Were Your In-Laws Too Attached To Your SO?

I have found that FIL ... is not as good at realizing his children are adults as he thinks he is. MIL is *better* than she thinks she is.

However, those are boundaries DH has to set, not me.

(If your SO will not set those boundaries, that's a problem.)

In my case, it's my control-freak father who loves to make things difficult for my future husband. He completely disregards the fact that I am a grown woman, and treats me like I'm 14 years old. I honestly get so angry at him sometimes, especially when he tries to "pull rank" in front of people to show "how much his family respects and obeys him". I hate it. Only in the last year or two have I really started getting vocal about it, establishing boundaries, and standing up for myself, as well as reminding him (constantly) I'm not ASKING PERMISSION to do something, I'm TELLING you I'm doing it. He's very old school and uses the "Samoan Culture" card every chance he gets, but I'm not going to spend another second letting him psychologically control me.

They never made any comments but their body language said it. There was nothing for me to do. Their his family and fh had to deal with them and put up boundaries

View Quoted Comment Your completely right! The SO should outline and reinforce those boundaries, as it’s a disconnect only they will be able to mend.

View Quoted Comment Right. While I believe the SO should set those boundaries initially, if it has already come to a point of disrespect (whether intentional or not), you must nip it in the butt before it continues. Our IL’s are not to think they can say or do whatever because they are senior to us, we’re adults as well. Call it out!

View Quoted Comment So passive aggressive. Not wanting to make a fuss verbally, and physically not enthused wither. Absolutely! We can’t force what’s naturally not there and it’s the SO’s responsibility to establish those initial boundaries of consideration and respect.

If your SO hasn’t already established those boundaries than it’s time to start. We live 2.5 hours away from our families. Both sets of parents live in the Phoenix area & we live in northern AZ. Neither overstep & treat us like children. His mom and I get along great. There is an issue that was just brought up over the weekend- bad blood between 1 of my fiancé’s aunt & the rest of the that side of the family. She’s adamant “over my dead body will she come to the wedding!” My fiancé wasn’t around (he was at work & I was down there attending to wedding details) & I was kind of shocked. I told him about it later in the evening during our phone conversation. His response is “well the good thing is my mom doesn’t decide on who comes to the wedding! This is our wedding, we’re paying everything, we decide on who’s coming!” He will deal with that drama!

I wouldn't say that they were too attached, but they were so used to telling my husband what to do that it definitely caused problems. Once he/we started making decisions his grandmothers and dad specifically had a problem with it and they still do. But at this point, I've tried to get along with them but they are the type that think they are ALWAYS right. So now my husband and I don't really have much of a relationship with them because they can no longer treat him like hes 12. Mind you he is 30 now! But it doesn't affect us now, or priority is the family that we are building not the family we come from!

View Quoted Comment No one can dictate their wishes to something they aren’t paying for or contributing to. I couldn’t agree more.

View Quoted Comment That’s the problem I’m seeing with a lot of parents. When they can no longer assert control you’ll potentially watch them unravel at the seams, it’s unfortunate. I’ve learned Blood ain’t always thicker!

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Yes that's what happened with mu husbands family. They were all nice at the beginning but once they realized they could no longer control him it all went downhill

Didn't really apply to me but my parents definitely had empty nest feeling when i left so it was always them asking me to come over cause they'd get lonely.

I have sorta the opposite issue but it comes up on a regular basis. We wanted to move in together before and that came with comments "oh we don't want you to move out. Who will you be with?" Response was with me which then gets "oh but that isn't a good thing to do before. What will people at church say?" Plus I have the wonderful part of it being in a different language I gave a small grasp on but nowhere near fluent.


FH has the same idea I do. He handles his family and I handle mine. He has shared it is his choice and mine will always weigh far heavier than anyone else. However he fields the questions and comments and shares while there is concern it is not needed and the conversation is dropped.

My fiance is a momma's boy my fh is the oldest and the first to get married, his parents are amazing though and welcoming, His father is more welcoming his mom is intimidating in a good way but I can tell a part of her doesn't like me cause that's her boy but she is very respectful and really nice

View Quoted Comment Same here, but my FH is the youngest & getting married