Brother-In-LawCopyright by Steven M. Cohn, PhD If you are having trouble dealing with your brother-in-law, here’s something to think about. Most of us recognize that our siblings represent the longest relationships we will likely have in our lives. What can you do if your spouse spends more time with a sibling than with you? What if the brother-in-law gets drawn in to settle arguments or to give advice? These can be very sticky situations. It bears discussing before the wedding, but if you are already married and are now beginning to have problems with your relatives, you may want to consider seeing a Relationship Specialist. According to a recent study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, we form two types of familial bonds. The bonds we form with our blood relations are “binding,” drawing on group dynamics rather than on individual needs. The bonds we form through friendship or marriage, such as those you might have with your brother-in-law, are “bridging,” which means these are sparse connections, drawn primarily on each individual’s needs.(1) From this study, we can see that it is just possible that your spouse will be more tightly bound to his or her sibling than to you. This can cause innumerable problems in a marriage. If you had a traditional American wedding, you were likely told to leave your birth family and cleave only unto your spouse. However, in some other cultures, the birth family ties are preserved throughout the marriage. Among South Asians, for example, it is very common for an abused spouse to report abuse not only from her partner, but also from her husband's sibling and other members of his family. In fact, it is often easier for the woman to report abuse from the in-laws than it is to report abuse from her spouse. The spousal abuse is only discovered during investigation of the spouse's sibling, in many cases.(2) What’s interesting is that not only may your brother-in-law affect your marriage, but your marriage may also affect your brother-in-law, or at least his relationship with your spouse. For example, if your wife has never been terribly close to her brother, but you and he are the best of friends, she may begin to feel differently about him. Conversely, if you think your brother-in-law is a pig, your spouse may begin to see some of his more repulsive qualities.(3) About.com can offer you some advice if your marriage relationship is suffering from the effects of your
brother-in-law
or vice versa. The article gives you the top 10 tips for dealing with all of your spouse's relatives. If these tips don’t work, be sure to consult a Relationship Specialist to help you work through these issues and preserve your relationship.
Endnotes (1)Widmer, Eric D. Who are my family members? Bridging and binding social capital in family configurations. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23:6 (979-998) 2006. (2)Raj, Anita, Livramento, Kai N, Santana, M. Christina, Gupta, Jhumka, and Silverman, Jay G. Victims of Intimate Partner Violence More Likely to Report Abuse From In-Laws Violence Against Women, 12(10): (936-949) 2006. (3)Bengtson, Vern L. Sourcebook of Family Theory & Research. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage, 2005.
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The problem is that our siblings can have a very real effect on our marriages, sometimes for good, but often not. Your partner's siblings can seriously impact the way your spouse and you communicate, relate to each other, and even how you raise your children.
