Parent in-laws AND relationship destruction!

April’s story:

I’m 30 year old and my fiancé is 34 year old. We have been dating for a year. We planned to have our wedding at the end of the year. But recently I found out something distressful about his parents.

When his father was young, he was a drug addict and was into prostitutions. Now when he is old, he is addicted to gambling and alcohol. Whenever he is drunk, he becomes violent and uncontrollable.

His mother is really into superstitions. She thinks everything can bring bad luck to her family. She also has a temper. No one can talk to her for more than five minutes without upsetting her. She only wants to talk and to hear herself talk. This is not some gossiping. I talked to some of my fiancé’s friends and they seem to confirm what I heard.

That’s not all. My parent in-law also has many ways to manipulate their children for money. They only have 2 sons: my fiancé and his brother. Every month, my fiancé and his brother have to withdraw 1/3 of their paycheck for them. My parent-in-law uses all of the money for gambling and voodoos.

If they don’t get the money at the end of the month, they will go rampage on my fiancé and his brother. I wouldn’t believe it until I walked in into one of their rampages. It was horrible. That never happened in my family.

My fiancé’s brother married a very nice and gentle woman. They moved out after with my parent-in-law a year. Apparently, they got into some sort of arguments. She gave her husband 2 choices: either to move out or divorce. They moved out. She was a nice! I am short-tempered. How long can I last?

I am so afraid that would happen to me. How can I have a happy family if all my parent-in-law care about is money and making everybody miserable? I asked my fiancé if we could live on our own instead of being a burden to his parents. We can come to visit anytime. He refused.

He said he loves his parents. He wanted to stay near them to take care of them. He is too nice to them. He gave in to every of their request. If he had to choose between them and me, I’m not sure if he would choose me. I’m afraid even to ask that question.

I am really in a difficult situation here. If I call off the wedding, I can’t bear losing him. If I continue with the wedding, I have to live with his parents. I could even stand them for three minutes, what would happen if I have to face them every single day?

Sherry Love’s corner:

It must be devastated for you to realize that your parent-in-law are difficult people to live with. They don’t care about the children’ happiness. All they think about is money.

You saw what happened to your fiancé’s brother. His wife couldn’t stand his parents and have to ask him to move out. Parent-in-law and daughter-in-law must have gotten into heated arguments. She was a gentle woman and she couldn’t stand them.

It’s understandable that this can happen to you if you live with his parents. You said it yourself, you are short-tempered, things can get ugly between you and the in-law sooner than you expect.

You are right to ask your fiancé to move out right in the beginning. This is a win-win-win situation.

1. Your husband can come visit often and take care of his parents
2. You don’t have to face them every day, thus there is less chance thing will get out of control
3. Not living together, you can prevent his parents from interfering into your marriage.

Your suggestion to move out can solve many problems, yet your fiancé adamantly refused. You said your fiancé always cave in to his parents’ every desire. If his parents play such an important part in his decision, it’s likely that they will interfere with his marriage. It seems you are heading to a rocky road ahead if you can’t persuade him to move out.

It’s wise that you try to persuade him again. Tell him gently that moving out can protect his relationship with his parents, your relationship with his parents, and your relationship with him. He loves his parents so you must be tactful in telling him such thing.

Things can happen in three ways:

1. He loves you and listens to you. He understands you are not trying to prevent him from taking care of his parents. You move out. Everything went smoothly.
2. He doesn’t listen to you. He tells his parents about what you said. His parents will see you as a threat to their financial freedom. They can persuade his son to call off the wedding. Because he loves them so blindly, there is a possibility that he will end the relationship with you.
3. You tell him, he doesn’t listen. But you love him so much that you continue with the wedding anyway, knowing that it will be very difficulty living with the parents-in-law. You think you can endure for him. But you are short-tempered; you will likely get into an argument just like your sister-in-law did. You tell him to move out. He still refused. Your marriage is destroyed.

So it’s ideal that you try to achieve the first option. If after you have tried everything and he still doesn’t budge, it’s likely that his parents are more important to him than you. You know what can happen. Try to figure out if it’s worth to be with him if you will have to suffer so much.

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