When you marry someone, are you also marrying into their family?

Pi think if your dh to be, has good links to his family and they're not kind then you prob have an issue.
If his family are awful and he has little / no contact then getting on with his family isn't important.
Personally I would not have married dh if I didn't get on with his family. We have very similar backgrounds and lots of respect and no-one steps over the line.

I think it's hugely important. Your partner is a product of his family. His relationship with them will inevitably affect him. Your dc can't help but be affected too - by having a good relationship, a bad relationship or by missing out on a relationship with their grandparents. There is ample evidence in gazillions of MN threads of how much trouble can be caused in a marriage by issues with the in-laws.

I think it depends on the family. DP is much more part of my family than I am part of his. That's their choice really. MIL and FIL like to hear about the DC, but they aren't interested in actually seeing them much. It's helped for me to recognise that they only really want to spend time with DP and to facilitate that instead of putting us all through the stress of lots of meet ups where they talk to DP and watch as I look after the DC. I can't pretend it's not a bit hurtful though.

No I keep them separate. I would never choose them as family so why would I force anything more? We are cordial, civil and get on well but I don’t think of them as siblings and extra parents if that’s what you mean? I also don’t see nieces and nephews the same as my side. Have no issue with dh feeling the same

Yes. Personally family is very important. I wouldn’t’ve dated anyone my parents might not have liked. In-laws and my folks were great together and it made for a nice life, no drama. Sadly all passed away now.

You marry the family. Which is why you should study them carefully before you sign up. Even if they are spectacularly awful and you never see them- they are part of the mental furniture of the person you are committing to.

Definitely ‘background noise’ in our case, but DP & I are not married & don’t have children, so it’s not a traditional situation.

DP’s family live in a different part of the country and come from a very rural upper-middle class background. My family are very working class northerners. They are chalk & cheese. I only see his family a handful of times a year, and ‘polite’ is probably the best word to describe my relationship with them. We just have zero in common, and I admit that horses invariably being the main topic of conversation can be tedious.

DP gets on fine with my family, and while it’s certainly a more relaxed relationship than mine with his family, but apart from football they just don’t have much in common.

We don’t do any of those things apart from weddings and funerals (and they’re quite rare to be honest). 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Endofyear I am married and older. My point was that we did not have all those things. Weddings and funerals and a few Christmases when in laws were alive. But as soon as they died, all my partners siblings just wanted to spend every occasion in their nuclear family. The only time we see them is weddings and funerals and a visit once or twice a year. We tried to get closer, and they were not interested. Its not personal, as all three are the same with each other as well.
We have now moved into grandparent time and they just all spend time with their adult children and grandchildren.
Not everyone is interested in wider family. There has been no falling out, they are just not interested. Maybe they felt their own parents spent too much time with extended family? No idea?

That's true but if your partner is reasonably close to his family then you've got birthdays, Christmas, holidays, weddings, christenings, funerals etc plus a lot of families get together for Sunday lunches, days out - what I mean is, it's not unusual that people spend time with extended family. Which is why I said it's a good idea to take a good long look at your partners family and how they function before making a commitment!

Absolutely this! My husband and I were both very close to each others’ parents and siblings - we worked consciously to make it happen. Now our children are adults, we are very close to their respective partners and on good terms with their partners’ families.

Again, not my experience. PIL aren’t bothered about anything that isn’t in front of them at that moment. Given DH moved out at 18 for university and hasn’t lived within 200 miles of them since, the milestones have been completed without them, in the main.

They want their boys to be with women who stay home and do the domestic drudgery, but chasing careers, so they were never going to want to have much to do with us. Which is absolutely fine with both of us.

Differences in cultural expectations can be quite stark. My DGPs didn't understand why my DH didn't call them by their grandparents names, didn't call my parents mum and dad and didn't go to every family event with me. I don't think they realised that I am pretty assimilated and those things are weird to me too, not just to thoroughly British DH.

I think it depends on the family. My In-laws are lovely people who went out of their way to welcome not just me but my 3 DC from my previous marriage. They treated them like their own DGC from the off. After that I would always treat them as my family. I feel sad when I read threads quite often about dgp's who not only refuse to treat DC from previous relationships equally but who actively exclude them from photos and Easter eggs and stuff. My In-laws invited me DC to holiday with them for a week each year so DH and i.cpuld holiday alone for a week. In return we invited in-laws on our family holiday fo 2 weeks each year. My Fil was the only Granddad my DC had and he enriched their lives so much. My youngest DC worshipped his Grandad and was absolutely devastated when he died but he had him from 7 years old until DS was 22. He had 15 years of love, wisdom and affection he wouldn't have otherwise have had.

I didn’t feel like I was marrying into his family. We were quite LC with them anyway because they are arses, but when we had DC they pushed their way back in and I was left thinking “shit, I didn’t think this through I’m now tied to these people”.

The advice I would give anyone getting married now would be only to go through with it if you like your partners family and that they are respectful towards you. Marrying into the wrong family can have a big negative impact on your life because they are there for every milestone in your life going forwards.

You can be family oriented and saddled with shit relatives you can’t or don’t have a relationship with.

I am ethnically Indian, married to a white English man. In my culture you definitely marry into both families. Explaining this is sometimes quite difficult, but to provide a couple of examples, people can turn up at anytime of day and night and will pop in for a chat. At wedding we had four people turn up which we did not invite- this again is not unusual. Distant relatives often do this. Dh copes well, but it can at times be very intense and I would like a little bit more time alone. Not happening anytime soon though..

I don't think you can always know if your partner will side with your over their parents until a conflict actually arises. Unless they are long term NC with their family I wouldn't recommend marrying someone when you don't like their family.

I never called my mil mum as some do . I have / had ( she has passed away ) a mum and although I've been with my dh over 20 years she is still no a mum figure to me.
I do however but the birthday cards for his and my family .I can write brother / sister cards to his family but not his mum , I make him do that one .
We don't live near either of our families so I guess the distance plays a part in the integration.

Depends on your partner. My family is a shtshow, but DH isn't impacted by it as I have strong boundaries. His is challenging in many ways, but ditto. His family, his to deal with.

If you marry one of those 'my family of origin is my REAL family and my spouse will always be below them in the pecking order' types then get ready for some real challenges lol

That is my husbands experience with my family .

We are both family oriented - we both believe strongly that when you marry someone you commit to being part of that person’s family

This has been my experience, even after DH died in our 30s. So thankful. And off on holiday with a brother in law and sister in law on Saturday 🥰

It's midway for me. You aren't marrying into the family necessarily but you are most likely committing to their ongoing presence in your life until someone dies 🤣

I was going to marry my DH regardless but honestly I underestimated their involvement in my life especially post kids... and I def underestimated how much tension/division between spouse and inlaws can cause marital conflict. The relationships are all interconnected and it can get messy if you dont get along

That is historically only true for wealthy families.
Read your history of working class people. Many travelled away from their families to find better jobs and a better life, and hardly saw their family ever again. Look at £10 poms which is fairly recent history.

In my own family, my mother stayed close to her parents geographically. Her brother moved to another part of the UK and rarely visited. My fathers side of the family all emigrated to America. None of them consolidated wealth. There was zero wealth to consolidate.