Tension with in-laws and learning how to set boundaries with them is a common issue couples bring to counseling. Topics often include holidays, parenting, finances, and how much say a parent should have in the couple’s decisions.
The difficulty is usually about how differently each partner may see the same situation and how hard it can be to talk through that difference at home.
When that pattern starts to feel like it repeats, couples therapy can help both of you work through it together.
Why the Same Argument Keeps Coming Back
When couples keep having the same disagreement after every visit with the in-laws, the issue is often more about the story each partner is telling about the other’s behavior than anything else. Researchers call these stories attributions.
Fincham and Bradbury studied 130 couples by taking data at two times, 12 months apart. The researchers found that spouses who read a partner’s negative behavior in the least generous way at the start of the study reported lower marital satisfaction a year later. The result held after accounting for depression, self-esteem, and how satisfied the couples were at the start.
Being aware of the effect of negative attributions and learning how to recognize them can change the direction of a conversation. When both partners are watching for these patterns rather than reacting inside them, there is more room to hear each other out.
Another dynamic that can make it hard to set boundaries with in-laws is triangulation. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines triangulation as “a situation in which two members of a family in conflict each attempt to draw another member to their side.”
One familiar example is a child between arguing parents, but triangulation also happens between adult generations when a parent and a spouse each press the person in the middle to take sides.
Once both partners can see what drives these patterns, they have a stronger foundation on which to work toward cooperation and setting mutually agreed-upon boundaries.
The Two Kinds of Pressure in the Room
When an in-law makes an unwanted comment about parenting or another personal decision, partners may disagree about how to respond. One may want to address the comment immediately, while the other may prefer to address the issue in a private conversation later. Someone raised in a household where questioning a parent was discouraged might approach setting that boundary differently.
Couples therapy can help partners learn more about those differences and decide how they want to communicate their boundaries to family members.
When both partners can see what the other is responding to, the conversation can more easily move from “why didn’t you say something” to “how do we handle this together next time.”
When Family Closeness Carries Cultural Weight
For many families, involved parents are not an intrusion but a tradition. One common cultural value, known as familism, emphasizes strong ties within the extended family as well as interdependence and collaboration. Family members within this tradition often place the group’s interests before any one person’s.
In many households, that is a family working the way it was built to work. For example, a grandparent’s opinion on how the children are being raised may carry real authority, or money may move between generations in both directions as a matter of course.
Someone from a different background marrying into that dynamic may feel the in-laws are overstepping, when from the in-laws’ perspective, they are participating normally.
Cultural context matters in counseling because a lot of relationship advice assumes that distance from your parents is what healthy adulthood looks like. However, that assumption doesn’t fit every family.
A counselor who takes cultural context seriously will work to find boundaries that hold inside the family you actually have. They’ll respect each partner’s values and help you learn to protect your relationship within them.
What Happens in Session When In-Laws Are Part of the Picture
The APA describes couples therapy as addressing “problems within and between the individuals that affect the relationship,” with “both partners treated at the same time by the same therapist.” When learning to set boundaries with in-laws, the process often starts with both partners walking through what happened in detail, including the parts that tend to get skipped at home.
A counselor may also ask about the family each partner grew up in, looking at how disagreements were handled and how each partner learned to meet their own needs when a parent was upset, for example. Exploring questions like these helps both partners see where their reactions come from.
Family systems theory, attributed to Murray Bowen, holds that therapists must “see the whole family rather than work only with individual members.” Couples are often surprised by how differently they were each raised, and that discovery can make a partner’s reactions easier to hear as perspective rather than opposition.
From there, the two of you work out the specifics together. For example, you might talk about which partner talks to which in-law and about what, how much notice a visit needs, and what you will each do when a boundary is tested.
Why a Boundary Holds When Both Partners Set It Together
A boundary with an in-law lands differently depending on where it comes from. When one spouse sets it about the other’s parents, it can feel like an ultimatum from outside the family compared to when the adult child sets a boundary with their own parent about something the couple worked out ahead of time.
Alignment between partners can have long-term effects. Fiori and colleagues followed 355 married couples over 16 years and found that when a husband and wife saw closeness with the wife’s family differently, that gap was linked to a higher risk of divorce, even after accounting for how close each spouse reported being to the in-laws.
Disagreement between partners about closeness to in-laws can be a problem. Couples who talk through where they each stand, and work toward a shared position, may create more applicable boundaries that last and support the way they want their relationship to function.
Working on This Together at Village Counseling
Setting boundaries with in-laws is easier when both partners are working together. If you and your partner have not been able to get there on your own, a licensed counselor can help.
At Village Counseling, we work with couples to strengthen their communication and set boundaries that both partners can stand behind.
Contact us online to schedule a consultation, or read about how our team works before you decide what to do next.