5 Unhealthy Types of in-Laws | The Naked Marriage Podcast | Dave & Ashley Willis

Hello and welcome back to the Naked Marriage Podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast we undress the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love. And if you're watching this on YouTube, we are coming to you from the Exomarriage center in South Lake, Texas, the marriage capital of the world. And if you want to witness us live and some of the other content creators live and podcasters live, you can come and have a coffee at Exo Press, which I'm staring at right now. Amazing coffee. I had it this morning.

Best in town.

It's the best in town and so we'd love for you to do that. Go to exomarriage.com for more information. I want to share a quick review today because we just so appreciate your reviews. It keeps us going. It also lets us know what's going well and what we could improve on. And so we got a review, a five star review from Nettie 102216. It says this so challenged and encouraged by the Summer the Summer of Scripture series. The reminders of the wisdom found in God's precious Word is great. Your podcast is so helpful in our marriage and giving us great biblical advice and help. Please keep up the great content. And what Nettie's referring to there is in case you didn't listen, this summ is our Summer of Scripture series where for 66 days straight we took one verse from every book of the Bible and talked about it for about under 10 minutes. Just about how we can relay that to our life and our marriage. And we've been getting so much great feedback. We really believe it might be our best series yet because it's drawing people to the Word.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's there's nothing more important than that. Right. And so we recorded them in a way where really that the content's timeless, just like the Bible's timeless. So go back and listen right now. You can listen to it 10 years from now. And I think it could be a great way for you personally and you and your spouse together to grow in your understanding of God's Word and His plan for your marriage. And again, like Ashley said, these episodes are quick, they're straight to the point, but it will give your heart an infusion of God's Word. And if you listen to all of them, you're going to have a really comprehensive look at God's plan throughout the whole Bible for your life and your marriage.

It's like an audio devotional. I mean, it could be your quiet time. Like listen to it then have your quiet time, pray together, do it separately, come together and talk about it. So, yeah, I'm excited about today's episode, though.

I am super excited, guys. Our new book, Married into the Family, the Not so Secret Guide to In Law Relationships is out. You can get it now. Audiobook, ebook, regular book. You can find it at exomarriage.com and Amazon or wherever you get your books. And we are so excited about this resource because we all need help in navigating how to have a healthy marriage within the context of having healthy family relationships and in law relationships. One of the most popular aspects of the book is a chapter where we list out the 10 unhealthy types of in laws. And through our research, we found 10 specific kind of personality types that can be unhealthy and what to do with each one. And so on this episode, we're gonna give you five of those 10 and I think it's gonna lead to some great conversations in your marriage. So let's dive in. I'm excited about today's episode and thank you guys. For those of you who have already read or listened to the audiobook of Married into the Family, we love that it's already made an impact for you. And one of the things that stood out to people in this book, that we've gotten some great feedback. In one section of the book we have a chapter called the 10 Types of Unhealthy in Laws. And folks have found that so helpful to just kind of be able to identify some specific unhealthy behaviors and have a game plan for how to navigate that and also to take a self inventory and say, am I doing any of these now? We're going to give you five of those ten on this episode. If you want the full list, you're going to have to get the book. And I hope that the book's really meaningful to you. We're just trying to scratch the surface of some of these themes in these podcast episodes, but we're going to give you five and hopefully it'll start some healthy conversations in your marriage.

That's right. And these five that we're gonna share are in no particular order. And I just wanna say too, that sometimes your in law can, or maybe it's you who has these things. You can have more than one. Like a person can demonstrate more than one of these attributes, but these are toxic traits. Okay. There's plenty of wonderful traits.

Absolutely.

That an in law can possess and we'll talk about that. And we do talk about that in the book. But we wanna talk about the toxic traits because I think sometimes, you know, when we know something's off, it's nice to have language for it. Like it's empowering to have language we can put to it and say, oh, you know, that's what my mother in law is doing that is bothering me. That's why it's bothering me, because she's being whatever, you know, that I'm learning on the Naked Marriage podcast.

