Finding Happy Together

Newly married couples are often referred to as "honeymooners" or living in the "honeymoon stage". This is because that first year of marriage is often blissful and full of romantic feelings for each other. However, there is one part of this first year that isn't included in those wonderfully joyous feelings. That is navigating the new relationship you will have with your in-laws.


Everyone grows up with a certain set of rules. I'm not talking about the rules that say you have to be home before midnight as a teenager, or that you can only have 30 minutes of screen time each day. I'm talking about the unspoken rules. The ones that are understood, but never explicitly explained. James M. Harper and Susanne Frost Olsen explain, "Examples of unspoken rules include how family members handle conflict, who is involved in making decisions, how emotionally expressive family members can comfortably be, how humor is demonstrated in the family, or what topics should not be discussed."

If these unspoken rules are broken by a prospective spouse it is very likely that the family won't accept them. For example, in my husband's family it was understood that you would graduate college before getting married. It was also understood that everyone in the family would attend the wedding. In my family it is understood that you are going to get married while you are still young, and not wait too long to start your family. It's also understood that when you do get married you will do so in an LDS temple.


These two sets of family rules caused some serious problems for us. We had to choose which set of rules we were going to follow, and accept the fact that one side or the other was going to be unhappy with the choices we made. In the end we decided to get married while we were still attending college, but assured my husband's family that our marriage would not hinder my husband getting a degree. We also chose to be married in an LDS temple, but invited them to come to the temple with us and held a ring ceremony after the temple wedding.


While we had hoped these choices would be a good compromise on the rules it was made very obvious to us that we were still breaking both of his families rules, and they blamed me for those choices. It took a long time, and a lot of understanding to build a good relationship between my mother-in-law and myself. Now, I look back on those early years as a great opportunity to learn and grow. I know what I don't want to do to my future in-laws, and I know how difficult it can be as a new spouse joining a family that has different rules. I hope this will make me more understanding and empathetic when my children get married.


Harper and Olsen give great advice when they say, "Mothers-in-law usually discover early that their daughters-in-law are not like them, and in some cases, this may be upsetting. ... A more realistic expectation is that children-in-law will bring new perspectives into the family, and the family can learn from these differences and be complemented by them. ... Parents who can work toward inclusion of a  new son- or daughter-in-law and who show increased love and support have the best relationships with their married children and more influence in the lives of their grandchildren."

Eventually my Mother-in-law and I were able to develop a loving relationship. She has been incredibly supportive of my husband and I. She loves my children with her whole self, and is an amazing grandmother! While I wish we would have been able to have a close relationship from the start I am incredibly grateful for the woman she is and the influence she has in my life.

We aren't always going to be able to follow all of the unspoken rules of our spouses family. However, we should at least try to understand them, and give them the same respect we would want for our own unspoken rules. If we can do this, we will be giving our in-law relationships the best possible chance of flourishing, and, in turn, giving our own relationships a boost.



**In writing this post and thinking back to my early relationship with my mother-in-law I was reminded of an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Raymond and Debra had to navigate the simple decision of what to call each other's Mother's. It's a comical, but very real example of what can happen when an unspoken rule is violated between in-laws. I would highly recommend watching the episode I linked.

Sonny and Cher, Barack and Michelle, Will and Jada, Prince William and Kate. All of these couples are strong, powerful, famous, and admired by millions. They are what is know as "Power Couples". In our own families my husband and I like to consider ourselves the power couple. Let's be honest, who wouldn't want to be put on their family's 2018 Top Power Couples list?! Before we can be power couples though, we need to figure out how power is supposed to work in a family.


I recently read an address called "Who Is the Boss? Power Relationships in Families" by Richard B. Miller. In this address he talked about the power struggles that happen within a family and the affects they can have in our marriages. If we want to be a "Power Couple" we need to listen to Miller's advice.

He begins by reminding us that, "In healthy, well-functioning families, there is a clear hierarchy between parents and children. Parents are the “executive committee” and the “board of directors” of a family." At first this seems to be an obvious hierarchy, but as a mom of a toddler I can tell you that you don't always feel like an executive.















My youngest daughter is my strong-willed Tasmanian devil and has, what we lovingly refer to as, strong leadership skills. There are times in our family that my husband and I have thrown up our hands and gave in to her demands. Looking back I know that that was the wrong choice. We should have stood firm and held tight to the power in that relationship. In those moments of weakness the one thing I could feel good about was the fact that my husband and I were defeated together. She didn't pit us against each other, or split us up.


