This blog post is the final part of a three part series entitled: What No One Told Me About Marriage.

As I reflect on conversations with a sweet friend who is also married, I realize so many of our conversations begin or end with “But no one told me_____!”. This series is a small–but mighty–look into a few topics that perhaps no one has also told you about as it relates to marriage.

Here is the  first post and the second post.

Navigating Relationships With Your In-Laws:

It doesn’t matter how awesome your in laws are, you will struggle. My husband’s parents divorced and remarried and when I tell you I love all four of them, I am not lying. These two sets of parents could not be more different from one another but I feel their love, now that I know how to. Shamar’s dad has never told me he loves me, but whenever we’re at his house, he asks me if I am hungry (and that man can THROW DOWN in the kitchen).

His step-dad has never told me he’s happy to have me as a daughter, but when I lived in DC he would fix anything wrong on my car and look at me like I was crazy if I tried to give him anything more than a hug and a thank you. Shamar’s stepmom is the easiest person in the world to talk to and his mom sends us a “Happy Friday!” text every Friday to check in on us. She is also sends great just because gifts that involve socks and wine…is there anything better?

But I had to figure those things out. You can’t expect your relationships with your in-laws to just materialize after you say “I do”. While I wish it worked like that, it doesn’t.

You have spent years  getting to know your partner and only a fraction of that time with their family and likely in far shorter spurts in well crafted gatherings (like holidays, birthdays, or Sunday dinners).

I had such a desire for Shamar and my dad to become best friends because my dad is my best friend. I would push them on one another because I wanted it to happen so badly. When they both finally told me (in their own way) to leave them alone, I got the picture. Now, they are forming their own bond in their own way and I love what they have (most times…until my dad takes his side about something when he’s really supposed to take mine).

And you will have to learn how to put your stake in the ground with love. It is a strange shift to navigate. No one knows your spouse better as a child than his parents, but no one knows your spouse better as a man than you. You have to learn what that means and how best to navigate that truth to people who raised him. That’s not easy and it will require the help of your spouse (and you for your parents) but it is doable.

Bottom line: It will take as much time as it did to learn your spouse as it will to learn your in-laws. Probably more because you just won’t see them as frequently.

And disagreements with your in-laws will feel different than they do with your own parents. You and your parents have been fighting for YEARS.

Y’all got it down to a science.

Me and Cheryl can go toe to toe and I never wonder if she loves me at the end of it.

But that’s not true for dealing with conflict with my mom(s)-in-love. I’ve spent our entire relationship being kind and making jokes. Before getting married, there wasn’t even anything big enough in our relationship to argue about.

And I didn’t know my in-laws love languages. I didn’t realize that everytime my mom-in-love sent a group text that I didn’t answer (because hey Shamar answered it and I was going to say the same thing anyway!) that she felt like I wasn’t reaching out.

But now I do and when I learned how to communicate love in her way (and she learned how to send it back in my language) our relationship got even better.

Shamar is the ultimate in-law navigator. While my immediate family is small…my extended family is huge and somehow he’s managed to find his way into the heart of every aunt, grandparent, cousin, and uncle.

But it takes time.

So don’t be alarmed by the shift you might feel as you go from girlfriend, to fiancée, to wife. Different roles may require different levels of commitment. Not just between you and bae, but you and bae’s family.

This may also be the first time your husband has to put his grown man foot down (in love) to let his family know that his wife comes first. Don’t clap just yet, you might have to do it with your family too, girl.

Remember that regardless of how frustrating it can get, these are the people who raised the man you love.

That doesn’t mean let people walk all over you.

But it does mean to give these new relationships the grace, love, and compassion to flourish into something beautiful.

There’s magic in our musings (and our in-laws),
Nicole