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Wedding Stress and In-Laws

GUESS WHAT? YOU’RE MARRYING YOUR IN-LAWS!

            Announce your engagement and you immediately become an in-law.  Like it or not, you join a new family.  This truth, well known to every married couple on the planet, somehow hits every newly engaged couple like a meteorite striking from the sky.   You not only have your own (lovable but sometimes difficult) family to deal with, but you now have this other family, with their strange ways and demanding cast of characters.  And these two families of strangers somehow have to work together to plan a wedding.   It’s dealing with the families that brings many brides and grooms to their knees.  Here is a colorful example from a chat room for brides:

I have nearly killed every member of my own and my fiancé’s families so far….  We have 8 hellish months to go and I am HATING all this planning.  Nobody likes anything I have already chosen, am going to do, or will get around to doing.... AND IT’S MY DAY!  My fiancé, one night when I was screaming hysterically and crying all over him saying how much I hated everything that was happening around me, said “Screw it, let’s cancel it all and go to Jamaica!”  At first I said yes, then I realized he intended to STILL have both our families there so I figured, why do it? THESE ARE THE VERY PEOPLE I WANT TO KILL!  So, I would merely be moving my hell from one place to another. Great.  We are still having the wedding we originally planned, but I swear I wish I had just gone down the local registry office with my fiancé and said "Marry us now, please!" and then told our families to get over it!!!! Urgh :(

           Okay, so maybe this bride is a bit extreme, but she is expressing common bewilderment, frustration, and despair.  Can you see her first mistake?  It’s her assumption that the decisions are hers alone and that her family and in-laws should simply line up in support:  “Nobody likes anything I have already chosen, am going to do, or will get around to doing…. AND IT’S MY DAY!”           

Here is a big, if painful, lesson:  It’s not just your day.  Even if you find a Justice of the Peace in Jamaica and ask a beach bum to be your witnesses, you still are officially joining each other’s families on that day.  Relatives will have strong feelings about not being invited.  They will still buy you gifts and probably still hold a party for you.  (Your own kids some day will learn your story and maybe exclude you from their own weddings.)  Weddings are a big a deal for nearly every family.  You will not be able to dismiss their support when they like what you are doing or their disapproval when they don’t.  Marry each other and you are marrying each other’s families: it’s a package deal.  On your wedding day, you will be the lead actors in the drama, the center of everyone’s attention, but there will be lots of others on stage and behind the scenes.           

It’s too bad we don’t start becoming in-laws during the more carefree dating period when the biggest decisions are where to have dinner and which set of friends to hang out with.  Parents usually leave courting couples alone to explore their relationship; family contact is usually casual and free of serious conflict unless the parents actively dislike the girlfriend or boyfriend.  Even if you were living together before the engagement, you were not yet someone’s in-law.  But engagement brings a double whammy:  you join each other’s families and at that very instant you begin one of the most difficult planning tasks in modern life.  There is no easing into it: “We’re engaged, welcome to the family, and how in the world are we going to pull off this wedding?” 

 GETTING TO KNOW YOU, GETTING TO KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU           

You don’t really know someone until you have to make decisions with him or her.  Many engaged couples are blindsided when formerly friendly, laid-back parents suddenly become controlling, critical, picky, or irrational.  We’d like to help you understand what might be going on.  The wedding of a child brings forth feelings and reactions from parents that can make sense to you if you stop and reflect—something hard to do because you are caught up in your own feelings.  But if you can put aside your own perspective and try to understand your parents, it can make your wedding planning a lot easier on yourselves.  Here are common reactions parents have to their child’s wedding: 

  • Joy and Pride.   It’s a parent’s dream that their child will find someone to marry and spend their life with.  These are the feelings you expect them to have, but these feelings are sometimes less visible than the next ones once you get into the wedding planning.
  • Loss.   Getting married means starting a new family, which means leaving your parents.  This is true even if you moved out a decade ago; they still feel responsible for you if your life hits the skids.  When you marry, your spouse is more responsible for the child that your parents have raised and protected.  The sense of loss can be quite acute when there has been an especially intense bond with one of the parents. 
  • Anxiety.  This can come in many forms: worry about your future marriage, concern about how extended family or ex-spouses will behave, frets about expenses, and a general nervousness about planning a wedding and about what other people will think of the job they do. 
  • Envy.  When parents have regrets about their own marriages and divorces, they may envy the happiness of their child, the relationship they have with their fiancé, and the fresh start they have in life.  Rarely will they tell you this directly.
  • Competition.  When two families come together to plan a wedding, they bring different resources, communities, and expertise.  You can be sure your parents will pay attention to which family has more money and status.  Sometimes decisions are driven by not wanting to lose face with the other family.
When both sets of parents are having these feelings at the same time that you and your fiancé are caught up in your own intense feelings—well, it’s a volatile brew.   (At wedding rehearsals, a minister friend of ours often looks for an extended family member, such as an aunt, who might be the only person in the room who has perspective on things.)  Understanding what is going on beneath the surface in yourself and your parents can help you make sense out of situations such as the following one involving Sara and her mom.   Sara’s mom had been divorced for many years, but had known Sara’s fiancé, Joe, for a decade, since the time the couple were high school sweethearts.  Joe was practically family, went to all the family reunions, and helped himself in Mom’s kitchen when he came over.  So when Sara and Joe got engaged, Sara was shocked by her mom’s sudden shift in attitude.   Her mom was sad, snippy about “too much wedding talk,” and not cooperative in wedding discussions.  She also made critical comments about Joe and his family that seemed completely out of character for her.

Read more from our book, Take Back Your Wedding available on our website or Amazon.

Take Back Your Wedding

 

- Elizabeth Doherty Thomas, is a co-founder of The First Dance, along with Marriage and Family therapist father Dr. William J. Doherty.  The First Dance was a Modern Bride Trendsetter award winner in 2007 for taking on the complex family dynamics of wedding planning.  Read Take Back Your Wedding: Managing the People Stress of Wedding Planning for more advice on working through the people stresses of wedding planning as a couple, with your families, and how to strengthen your upcoming marriage through this enormous first task of married life.