Here's the core of that behavior.

Here's the core and here's how I can address it.

Exactly.

Yeah. So what do you want to start with? Which one do you want to start with, sweetie?

Let's start with the scorekeepers. Oh, so score keepers are those in laws. And we can be, any of us can be guilty of this as well. Where we're always keeping this mental tally, the scorecard in our head where they're doing something wrong, we make a note of it and it's this game that we're always winning, usually they're always losing. And if you have an in law that's doing this to you or a relative even that's doing this to you or to your spouse, it's this twisted game where there are no winners because they're always keeping score and they're always giving you these demerits for things that you don't even know you're doing wrong. Or these fake tests they're setting you up to fail, they're giving you these silent unspoken tests, like, well, are they going to do this? And even though they haven't asked you to do it, and it's just a really twisted way of thinking.

It is twisted. And you guys, they are involving you in a game that they made up that only they know the rules to and that only they can win. So literally you don't even know this is happening. You just know that you're losing.

Yeah.

And you get like the eye rolls or the resentment or whatever it is. A lot of people who are scorekeepers are very passive aggressive.

Yeah.

Like this is where passive aggressiveness like just rules the roost. And it's so toxic. And you're kind of tiptoeing around the issue all the time and you know, generally they don't necessarily address it. I mean, you can have people that aren't necessarily passive aggressive but are just full on aggressive. But it's just, it's really toxic and it's really hurtful and it's very. It's one of those things where you feel like, am I going crazy? Like, and we're going to talk more about. I mean, there's many of these where you feel like, am I going? Is it just me, or is this like a weird game of chess that I don't know is happening? You know, and so. And we've been part of that. I think a lot of times, you know, this can happen with holidays. I know we talk about holidays. I feel like there's always in law dynamics going on. But holidays are just where we really see kind of the state of things, different things.

If you're in this state, you know, because you're already here, it's September, but you're already dreading. You're dreading Thanksgiving, you're dreading Christmas, because you know you're gonna be put in these situations where you can't win and where you feel like you're set up to lose and you're gonna make all this effort and it won't be enough. And instead of being able to celebrate these holidays, you just. You dread them. And that's so sad. But it doesn't have to be that way. It does. And in the book, you know, we give a lot of tools. We've been there, though. We can relate to that.

Exactly.

I mean, for years, we kind of dreaded holidays because just felt like we would make all this effort in it, and we felt like we were still disappointing everybody.

Well, let's just talk about it, like. And we've talked openly about it with our parents before. I mean, we've been married 22 years. So, like, there's been a lot. There's a lot of stories. But just to give an example of what this can look like with scorekeeping, I know that, you know, we have lived away from our families, who are all in Kentucky. We live in Georgia, and we've also lived in Texas, and we've also lived in Florida. So we've lived far away from our families for most of our marriage. And as you guys know, we have four kids, four boys. And so all the families really do make effort to see each other, whether it's us going there or them coming to see us. But I remember kind of when we first had our first two boys, there was kind of this unspoken assumption where we were just gonna always come to Kentucky on Thanksgiving and on Christmas. And as you guys know, Dave is a pastor. And when you're a pastor, I mean, you've got all these Christmas services going on. It's very beautiful, but it's very exhausting, very taxing. And at the time, too, our church Always did this amazing production. And I love acting and singing and dancing. And so I was in the production. And so here Dave is doing all these services. I'm in the production. You know, we had our. You know, our kids involved in different things, too. And so leading up to Christmas, it was awesome and exciting, but also exhausting. And then we were expected kind of really, really, from both families at the time, to drive all the way to Kentucky to do all the things, to be like a. You know, what do you call it, A pinball, going back and forth to all the family members. And I remember. And then at that point, when we had two young. Like, I won't say which side, but one side really wanted us to have Christmas morning with them and not in our own home. And after about a couple. Maybe a couple to three or four years, it just. We got to a point where we were like, this is. We're not even enjoying Christmas.

