Did we let our Parents influence our Married Lives

I moved out of the area where I grew up at 16 when my mum re married and never lived more than 25 miles away from her, and that was for the last 6 years of her life. Mr. S., apart from those 6 years has always lived in the area he grew up in.

My mum adored Mr. S. and was never backward at coming forward with an opinion. The difference is that it would never have entered her head to think she could have ended up with 'low contact', seeing less of her GC or being estranged if she didn't bite her tongue or walk on egg shells, and no reason why it should have.

My m.i.l. was jealous of me and we had a very difficult relationship for several years, so much so that I didn't see me in laws for about 7 years, but Mr. S, continued to see them at least once a week and our boys continued to have regular contact.

There's no way I would have expected or wanted him to stop seeing his parents or for our boys to lose the relationship they had with their GP's during that time. Something else that seems to have changed.

There was a certain degree of effort to influence our lives from my m.i.l. which together with her jealousy is why I stopped seeing them. I did resume contact with them and became particularly close to my m.i.l. after my f.i.l. died.

My own children had no contact with relatives on either side, and I'm glad about that. I was brought up in a negative home and my children didn't. I had no expectations of my children, they were free to follow their own wishes. Oddly enough, they have all been very successful in their careers, whereas I didn't feel inclined to fulfill my parents' ambitions for me.

My mother was a narc so she tried to control every aspect of my life.
Thankfully I always lived 100’s of miles away from her.
I gave her as little information as possible about my life.

She once came to stay with us, I had 3 children the youngest was a baby, I also ran my own business and had a husband working away a lot.
She had made me two hanging baskets for the house, I was amazed, it was probably the most thoughtful thing she had ever given me.
We hung them up and she went home except……she called me every evening to remind me to water them and then wanted me to take photographs of them, have them developed and post them to her.

She truly thought this was reasonable.
When I didn’t comply she called me every dry name under the sun and then told her friends and relatives I had neglected the baskets and let them die.

If I had lived close to her my life would have been hell on earth.

My grandparents made no demands on my parents, they in their turn made no demand on me and I have made no demands on my children.

In fact there was a strong beleif that when a couple mrried they took a step away from the family and were entirely self sufficient for good or ill. I had loving parents all my life. But they always made it clear that they believed that a married couple had a life of their own that others should not impinge on. We respected their autonomy and they respected ours.

MOnica my parents had the same attitude as yours. Once we married, it was OUR life and they tried their best to accept how we lived, no matter whether they approved or not. What was always constant was their support if we asked for it and their continued love which I always knew was there for me day in, day out.

I try to have the same approach with my two DDs. So far, so good...

My mother really disliked my first husband due to my pre marriage pregnancy. Whatever will the neighbours say and my Chapel friends. No spirit of forgiveness there.
Eventually she tolerated him but that was as far as it went.

My mother didn’t like the fact that my husband was Australian, because she feared we would go to Australia permanently and she would lose her close relationship with me. She and my father liked the fact that he was a university man, and came from an educated family

We only went to Australia for visits, and quite unintentionally (for job-related reasons) ended up living only about fifteen miles from where I was brought up and where my parents still lived. They got on reasonably well with my husband, though my father tended to think that nobody was good enough for me!

I loved my father-in-law, a gentle scholarly man. My MIL was tolerable in small doses, but I wouldn’t have liked to be near her. She was always civil towards me, but I think she secretly resented me for keeping her son on the wrong side of the world. If we had seen more of her I think the resentment would have burst out eventually. She made it quite clear that she didn’t think much of England.

They never influenced my married life, but as my mother had influenced my unmarried life, I had to struggle hard to resist those influences. Glad to say with DHs help I did. Been married over 60= years now.

My parents weren’t influenced by their own parents and my dad (mam died young) brought us all up to be independent and to own our choices with consequences, good and bad.

I’ve had a similar attitude to DD and she takes independence to a whole new level but she was that way as a child so I’m well used to it by now!

The other side to that coin is that I’m probably not as close to my Dad as my friends were to their own parents and my daughter is not as needy/close as their children are to them either.

Swings + Roundabouts?

No, our parents didn't influence our lives.

We give no opinions or advice either. Why would we?

Our AC are adults, prefectly capable of adult relationships.

I didn’t do as they wanted but I didn’t ask for anything either .
I moved out and went to university. Never went back .

My mother told me I’d never find anyone as nice as the boyfriend I’d had (and more or less ditched) before dh! But it wasn’t long before dh became Golden Boy too…

My parents never interfered, or told me what to do, even if they weren’t happy about whatever it was. As I know was the case when I moved abroad to live with dh well before we were married.
By the time we did get married I think they probably heaved a massive sigh of relief. But then I was off to Foreign Parts with him again, but I had to be married to join him that time - the government wouldn’t have given me a No Objection certificate (as it was called) otherwise.

Thank you for your responses. It is lovely that most of us did not have Parents that interfered in our married lives. We read so much on here from Parents/Grandparents who would like to spend more time with their Children/Grandchildren. Not of course interference just a longing for more contact. Likewise there are Children who have unrealistic expectations of Child care from their Parents who are in their seventies. Just sad that they cant seem to work things out and reach a compromise that suits them all.

One of my friends had parents who affected ther married life. When they bought their family home they bought a house some distance from her DH's work in order to live somewhere not easy to reach on public transport, so that her mother could not visit without an nvitation.

I met her mother and fully understood their decision.

Not at all.

Absolutely not... and they didn't need too. My parents loved my DH and it was returned.

I do wish I had listened to my Dad………..nuff said 😔

My parents believed that once we married that was that, they had no right to interfere, and they didn’t. They had known my DH since he was a lad and his parents, they all got along really well. When we first married we lived with my in laws who at that point were living in London, they were really lovely and tried to give us space though their home wasn’t big. Those were happy days.

Lived reasonably near for 5 years. FiL dud not approve of me or family, he was such a snob. My father was very suspicious of my husband but did accept we would marry and was fine with that. Moved to another country so no influence from parents when raising children. Both sets of parents did visit and never made comments at least to me, or my husband on how to raise children. On moving back to UK lived within an hour to my parents and 1.50 hours to inlaws. Both sets in their 70s and needed a bit support from us until they died late 70s. Think that's why I find it hard to accept all the GPs who are expected to help out these days.

My parents did influence me in that I knew I would never be like them. I left home at 18.
My ex husband met them once on the day of our wedding, the same with the man I have lived with for 47 years.

Mine did, we wanted to live together, shock horror! A marriage that didn’t last!

I moved to DHs town about 20 miles from mum and dad.
Best thing for me.

I did see how mum treated my brother's wife which was not the best.
Sounds awful but I gave permission to SIL to be firm.
Brother is a head in the sand type.
She always says that when she knew that I had her back it gave her the confidence
to make boundaries.

I was closer to MIL and our children had a good relationship with her.
They treated mum and dad as temporary visitors.
Mum and dad bought a cot/bed for the children to stay over. They wouldn't.

My parents didn’t influence my marriage. Apart from not much liking me, but adoring my DH, they lived on the other side of the world.
My in-laws were in the uk, but didn’t have a car, so we saw very little of them as they were a good hour away.
Our marriage was ours only, no influence. We did get married in our 30s, so we’re “fully formed”.

Left home at 18, went to London, one of the best days of my life! Step mother was a controlling and narcissistic woman! Didn’t give her the opportunity to interfere when I married! Sadly I loved my Dad so much but he was ruled by her!
This has been cathartic Thankyou!