Entering into marriage means getting the whole family

Like it or not when we marry, we do in fact marry our spouses' mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles -- their entire families.

And I'm not just talking about their presence at our weddings or the occasional family gathering. I mean the marriage we live with every day, and in two ways.

First, and perhaps most obvious, we usually have to find some way to relate to our spouses' families. Unless our spouses have no living relatives, we have entered our marriages with ties already firmly rooted in their families.

Now this can be a positive connection when our spouses' families are characterized by affection, support and respect. Or it may be negative -- either a connection where their families are smothering and controlling, or perhaps one where they are detached and rejecting.

Positive or negative, and even when our spouses don't particularly like their own families, we must acknowledge their connections to their families. It's simply part of the marriage package.

Almost inevitably, we too will experience the affection, smothering or rejection of our in-laws. If this is a negative experience, it can become a serious problem in our marriages.

Then we have yet one more difficult issue to work through in our own relationships if we blame our spouses for their families' problems, or if they blame us for any problems we have relating to their families.

On the other hand, as odd as it sounds, if we accept and empathize with each others' experiences of our families, then we have yet another bond connecting us as husband and wife.

If we both agree that his mother or our father, for example, aren't the easiest people to get along with, or that family gatherings can get a bit tense with step-parents, estranged uncles and all the other things that make families interesting -- then our marriage can actually become stronger in the process.

There is yet another, less apparent, way that we marry our spouses' families. It has to do with how we understand the very meaning of the word family.

You see, each of us brings into our marriage an understanding of what it means to be husband, wife, father or mother. We learned these definitions in our families growing up. For example, our definition of wife comes from experiencing our own mothers, grandmothers and aunts as they relate to our fathers, grandfathers and uncles.

Now, when we marry, we are confronted with our spouses' understandings of such roles based on their own experiences in their families. Our shared and differing understandings must be reconciled if our relationships are to succeed.

Such negotiating can bring us closer together if done well, or drive us apart if done poorly or not done at all. But, however we do or don't do it, we soon realize that in marriage we are actually attempting to bring two families, not just two people, together.

All this is particularly important to remember this time of the year with all the family gatherings that are often part of holiday celebrations. If we can support each other as we all negotiate the complexities of extended families, then our marriages will be stronger for the experience.

If we take out our holiday family stress on each other, then we will have a whole lot of making up to do when we start off the new year.

So "I didn't marry your mother!" becomes "No, you married my whole family!" Good luck!