Like, we're not enjoying Christmas. Instead of enjoyable. And we had to say, listen, like, here's what we can do. We can. We're gonna come the whole week of.

Thanksgiving because we get that off with our school system.

Christmas, we're gonna. Our kids are gonna wake up and do Christmas at their own house, right? If you guys wanna come down here on Christmas, you're welcome to. And we just had to establish that. And you again, when you get married, you're not just joining into a family. You are. You're joining into your spouse's family. But more than that, by God's design, like we talked about last week, and as we talk about in the book, you and your spouse are creating a new family, right? And that new family, even when it's just the two of you, even before you have kids, that new family of just you and your spouse is a covenant that is meant by God to be your first loyalty above anybody else. And so you shouldn't have to apologize by putting each other first. That's God's design. And if your parents don't understand that, then you might have to just lovingly put some boundaries in place. To.

Which we did.

Which. Yeah. Which we did. And even if they don't understand it, you might just have to be the one to say, well, this is what we can do. And we're just. We're gonna have to work with this together.

And we did that. And, you know, at first, I know we're talking about the scorekeeping kind of toxic trait. There was a little scorekeeping going on, and even, I think it caused us to almost start Scorekeeping to prove a point. Which isn't good either because then we're like, no, no, no. We went here twice and then we went here twice and you guys. And the truth of the matter too with the scorekeeping is that if that's what you're doing, you're already losing. You're already losing because the whole point is about being with your family and loving them well and enjoying these holidays and these moments together and not tallying in your mind how much time you've spent just to check a box. And we found ourselves there. And so I think when you can establish again those boundaries which are so establishing healthy relationships, especially with your family and in laws, you know, it becomes. You really keep the main things. The main things. And now that we've done it that way and sometimes it's changed in different seasons, we enjoy holidays so much more.

Yeah, we actually love holidays and we love our families. We always loved our family, even when things were kind of tense. But I really look forward now to Thanksgivings, I look forward to Christmas. It's. Yeah. So if you're not enjoying holidays, you and your spouse need to do the work of saying, well, what would it look like for us to really enjoy it? And then building from there. So we spend a lot of time on score keepers. Again, there are 10 of these in the book. We're just doing five today. A second type of unhealthy behavior that in laws. And again, any of these we can exhibit ourselves. We have to be careful of this. It's similar to scorekeeping, but different. And it's what I call the elitists.

Oh yeah.

And the elitists are those who are believe that they themselves or their own family culture is by far superior to everyone else's family culture. So when you marry into the family of an elitist in every way that your family is different from theirs, you're going to feel judged and looked down on and not good enough. Like, oh, well, everybody in our family, we're educated at this place or have this level of education. If you don't, then you're never going to measure up. Or everybody in our family is really good at working with their hands. You know, it might be like blue collar elitism. Like we're really good at this. And if you're not, if you don't have that same skill set, then what you do isn't as valuable or everybody you know, or you have to have this amount of money or you have to. It's just this again, it's score keeping to the next level, because you feel like your way of doing things is the right way. And people marrying into your family can never measure up to that just because they come from a different family. And it's terrible because that's just pride. And the Bible has so much to say against pride, but it also. It creates a culture where no one can really ever feel loved and accepted into your family, which is heartbreaking.

It is heartbreaking. And kind of where we see this elitism kind of at play is kind of a little bit of what we talked about last week, where maybe it's, you know, your family sets them up to kind of fail. Like, they might, if they're not, you know, maybe they're not highlighting educated. They'll, like, have these dinners with other family members where they'll have this really intense, intelligent conversation and ask you questions where they know that you just don't have a background in that, and they'll try to make you look stupid. I mean, like, we've heard stories of this, and it's just so heartbreaking. I mean, how cruel is that? Right? Because I'm sure that that person's great at other things, but maybe they don't know about engineering or whatever they're talking about, or maybe they don't know about astronomy and they haven't looked at the constellations lately or whatever. Like, you know, but we see this where these families are like, oh, see, I don't know how you ended up with that person. They don't even know about this.