Miller talks about the importance of being united as parents. He says, "Sometimes a parent forms a coalition with a child against the other parent. Although usually unspoken, a parent undermines the other parent. It is vital that parents support each other in the presence of their children. If parents disagree on parenting issues, they should discuss the issues in an “executive session” without the children present."

This is one lesson my husband and I have never had to learn the hard way. We have always agreed that when disagreements about parenting choices come up, we need to discuss them privately. Especially with my little one, we don't always agree on the best way to handle her outbursts. Generally, I like to approach the situation by talking it out, finding out the root cause of the problem, and finding a solution that makes everyone happy. My husband prefers to handle the issues quickly, handing out time-outs and consequences for any rule-breaking that he might see. These two, very different, styles of parenting have lead to many closed-door "executive sessions".
I honestly believe that being united in your parenting decisions is more important than anything else you choose to do as parents. You have to show your children that you are a strong, unbreakable partnership. You don't always have to agree, but you have to present a united front. For example, should my nine-year-old be allowed to stay up past ten o'clock at night? I don't think so, but my husband does. So she get's to stay up late only if she is reading quietly in her bed and she doesn't have school the next day. According to her, my husband and I both agree on and support that decision so she has never tried to get either of us to bend.


Miller concludes his address by reminding us that, "Healthy marriages consist of an equal partnership between a husband and a wife. Many marital problems have as their root cause an unequal relationship or struggles over who has control in the relationship." We know that an unequal balance of power can lead to abusive or, at the least, unhappy marriages. Miller even points out that these unbalanced relationships often lead to one partner's depression.

This means we need to work together in ALL things. We need to share in the housework. We should both participate in financial decisions. Most importantly, we need to teach our children, by example, that our marriage bond doesn't end just because we had children. We are united. We are one. We are a power couple!

Once upon a time there was a man and a woman who loved each other very much. They considered each other their very best friend and loved to do everything together. All day they would watch movies together, play games together, ate together and even chose to work side by side. They agreed on most things and rarely had an argument last more than a few hours. They were the perfect couple... until it was time for bed.


You see, the man loved his wife so much that he wanted to be with her intimately most nights of the week. The woman was usually tired and, while she loved her husband just as much as he loved her, valued a good night's sleep over physical intimacy. Eventually, the husband began to feel rejected and unloved by his wife. The wife began to feel nagged and annoyed with the husband's consistent requests. This dilemma started to manifest in different ways, affecting their everyday relationship.
The man and woman started to argue about little things that had never bothered them before. They no longer sat together while watching movies, avoided playing games together, ate in silence or in front of the TV, and stopped working in the same room. Their whole lives had changed because of this one obstacle in their marriage.


If this man and woman sound vaguely familiar don't be embarrassed. A lot of couples go through this exact issue, but not many of them are willing to talk about it openly. My husband and I are one of those couples. The story I just told was actually our story. In Fulfilling the Sexual Stewardship in Marriage by Sean E. Brotherson he describes this situation perfectly. He says,
"In this situation, the high-desire spouse often seeks intimacy only to find a lack of interest on the part of the low-desire spouse. Too often, what then happens is that the low-desire spouse feels pressured emotionally and the high-desire spouse feels rejected or unloved, and so each goes away feeling hurt or resentful. The high-desire spouse who feels rejected may soon become insecure and so returns to seek love through sexual intimacy, and again the low-desire spouse feels pressured again and resentful and the whole terrible cycle happens again and again."

My husband and I were stuck in this terrible cycle but knew that we wanted to break out of it and restore our marriage to it's previously blissful state. One night after my husband tried to initiate sex, and I had turned him away, we decided to talk about why we were feeling the way we were, and why we kept repeating this awful cycle.


As it turns out my husband really did view sex as the ultimate way to show love. Every time I said "not tonight", my husband was hurt and truly felt rejected. After listing to his point of view I explained that I never intended to make him feel this way. I really am exhausted after a day full of chasing toddlers around. So, we compromised. We would have sex once a week. I would do my best to be open to his advances, and he would never ask after 10:00pm. It might not sounds very romantic, but it helped us get through a very tough situation for us. Eventually, I became more open to his advances and the once-a-week rule became more flexible. He saw that I was really trying and felt less rejected when I did say no.


I'm not sure that scheduling in a day for sex, or promising to have sex once a week would work for everyone. What I can promise is that if we will listen to our spouse, and accept their feelings about a situation, and then act with their feelings in mind (above even our own feelings) we will be able to find our happy place in our marriage. It takes work, and it's not always an easy or quick process, but it is well worth it.