We Are Gathered Here Today

My husband and I have been married for 2 years and come from very different family backgrounds. My family is very warm and accepting, they live to please others. My in-laws are more restrictive in their relationships and are less affectionate and caring in general. Coming from a home where you pretended to like everyone, even if they were your worst enemy, it has been difficult to blend with a family that is very honest and open with their true feelings. My sister in law and I knew each other before I met my husband and had some experiences that left us far from being friends. Because of the opinions my sister in-law had of me, I have had difficult relationships with each of my in-laws before I’d even met them; from the very beginning, I didn’t stand a chance! The contention that lived between my sister in-law and I for so many years has created walls between our families that are intimidating and seem unlikely to fall. I have been hurt by the obvious distance my in-laws place bet...

In Richard Miller’s article, "Who is the boss? Power Relationships in Families", I saw a lot of my own family reflected in the points made. Miller states that in healthy families, parents and children know their roles and respect that parents are the leaders of the family. As the children become adults, the parents step out of the power role in their children’s lives to allow healthy relationships to continue. In my own childhood, I have experienced the chaos that an unclear hierarchy between parents and children can create. My older sister was definitely the ruler of our household; she made the rules and she chose the consequences. It was difficult for us as her younger siblings to watch my parents struggle to parent her and eventually give up on trying to parent any of us. When I was fourteen, entering high school as a freshman, my older sister was seventeen and a junior. For the majority of our lives we had gotten along, but that soon ended when she became my chauffer t...