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Helping couples discover the why behind the what in their marriage with Chris and Beth Bruno and Tracy Johnson of ReStory Counseling.
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Welcome to the Thrive Marriage Lab with Restory Counseling, where we help you explore the why behind the what. Because guess what? We believe that your marriage is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be explored and enjoyed. We believe that the more you explore and know your story, the deeper your marriage connection will be. This podcast is now the audio version of our new YouTube channel, Thrive Marriage Lab.
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where each week you can expect us to help you cultivate connection and belonging without the fixing and tips and common things you often hear in the marriage space. So find us on YouTube or listen in.
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So in marriage, we hear that there are three top level conflicts, three conflicts that most marriages have. And statistically over research, like these are the three that hit the top of the charts. And you can imagine what they are. The first is going to be about money. The second is going to be about sex. And the third, which is what we are talking about today, is your in-laws.
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As you are an engaged couple, as you are preparing to walk down that aisle, we wanted to talk about this question. Are you going to marry your in-laws? Did you marry your in-laws? My name is Chris Bruno and I'm a licensed professional counselor. My name is Tracy Johnson and I am a story work coach and supervisor at Restory Counseling, where I work with Chris.
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And together with my wife, Beth, we post videos to help you understand the why behind the what because we believe the more you explore your story, the deeper your connection will be. And if you like what you're hearing today, we invite you to hit that subscribe button, turn on the notifications so you don't miss a beat in helping your marriage thrive. So we're talking about in-laws and it is, it is
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a dicey subject. It's one really challenging to enter into, especially in that engagement timeframe because you want to love your soon-to-be spouse's parents, right? You want to have some kind of familial connection beyond your own family of origin. And you also know that there's some other things that are coming down the pike, right? You know that when you get in relationship with, when you walk down an aisle and you say yes to your spouse, you're also saying yes to an entire
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family. Yeah, no matter how excited you are. And if you haven't felt the tension yet, it's universal. It's coming. Trust us. It's coming. And so I think the question, and I love it, did you marry your in-laws? Is this all part and parcel? And if I didn't marry my in-laws, like, what does that even mean? Because they're here. And they do feel like they're part of the package. So
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Really, what we wanna talk about today is not the what, right, of did you marry your in-laws, but underneath that, kind of what's driving when that starts to feel difficult. So we really wanna talk about loyalty. Yeah, loyalty is a big word, and it's not something that a lot of engaged couples actually begin to talk about or think about. So loyalty is to...
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to whom are you loyal? Or another way of putting that is, who do you choose? Who do you choose? And when it comes to the couples that feel like they've married their in-laws, that the in-laws have a lot of influence or they're present in the new marriage home, right? There is an issue of loyalty, that the spouses have maybe not turned away from their previous loyalty and turned towards.
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a loyalty to their spouse. Yes, they have said, I do, at the altar, but they haven't actually made some of the shifting changes, even severing of the loyalty to their parents or to their past or to their family of origin in order to avail themselves, to free themselves for a loyalty to their new spouse. So loyalty is really the commitment that we say, I choose you and you alone, you over anyone else in the world.
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This feels like such an important thing for us to talk about, because as you and I both know, as we have sat with couples over the years, it just isn't talked about. And it isn't something that parents generally bring up with their kids. It's not like, hey, you're engaged. And so we want you to know we're going to break loyalty with you. We really want you just forging your own new family with your spouse.
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The reality is a lot of the energy is more tied to how are you going to stay connected with us? How are we going to fold this person that you're marrying into our family? And we even use that kind of language, right? Like we're welcoming this person into our family. We're all going to be one big family. And we're really saying like, actually.
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actually we need to look at that a little bit differently. And it's hard because our first loyalty is to our parents, as kids, as little kids, parents, our providers, our caregivers, like it is only natural and good and necessary for our healthy development that we develop a sense of loyalty to them. But we don't often know how to begin to shift that.
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as we get older and how do we really address that as we look at like building a life with the person that we're going to marry. And I love that Tracy that you just brought that you know the loyalty from our to our parents was natural and I would even go so far as to say that for us our loyalty to our parents is both natural and assumed.
