 

Someone might say: “honestly, when my husband and I were dating, I thought my family liked him. And I thought his parents liked me. Everyone seemed to encourage our relationship. My husband is a good man. And I like to think that I am also a good person who has become a good wife. But admittedly, over the last couple of years, we have hit some rough patches in our marriage. We lived apart for a while. And even though we have mostly reconciled, we are still struggling. And now our parents and family members have turned against us because they think that we are not good for one another. Honestly, I didn’t try to hide how miserable I was without my husband and how much this whole process was hurting me. So my family blames him for hurting me. And, his family believes that he only went back to me because I manipulated him to get him back. They seem to believe that I am holding him back in some way or that he stays with me out of obligation. Both of our families are rude to our spouses when we are together. Last night, his mom called and invited him on a family vacation – all expenses paid – but she made it clear that I was not invited. Her excuse was that they could only afford to pay for him, but I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s that they want to isolate him from me. When we were separated, my mother-in-law was constantly trying to fix my husband up with women she liked. Her hope was that he would click with one of them and divorce me. When I told my mom about the trip, her response was: ‘awesome. Let him go on the trip. Let’s hope he never comes back.’ This is frustrating and painful to my husband and I. Because we both know that our marriage is fragile enough right now. We both know that we are struggling. And then our families come in and they add additional problems. I feel like they are determined to ruin our marriage. And they just might succeed.”

This is a challenging situation. But they won’t succeed unless you let them.  Don’t let them.  It might be tempting to write your family off or to figure that if they don’t support your marriage, then there is no room for them in your life. But I would suggest not going there right away. This might actually create more stress and deep down resentment, which could also stress your marriage even more later.

Creating A United Front With Boundaries: I think that the better approach is for each of you to discuss this quite firmly with your families and then to create a united front after that. The families are likely meddling and interfering because they can sense that your marriage is still vulnerable. So, they think that they actually have a chance to get what they want. That’s why I’d caution you against sharing every fight or set back with them. If they think that your marriage is recovering and is going to last, then they won’t be as motivated to insert themselves into your marriage because doing so would be a waste of time.

In terms of addressing this with your families, I’d suggest something like: “mom, I know that the comments that you make are done out of love. I know that this is because of your concern for me. But I can’t have you bashing my spouse or not supporting my marriage. And if you can’t keep from telling my your opinions, then we’ll have to take the topic of my marriage out of our conversations. We’ll just have to talk about something else. I value my relationship with you, but I don’t want our relationship to include my marriage. I’m committed to my marriage and you are not going to change that. And when you try, it just damages our relationship and it means that I won’t have your support, which I need. I am asking you to use the love you feel for me as fuel to support me rather than to try to tear my marriage down. Will you do that?”

Now, you will probably have to remind your family of this conversation when they revert back to their old ways. But stand your ground. And after both families see that they are just wasting their time and that their meddling actually unites you instead of tears you down (when you keep showing them a united front,) they will get tired of playing games. They will see that it’s not an effective strategy. And they will hopefully realize that it’s better for everyone if they embrace your marriage rather than trying to sabotage it.

I honestly regretted telling many people about the details of my separation.  Because many of them turned on my husband.  And when we reconciled, this added more stress.  We got through it and because of this, everyone eventually backed off.  But I could have avoided much of this by not over-sharing my business.  You can read more of my story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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