My partner (30 M) and I got married a year back in India. My in-laws were initially against our marriage for about 2-3 months when my husband told them about our intentions to marry. They had issues with it being an inter state love marriage. However, they came around and have been great ever since. My husband and I studied and now live abroad. I never really have to deal with them in person and didn’t have to move in with them as is tradition. They usually call him and I join in on these calls once in a week or so. But I’ve realized it’s not enough after my MIL told me nicely that if I dont want to talk to them, I can at-least text them updates about myself since they’re concerned about me. My parents also encourage me to interact more with my in-laws and form a connection. My problem is this: even if I recognize that I do want to form a connection, I simply cannot open myself up to them. I don’t know if it’s because of them discouraging my husband at first, because of my mother’s nightmarish experience with her own in-laws, or because my husband has to financially support them. I feel the invisible pressure because of society to still feel some warmth towards them. My husband is cool with me not communicating much with them because he doesn’t want me to feel uncomfortable. I don’t know what to do, or if there even is something to do since I’m constantly feeling guilty of something.
TLDR: I feel guilty about not wanting to open myself up to in-laws and want to (maybe) work on it.
5 comments
They created this problem between you. It is for them to mend it. Not you. Let them put in the work. Do what you want and no more. Maybe they’ll manage to make you feel more comfortable with them, maybe they won’t. But you don’t have to feel guilty if you never do. I repeat: THEY CAUSED THE PROBLEM, LET THEM WORRY ABOUT IT.
To open up to someone is something that happens naturally, after you spend a certain time with a person and feel comfortable enough to trust them. That said, is pretty okay to not feel completely open to them, especially since you only communicate over the internet. I think talking to someone and being completely open to them is two different things, so to begin with you can occasionally text them an update about your life with your husband and ask them how they are, just out of respect to your loved one. If in the future you get to know them and decide you can be friends – amazing, if not – still ok, just remember it’s totally fine to feel like that and it happens to everyone.
__You have nothing to feel guilty about and your husband is fine with the situation__.
Lots of people aren’t close with their in-laws. Don’t feel obligated to force artificial closeness, especially if they’re intrusive or controlling.
I think there are two different aspects in communicating:
– opening up as in trusting someone and telling him what you think/feel,
– engaging in regular polite communication that may or may not lead to the above.
Unless you are unusually trusting at first sight, the first one happen over times as you get to know people better. If you communicate with someone regularly, you learn what they mean when they say things, you learn what not to tell them and you can safely say. It is ok to not be there with someone new, it is ok to not be there with someone at all.
The second one is something you can do. It does not require much opening up. You ask them how they are doing once in a while and then ask them how whatever they were planning is going on. You ask them about health. You can give them safe updates like “we cooked tomato soup it tasted good” or “found good shop nearby” or whatever. Stuff that does NOT feel personal, does not feel like opening up, but is a basic social contact. You can do that rarely (few times a year, around birthdays, religious celebrations etc) or once a month or whatever, based on what feels comfortable to you.
As you do the latter, you will overtime learn what triggers meddling (and say that less), what is safe to say, what their opinions are, what are their temperaments etc. And you will grow to feel warmth towards them or not.
You don’t have to dive in right away into deep waters, relationships are built on trust, which takes time to ensure trust is warranted. Sounds like they got off on the wrong foot with you, being against the marriage etc. Do you have any common interests? Maybe you could engage in light hearted activities with your husband such as having a watch party online, playing a game over mobile, reading books in common, whatever you are into? Then it’s not really “going deep”, but building common interests and going from there.