Navigating the pulls between extended family cultures and expectations over Christmas can be challenging. Photo / 123RF
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Hello Nic and Verity,
My partner’s family are extremely close. Any opportunity it has to be a huge family get together, Mother’s Day, birthdays, and of course Christmas. My family are not that close and my partner often comments on that. I have been keen for his family to like me, knowing how important they all are to my partner, so I have always agreed to do his family thing but this Christmas it is different. My brother has had a bad year health-wise and my father is coming over from Australia and I really want us to spend Christmas Day with my family in Hamilton - which means missing my partner’s big family do. My partner is okay about going to my family but has told me it is up to me to break the news to his mother but I don’t know how to raise it. I am really worried as the last time we didn’t come to a family celebration I was cold-shouldered for months by his mother and sisters and they still make digs about it. Help!
Susan
There’s a reason why in-laws are often jokingly called “Outlaws”. It reflects the not-very-funny way in-laws are treated in some families. The story of people not “blood relatives” being intimidated and punished for not toeing the family line is a standard narrative that often rears its head around Christmas time.
While navigating the pulls between extended family cultures and expectations is challenging for many couples, it frequently becomes unmanageable with “enmeshed” families. These families lack a healthy degree of freedom and flexibility for each person to be themselves and are unwilling to respect and accommodate differences. While significant cultural differences exist about what constitutes a “healthy” amount of autonomy, most cultures allow for some. Of course, families vary greatly in their interpretation of these cultural norms.
Family at its best is about love, caring and understanding and is responsive and flexible. Enmeshment usually involves rigid rules, roles and expectations that revolve around the whims of those with power and punishment for anyone who fails to meet expectations (like the critical comments or ostracism you experienced).
Interestingly, you describe your family as “not that close”, yet your father is motivated to come over from Australia, and you are willing to challenge your partner’s family’s expectations when your brother has had a tough time. It may be that your family is more distant and disconnected than you would like. But we do wonder whether you are falling into judging your family by the standards of your partner’s family.
It sounds like you are confident that what you have asked for this Christmas is fair and reasonable and, importantly, that your partner sees it that way, too. Yet he seems very willing to leave you to deal with the unfair and unreasonable responses you are expecting to get from his family.
We think he may be throwing you under the bus, and it’s concerning to us that you appear to have accepted this and are focused on how you will deal with his family rather than what is happening between you and your partner. It’s not okay if he is ducking conflict and leaving you to handle all the heavy lifting of a decision you are both on board with.
So, there are two issues we encourage you to raise with your partner. One is his acceptance of his mother and sister’s right to be punishing towards you. The other is his avoidance of risking similar punishment for himself.
We suggest you challenge your partner about abdicating his responsibility to manage his own family relationships and issues. This may be new territory for you if you tend to take too much responsibility for things and have low expectations of your partner.
It is in your interest, but also his, to stop enabling your partner to avoid his dilemmas with his family, as this will likely lead to bigger problems for you both down the track – especially if you choose to have children.
If he continues to bow to family pressure rather than back his understanding of right and wrong, he will never feel like his own person and will struggle to have healthy self-respect. Put another way, he will always feel like a boy rather than a man at some level. At the same time, you and he will never feel like a strong team managing these complex situations together.
So, you must be clear that you are not prepared to do his job (setting boundaries with his family) for him. The reality is that in bonding with you, his life is complex now. He will sometimes need to make values-based choices that favour acting in service of his new extended family and his partner (your needs and desires) over those of his mother or others in his family of origin.
This year, your partner is choosing to lend his presence to support his extended family - your family, especially your brother. This is a kind and decent thing to do. Yet, presumably, he is anticipating a negative response from his mother.
If we understand rightly, he expects your joint decision to spend Christmas with your family to be interpreted as disloyal or unloving. It’s his job to call his mother and sisters to account for this kind of emotional blackmail. As a “blood relative” is the one with leverage over these people – he has much more power than you do to challenge the status quo.
It’s his responsibility to use his leverage to protect you and to be clear, this is his decision and to set new boundaries with his sisters and mother. In this case, to tell anyone who has any issue with how you are both deciding to spend Christmas, they are to direct their concerns to him, not you. Furthermore, he needs to specifically say that he is not okay with them singling you out as the problem for a decision you jointly made.
He may find this challenging if he avoids tricky interactions with his family by following their rigid rules, roles, and expectations. It will be doubly hard if he has enjoyed benefits from being the “pleasing” son and brother who never rocks the boat.
If part of that role has been a tacit acceptance of blaming you, of being “the poor guy with the difficult wife who doesn’t fit in”, then it may be triply hard for him to behave with integrity.
Whether or not that is part of the picture, it will likely be hard for him to shift his family role from ‘people pleasing’ to being more honest about his actions. His family will unlikely respond well to him trying to change his role.
He may need some help with this significant shift - from you, other friends who know his family, or perhaps from a counsellor experienced in family dynamics. He might also want to read one of the many good books about setting boundaries and dealing with the potential fallout.
But it would be best to talk to him about your desire to feel safe with him and his family without compromising your self-hood (we all have to compromise our behaviour to get along in groups).
If you don’t address these dynamics around his rigid, enmeshed family, then they may dominate you for years to come and cause a lot of pain for you both. The best way forward is for you both to travel as a tight team that his family’s rigid ways cannot split off.
Verity and Nic are psychologists and family therapists who have specialised in relationship and sex therapy for more than 25 years. They have been working on their own relationship for more than 40 years and have two adult children.
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