We share with you the advice of the psychologist Diana Patricia Cantor to get along better with your partner’s family.
Bad relationships with the family of the husband or wife account for many estrangements, problems that directly affect the couple and even separations and divorces. One of the most popular arguments is that family members get involved more than necessary and obviously this is usually annoying. There is no doubt that in many cases it is true. However, I would like to show you another way of seeing things and help you with some suggestions to manage the relationship more assertivelyeven improve it if things are not going well and although it seems utopian, think about loving them, which would be a nice possibility:
Empathy
People only come to a true understanding of many things when we face them personally. For example, being parents, only from the day we become parents and grow in that process, we understand to a great extent the behavior of our own. Maybe the day you become a mother-in-law, you will understand yours a little. But before that happens, analyze things and try to understand the way your partner’s family acts and thinks so that the time you spend with them is not a test or a sacrifice. Surely there will be things that you will not share, but if you take your side and are empathic you will have more patience and coexistence will be less difficult.
Bad intentions or real concern?
Now, it is typical to believe that family members get involved with bad intentions by giving their opinion or suggesting things that no one has asked them. But if you change your perspective and think that maybe it’s just a sincere concern for your husband’s well-being, you’ll notice that what there is is a meeting point because both you and they want and want the best for him. Receive the advice and suggestions without resistance and in the end you make the decision that you consider convenient for your home, without the need to get into discord.
set limits
Boundaries are healthy in all kinds of relationships and in this particular one they are indispensable. There is no need to be explicit, a single behavior is enough to determine those limits. Both must be prudent with their own lives, with their purposes, with their problems and with their decisions. Understanding by prudence that there are things that only concern you two and that no one else can say about it. To achieve this they must be very reserved.
Speak well of your husband’s family
There are things that necessarily, to be authentic, must be sincere, and if you don’t feel like saying anything good, it’s better to keep silent. Life in marriage demands efforts like this: being respectful of what the other loves, and in this case it is her family. Even if you have many reasons to complain and not speak positively about his relatives, always try to be considerate of your husband’s feelings. Nobody likes to be with someone who criticizes the people you love. when the opportunity presents itself.
Be special and learn to love them
When we love someone, their happiness is ours. How nice it would be if one day you could shed your predispositions and just surprise your husband with a nice detail for his family. How about inviting his parents to dinner or doing something special for them? Or for his siblings or for the people who are important and significant to him? Love is deeper than you can imagine, it means putting aside a little the desire to feel good at all costs, the desire not to want to bother you in any way and make way for other behaviors that might seem like a sacrifice, but in They are actually a latent display of the love and respect you feel for your husband.
How do you get along with your husband’s family?
Taken from Families.com