True Love Comes With In-Laws
Don’t Roll Your Eyes: Making In-Laws Into Family
Ruth Nemzoff. 2012. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. 256 pages.
There are challenges involved with all relationships, but if you had to name the family tie that presents people with more opportunities for misunderstanding than any other, you would probably say “in-laws.” What gives this relationship its emotional supercharge? According to Brandeis University resident scholar Ruth Nemzoff, “in-law relationships are particularly difficult because they have the obligations and expectations of family without the benefits of intimacy, comfort, and support.”
Considering the clashes we sometimes have within the family we grew up with (even though we’ve had our entire lives to establish these bonds), it does seem unrealistic to expect a complete meeting of the minds among people who have had little experience with one another’s family quirks or traditions. And yet, says Nemzoff in Don’t Roll Your Eyes: Making In-Laws Into Family, there are important reasons to work toward making family out of not-so-perfect strangers—more, even, than the fact that your daughter-in-law may be making decisions about your nursing home, or that your parents-in-law will be forming important lifelong bonds with your children. There are almost infinite subtle ways that multiple generations can benefit from these “essentially voluntary” relationships, she says, but making the best of them begins with becoming aware of hidden expectations we may have, which could lay the groundwork for suspicion, jealousy and hurt feelings.
Nemzoff draws from composites of real-life stories as she explores some of these hidden expectations. Consistent themes emerge from these stories, shedding light on the fundamental sources of in-law relationship problems. One significant source is the simple but potentially unsettling fact that we all go through very different life stages, each with signature responsibilities. And change is difficult. Parents may be afraid that their new daughter-in-law will disconnect them from their son. Siblings may have similar fears. The newly married couple may be overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of new family members who suddenly have claims on their time, and each partner may have different ideas about how much time should be devoted to whom. Nemzoff addresses the concerns of each generation in turn.
To parents she says: “All stages of parenthood can be understood as losses and gains, or exchanges. Sure, we lose the deliciousness of snuggling an infant, but we gain a curious toddler. We lose the toddler to school and gain time to focus on other aspects of our lives. As our children grow, we lose a playful young person but hopefully gain an interesting adult. At marriage, we do lose the primary loyalty of our now-adult child, but we gain some freedom and, potentially, another caring and loving family member.” Making the choice to welcome this new member means being willing to accommodate potential differences in culture, household traditions and ways of doing things.
Siblings will have a similar choice to make, but there will be slightly different nuances depending on the circumstance. Siblings may feel a sense of loss or displacement as the newcomer finds a niche in the family dynamics. Or perhaps the sibling and the new in-law were close friends before the new couple relationship was formed, a situation that clearly offers ripe opportunity for hurt feelings as primary loyalties are transferred.
Hurt feelings may also be prompted by slights and misunderstandings surrounding expectations about wedding arrangements: perhaps the bride unintentionally overlooks a family member as she is assigning the wedding party, or a married sibling compares the current festivities to her own wedding and interprets differences as an imbalance in her parents’ affection. Even years into the marriage, siblings may encounter problems prompted by differences in financial freedom or childrearing practices, or cultural and philosophical shifts growing from exposure to their respective new families.
To the new couple, Nemzoff points out that they are each blending their own family’s traditions with a new set and creating some of their very own traditions in the process. “Doing things the way the other family does them can feel disloyal to one’s family of origin,” she says. As couples pick and choose which approaches to use in their new home, they will inevitably have to reject some—and risk hurt feelings as their in-laws realize a certain tradition wasn’t incorporated. “Every new couple’s life is a series of negotiations as they find their own unique paths and blend new and old ways,” says Nemzoff. “Helping family members understand each other’s viewpoints is an important part of paving the way to closer bonds.” And to that end, “sometimes the spouse does a service by acting as cultural translator.”
Divorce, adoption and new reproductive interventions add to the complexity by contributing some confusion over who actually counts as an in-law, adds Nemzoff. For instance, after a divorce or separation, parents on both sides may not want to show disloyalty to their own children but may be equally reluctant to turn off their genuine affection for the former spouse. “Are in-law relationships defined by love or by law?” she asks, answering with the sound advice that it is not wise to be pulled into the often temporary rancor that occurs during the active phase of divorce. Many people choose to maintain old ties that are built on affection—an especially wise decision when there are grandchildren involved.
From Nemzoff’s experienced perspective, the bottom line when it comes to negotiating in-law relationships is that we all make choices. We can choose to see ourselves as members of the same team, or we can choose to allow offenses to create long-term ill will. “Rolling our eyes is a gut-level, instinctive way in which we show disapproval,” Nemzoff observes. “However, if your aim is to relate well to others, you must not roll your eyes. Families that get along do so in part because they decide to get along. They decide that anyone who loves their children at least has good taste and judgment. The in-law children conclude that the people who brought up the person they love is worthy of some respect.”
Nemzoff doesn’t imply that it will always be easy; she acknowledges that we all make mistakes and there are going to be hurt feelings and problems to work through in our in-law relationships, just as there are problems to work through in every other important lifelong relationship. But, she emphasizes, good relationships begin with small acts of kindness. “We can change,” she insists, “if we imagine ourselves differently. The first step in that imagining is to see ourselves truthfully.”
GINA STEPP
September 6, 2012
For more about Nemzoff's book, see our interview with Ruth, "In Laws: A Gift or A Curse? "