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to choose that in any way, it just was. We didn't choose loyalty to our parents, it just became. But when we move into a marriage relationship, we do make that choice. And it's not just one choice, but two. It is one choice to say yes to this other person, and the second choice to say no to the previous people that we have to cut, we have to sever that loyalty, which
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which feels, I'll go back to that word natural, it feels unnatural all of a sudden to not be choosing mom and dad the way that I did before and choosing you instead. And I'm gonna use that word instead because that's what we're actually talking about. Not I'm gonna choose mom and dad and you also, or I'm gonna choose mom and dad and you sometimes, it's actually I'm gonna choose you instead. And what I mean by choosing you, what we mean by I choose you.
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is that when it comes to not just like, mom and dad maybe were asking, would you like to come quote unquote home for Thanksgiving? Even I say quote unquote home, because when we get married, our home is no longer our parents' home. I don't know how many couples talk about it that way. Like, I'm gonna go home for Christmas. Well, his home is different than her home. So what are we talking about here? Actually, home is where we are.
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And this new, this, where we maybe even grew up, the house that we grew up in, is now all of a sudden our parents' home. So when I say choose you, I choose you, is you and I get to make the decision on what we will be doing on how we spend our time, who we spend our time with, how we spend our money, how we parent our children, those kinds of things. I choose you over and above anyone else's opinions and thoughts. We might solicit them and get some advice
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you know, ask them for some help every once in a while, but really it is like that loyal choice of you above anyone else. And as you say it, it all makes so much sense. And I think, you know, we would all kind of nod our heads. Well, of course that's the way it is. And the reality is like, this is driven by your stories and by the lives that you lived up to this point. And so when you,
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start talking about that with your spouse. You begin to talk about what it looks like if we don't go home for Christmas, or if we don't do all the things that have always been part of how your family did something. A lot of feelings start to bubble up inside of us that we don't know what to do with, whether those are feelings of relief, this is great, I'm so glad, fantastic, we're not gonna go.
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And often if that's what happens, then there'll be other feelings that follow because the parents are not excited that you're so excited not becoming to their house or whatever it is. But, but this is that storied space that that we keep talking about. It's this thread that we pull through all of these videos and the work that we do, which is like the conversations that need to happen are deeper than just the decision making of what we are or aren't going to do.
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or how we will be different. You know, it's just, it's got more, it's got more meat to it and it's got more nuance to it than that. And probably as you are planning your vows or the ceremony for your wedding, somewhere in the ceremonial space, you may have this quote show up somewhere, right? This quote from scripture.
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that you shall leave your father and mother and be united together with your spouse. That phrase is there and beautiful phrase. And I think a lot of us these days, we think about that in the sense like, I'm gonna move out of my parents' house and move in with my new spouse. Right, that's what's happening.
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The reality is that it wasn't just a geographical kind of shift that was in the biblical narrative. That's not only the space that the new couple has a new place of residence. It was also a spiritual and a psychological shift of loyalty, that the leaving of father and mother is saying, I am no longer underneath your roof, literally, but also authority, direction.
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I'm not emotionally tied to you anymore. I'm leaving father and mother, and I am attaching to my spouse. That's what this means, that psychological leaving is far more important even than the geographical or the financial departure for a spouse. So when we talk about you marry your in-laws, our hope is that the answer is no. And also it takes, like I said, those two choices that we say no to them and yes,
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to the new spouse in the loyalty kind of space. Yeah, and it's risky. Oh my gosh, yeah. And it feels that way. It feels that way internally. It's like this goodness of this life that I'm saying yes to comes along with the risk of what it's gonna mean that I'm also saying no. No to some things that have always been where I found security and where I found attachment and where I found connection because I'm.
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Pledging that and building that with my spouse. It's risky risky requires trust which This is where we're gonna go on her next video we're gonna talk about how to build trust that lasts So join us. See you there
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If you like this, there's more where that came from. Go to Thrive Marriage Lab on YouTube to check out all of the marriage resources we have for you. We are so committed to helping you develop a deeper and more connected relationship that we've created 12 free curated date guides to walk you through one year of good dates that we believe take you beyond your average date night to the kind of connection you really want.
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So head over to restory.life slash thrive dash dates, or just look in the show notes to subscribe to get those for free in your inbox for one year. And if you're curious about us, you can find us over at restory.life, where we look forward to hearing about how your marriage continues to grow. See you same time, same place next week.