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

[MyAmusedOpalCrab]

Or do you believe you’re marrying them and their family is just background noise?

I’ve heard both views: that you should take the family seriously because they’ll always be part of your life, especially if kids are involved… and others say as long as the couple are solid, the family’s attitude doesn’t matter much.

What’s your experience? Can you have a great relationship with someone whose family doesn’t like or support you? Or is that a disaster waiting to happen?

Again, not “100%”.

DH and I signed a contract. No element of that related to our respective families.

This.

Just to add, whatever is said they are never really your family. Most couples when they divorce lose contact with the in laws and wider family. They are likely to take your husbands side in any difficult divorce.
I mention this because I have seen friends with tiny families marry someone who has a very involved extended family. They have accepted the - we are your family now. Until the divorce. Sometimes a relationship with in laws and wider family lasts after a divorce, but I have never seen it survive a new relationship and marriage.

I married my DH, not his family. We've been together for nearly 40 years.

PIL are both dead now. I got on well with FIL, but MIL never liked me, she didn't think I was good enough for her son as I have multiple disabilities. This caused DH to see her in a very different light and ultimately affected their relationship. But, that was her fault and her loss and in a roundabout way, she admitted that she was at fault.

My ex's family I always kept at arms length; they had all sorts of problems individually and the dynamic between some of them was utterly toxic. I did not have any contact after we split up but that was no problem as we barely spoke before.

15 years later and DPs family is like my own, I'm welcomed with open arms and it's been so completely different.

It really depends on the dynamics.

It depends on the family.
DH has very definitely 'married into' my family. His DP's have favoured his sibling his whole life, DH has largely been sidelined unless they want something from him and then they make unreasonable demands and use emotional manipulation. My DP's, Aunts and Uncles, and cousins all love DH like he's their own flesh and blood. He and my DF are very close and do things like go to the Football and go fishing just the two of them. He has distanced himself from his own family since we've been married, they blame me for this I'm sure. The truth is that he has realised, since marrying into my family, how family should treat each other and that he doesn't have to settle for scraps of affection anymore.

100% is not correct.

Some people will view as marrying into the family (sounds like the bloody Mafia), but not everyone will feel that way.

I married my DH. I did not enter into a marriage that included anyone other than my DH.

I didn’t marry into DH’s family, I barely know them. I don’t think that’s ideal to be honest, I would love to have had a large extended family with everyone getting along but the man I fell in love with didn’t have that to offer.

He has been welcomed into mine but I think if asked he wouldn’t consider them his family, just people he gets along ok with.

Yes to all this.

Also, after we had a child, I found that I had a lot of unconscious expectation around ‘family life’ that started to come out. Even though I was convinced that I would be a very different parent to my parents (who were not terrible parents, just typical parents of the 80s), I found myself doing things the way mum had done it eg: We eat all meals at the table and have done so since DD was in a high chair.

In most cases DH has agreed, as our upbringings were quite similar, or has no strong preference so goes along with me, but it’s worth thinking about ‘family culture’ around child rearing and whether there are likely to be clashes.

You marry the person. It also helps if the general family relationships are pleasant/civil. The family are also the ones that will hopefully be your support network when needed and you will be theirs.

No one should be living in each others pockets if they don't want to and boundaries should be set from the start to avoid upset and conflict further down the line.

I think it’s extremely foolhardy to marry someone if you can’t get along with their close family.

I’d never marry and have children with someone whose parents and siblings I hated or vice versa.

Don’t have to be best friends but have to have some common ground.

Really interesting question. I think it depends a lot on cultural background. In many African and Asian families (speaking from my own experience), marriage isn’t just about the two people, t’s very much a joining of families. So the idea of just marrying the man or woman without their family being involved doesn’t really exist. The family is part of the marriage package. In lots of Western cultures, it seems more common to see the couple as a separate unit, and the family more in the background - still important, but not central. Neither way is right or wrong, just different. For me personally, it would be really hard to have a good relationship if the family didn’t like or support me, and I them.

Surely you did some History at school, @MyAmusedOpalCrab?

Throughout human history, marriage has been a means to consolidate social position and financial security through the joining of two families. (It’s the whole point of every single heaving-bosomed costume drama you’ve ever watched.)

Really it’s only quite recently, within living memory, that people have begun to think of marriage as something concerning only the happy couple - to the deliberate exclusion of their wider familial groups.

Although one of the happiest young couples I’ve ever known, preparing for their wedding within the past 10 years, stated that they were doing it primarily to bring their respective families closer together.

My mother always said that she married my father not his awful family. The reality is that his family cast a shadow over their married life (they were married for over 60 years) and still do now. I can't find it in myself to forget how badly some of them treated him.

As a couple without kids, our families aren't massively intertwined into our lives. We live away from them (we met at university and neither of us returned home) and find that, as they get older, it's easiest for us to split up and see our families separately - that way, we only use one weekend, instead of 2.

So yes, it's important that I have a decent relationship with my inlaws, but I can easily go 6 months at a time without setting eyes on them.

I also never have phone conversations with my inlaws. We don't have a landline and DH obviously speaks to them on his mobile.

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.

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

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 🥰

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

That is my husbands experience with my family .

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

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.

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 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..

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