You Didn’t Marry Your In-Laws
Well this may get awkward… but here goes nothing.
A few days ago via my Instagram (IG) story, I asked for topic suggestions to write about on my blog; that is the second time that the topic of ‘dealing with in-laws’ was presented to me. Prior to this request for topics to blog about, someone else suggested I give my 2 cents on the matter being that I am married now. I’ve pondered and pondered this topic because I needed to approach delicately while also maintaining transparency. At first, I honestly did not know where to start and then I started and almost couldn’t stop, so this will be lengthy. To the two women who suggested this topic, I can guarantee your situation is unlike mine, particularly because neither of you are married to a man who had a child prior to your union. That said, fortunately for you, you do not have to deal with everything that comes with those circumstances. Nevertheless, I sincerely appreciate your interest in my blog enough that you would want me to share my experience on this topic with you, and with the world essentially. I do not know what you are going through or what you intend to gain from reading this post, but I hope that you gain something. If you are having a negative experience with your in-laws, I genuinely hope that your situation improves and if it doesn’t, that you learn how not to really care lol. To me, in-laws are not just the parents of your spouse, it is his/her whole family (siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins). Now I must say that overall, my in-laws are cool, they have been welcoming to me (they threw me a whole ‘Welcome to the Family’ celebration a couple of months after I moved to NC), and have not done anything that affected me directly.
Energy does not lie.
Although, my in-laws are cool and welcoming, I do not have the “ideal” in-law relationship with anyone in my husband’s family. I don’t hang out with his sisters or cousins one-on-one, or go out with them to bars, restaurants, nail salons etc and we don’t chit chat on a regular basis, outside of family gatherings. Additionally, there is also quite an age gap between me and most of them. And not for nothing, my husband does not have a relationship with my brothers or cousins either. Maybe time will change these circumstances for both of us … we’ll have to see.
Bit of a back story….. my husband and I dated for 3 years long distance. During that time, on the few occasions I visited him in North Carolina, I only really met his mother (and that was not a planned or big official/typical first meeting), one of his female first cousins, and one of his aunts once or twice (and the first time was more of an introduction than when I met his mother). I didn’t meet the rest of his family until a couple of weekends before he proposed in June 2018. I’m assuming they wondered “Who is this Alabama girl who was once a figment of everyone’s imagination and now about to be JaBreel’s wife?” One thing about my in-laws, though they are welcoming, they also don’t let people go. Alliances seemed to have been made already. I did not live in NC at the time and they really never saw me, so to them it’s almost like I did not really exist outside of what my husband probably told certain people about me. I believe it was an out-of-sight-out-of-mind kind of thing. Because I was so far away prior to my husband and I getting married, I did not get to formulate a true relationship really with anyone in the family while we were just dating. That would have been ideal, to me. At the same time, his ex who had been welcomed into the family years prior, still lurked around… either via invitation to or self-insertion into a number of family gatherings, in my absence. However, I want to make it clear that he was not the one inviting her and majority of the time had no clue she would be in attendance until the very moment it happened. Plus, although they had not been together since before finding out she was pregnant, I guess having a baby was the golden ticket to solidifying her continued presence, in addition to her expertise in fabricating stories and playing the victim. In using those talents, this person was able to engineer drama with me where there needed not be any. That said, my in-laws didn’t really get a chance to know me before my image was sort of tainted by someone who hung around way past their expiration date. I know there are a few family members who knew about a specific incident but dare not inquire about the subject years later to me to gain clarity or hear my side because you know, Black people just sweep a lot of things under the rug. As my Uncle Charla tends to say, “No one cares about the truth when the lie is more entertaining.” Because they only ever knew one side of that incident, there have been times I felt like it was still hanging over my head. Energy does not lie.
No matter what you do, and who you are as a person, you cannot control other people. There are certain things that have occurred specifically though that I have observed and could not get jiggy with. Also, if I’m being really honest, the constant reminder of, mentioning of, and dealing with of my husband’s ex by his family is a thorn in my side and that’s because of the person I know her to be as opposed to the person she’s portrayed to them. However, I choose not to focus a lot of my energy on it. No matter who I am or what my status is (a wife as a opposed to an ex or baby mama), I cannot control the fact that my in-laws still choose to maintain a peculiar kind of relationship with my husband’s ex (beyond that of which would be necessary because of the child). Quite frankly, that’s not my job and it’s none of my business who does what regarding that, but I peep it for sure.
Dealing
So, the way I deal with my in-laws you ask? I mind the business that pays me and control what I can control, which is only ME. I choose not to focus a lot of my energy on things that are beyond that. If I want to go to the family gathering, I go. If I don’t, sometimes I won’t. When I get bored and no one is talking to me about anything of substance while at said gatherings (and this goes for anywhere I go), I retreat to my phone, tuning everything else out around me. That’s the introvert in me. So if you’re looking for advice on the in-laws topic, I’m probably not the one to ask. For starters though, growing up, my mom would say to me that “you have to feed some people with a long-handled spoon.” That just means that you have to deal with certain people from a distance. In my opinion, sometimes the best way to deal with certain people is to not deal with them at all. Or, fake it til you make it. Those are your only options. These principles can be applied to family, friends, in-laws, co-workers, etc. Anyone can get it! Furthermore, I have heard of the kind of in-laws that are way too involved and often overstep and/or offer their unwarranted 2 cents way too much. Fortunately this is not my story, but as an adult, I am way too headstrong to grant anyone that type of power anyway. If you are married, you are grown enough to make serious decisions between just you and your spouse. What you need to remember is that at the end of the day, you are married to one person - a man, woman, or other - but either way, you did not marry his/her family. One more time for the people in the cheap seats … 🗣 you did not marry your in-laws!!! If you have a positive relationship with your in-laws, great! If you have a bad relationship with your in-laws, cool … OR you can try to work on it and pray about it. If the relationship between you and your in-laws is practically non-existent, STILL cool … OR you can try to work on it and pray about it. At the end of the day, you said your vows to that one person, you sleep next to that one person, you are creating a life with that one person. Cherish and focus on that.
