Ways you can cope with difficult in-laws

When you exchange vows, the expectation is to have a blossoming marriage. You know that there will be difficult seasons but the whole point is to have a peaceful life.

However, one pesky problem that people don’t usually expect is the issue with problematic in-laws. Not everyone is blessed with nice in-laws and some of these big issues start showing up when you officially blend families.

When you actually realize that you have manipulative, disrespectful and mean-for-nothing in-laws, it’s a huge problem you can’t ignore. To imagine you’re stuck with these guys for life can be heartbreaking.

At this point, you might as well embrace solutions that can help improve the situation:

Difficult in-laws can seriously make you regret the day you got married. And this can be a very tricky situation considering these are your spouse’s direct family members.

The first step is to let your partner know what is happening. This will at least help you feel better and possibly encourage them to talk to their family about the problem.

It’s not always easy to approach your in-laws confidently. The wrong move can make you look like you’re disrespecting them and that’s probably why many people choose to ignore the problem.

If you can, you should have a direct conversation with the party involved. You might even find that this was all a big misunderstanding and you can only find out by talking about it if you have the chance to.

Believe it or not, there are in-laws who don’t care about destroying your marriage. These are the kinds of people who will do random things to irritate you for their amusement.

A good way of dealing with this is just staying composed whenever you’re around them. If they try to start arguments, do not take the bait, just walk away.

By the way, you don’t have to be super close with your in-laws if things aren’t working out. At the end of the day, you and your spouse are starting your own individual family and that is your main priority.

If you have events, show up and enjoy the moment without getting too deep. If you get a call from them, have a lighthearted conversation and don’t force a closeness that’s not there.

Maybe the thing you need is time. Sometimes the expectation is that you’ll have a blossoming relationship with your in-laws right away but this doesn’t always happen which is fine.

Allow them to learn your boundaries and be open-minded. You never know, things might work out smoothly after a while.