Keeping Your In-Laws Out of Your Marriage
By:
Nate Webster, IMH
“So what will you do if you or her gets
cancer or something and you have all these medical bills”, was the first
question my father in-law asked me when I asked for his daughter’s hand in
marriage. It’s no mystery to most people that in-laws can be a downer,
complicated bunch. We marry a person we love, but along with it we get a family
who is often very different then what we’re use to. They don’t talk around the
dinner table like we do, they don’t like the same things we do, and typically
our boundaries and rules are usually just seen as suggestions and
recommendations. So what do you do with difficult in-laws? Well fortunately the
bible has some very timely advice for dealing with such in-laws and hopefully
it can help you!
"Do
not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they
may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” Matthew 7:6
The
principle of pearls and pigs:
How
many of us have dogs and swine for in-laws who constantly trample the precious
parts of our life? Not that you need to be that harsh, but the powerful point
that Jesus makes in Matthew is twofold.
·
First
is that you don’t give pearls to pigs, because pigs roll around in the mud and
don’t know or care for something so precious as a pearls. If you keep giving
dogs what is sacred you’ll only find yourself being “turned on and torn to
pieces”.
·
Jesus’
second point is you’re culpable in the treatment you’re receiving. In the case
of in-laws, how often are you unnecessarily giving your in-laws ammunition to
hurt you?
One
of the biggest mistakes that my wife and I made with our in-laws, was
intertwining with them financially. They gave us cheap rent on an apartment
they owned and wanted to help us with my wife’s tuition when we were newlyweds.
Only to turn around and hold the cheap rent over our heads when we went on
vacation and tried to control what my wife went to school for because they were
going to help.
Jesus
gives us this powerful message in Matthew to teach us that some people can’t
handle the precious details and pieces of our lives and that we need to be
diligent in protecting them, more importantly to stop throwing pearls before
swine, hoping they’ll snort back how beautiful they are.
To schedule
an appointment with Megan Muñoz, please call our office at 407-647-7005 or
visit our website at www.lifeworksgroup.org.