Yeah, they don't know this or that. And it's just some, like, random, trivial knowledge that they're.

This is what you love. They love other things. Like, we don't need to make them look like a fool, you know? And so I just think, be very mindful of that. And if you see your family doing that, it is up to you to say, stop doing that. Because you have to stand up for your spouse. I mean, and it's not to say that your spouse can't learn more about the constellations if that's what your family's into. But I'm saying they also have something they could teach your family. And it takes you going to your family and saying, listen, you may or may not realize you're doing this, but you really are trying. It feels to me like you're setting up my spouse to look like he's lesser than us. And that really, deeply hurts me because this is the person who I love and who I've pledged to live my life with. And I really need you to stop doing things that undermine him and undermine our relationship. It's really important to say those things to them.

Yeah. And fight the temptation of doing like kind of that reverse elitism where you're like, well, you know, well, my family's better because they don't do this. And like, you need to be more like them. We can all learn from each other. And so celebrate. Celebrate the unique God given giftedness and personality and attributes of every person in your own family and those marrying into your family. And celebrate the unique culture and strengths of the families that are connecting with yours through marriage. We can all learn from each other. So that was number two. Number three. And again, these are in no particular order. Gosh, there are so many. It's hard to just narrow them down. I hope you get the book and go through all 10 of these.

I know when I want to talk about.

Bring up one.

Okay. This is one that I believe comes out mostly, not always, but mostly when grandkids come. And that is what we refer to as the smotherers. Okay. And this is, this is those in laws. It could be your parents or in laws. And not again, it's not just parental. This could be even your brother, sister, brother, sister in law. But when these grandkids come along, they just want to be at your house, be with those kids, be with you, like way too much. Right.

Which is sweet.

Which is very sweet. But it becomes too much to where you feel like it's infringing on your time as a married couple, on your autonomy as a couple. And again, on the surface, it seems really kind. And maybe in certain seasons you do need more of that time. Right. But then it becomes maybe even more about just, you know, control, more time. Sometimes we find this dynamic when maybe kids came along, you know, at the same time that your parents became empty nesters. And all of a sudden, you know, your mother or mother in law doesn't know what to do with themselves.

Right. And they want to feel needed.

They want to feel needed.

So they're dealing with this issue that, like the crisis of identity they're having and they're trying to fill it, you know, through grandchildren in a way that's maybe unhealthy because.

Right. And crossing boundaries, you know, and maybe even assuming more of a role as a mother or father instead of a grandmother or grandfather. And so again, it takes us really as a couple talking about this and then lovingly saying, like, listen, we love how much you love us and how much time you want to spend with us. But can we, maybe we can create a schedule, you know, can it be on this day or whatever it's going to look like and say. Because we're really trying to establish ourselves as our own little family and learning how to be parents and learning how to do whatever it is. And so we need our time together. And again, they may not understand it. They may be really hurt at first because anytime there's change or anytime like somebody calls out a blind spot in us, our pride really wants to flare up. And so there's going to be that knee jerk reaction of what do you mean? Like I'm just trying to help or I'm just, you know, I can't believe you would even think, you know, that this isn't good. But I think that when really, you know, if we can have a moment, whether it's us or our in laws, like just to step back and say, okay, you know, they love me. And they're, they're calling this out because they want to have a healthy relationship. It can really, it can lead to more healthy conversation and also just a better schedule so that you guys can have time together. Because I think that it's really important that you, you establish those boundaries with your time.

Yeah. So important. And the opposite of the smotherers is another one on the list. And that's what we call the ghosts.

It's heartbreaking.

And you know, if the smother is there all the time, a ghost is never there, right? And when you want them to be, you want a relationship. And this is heartbreaking. I mean, this is one of the saddest ones on the list. When you desperately want them in your life, you want their influence, you want their mentorship, their friendship, you want their, just their presence with your family, with your children. And for whatever reason, they are just absent. I think this can happen in a lot of different scenarios. I think I've seen this happen where may your parent or your spouse's parent, maybe there's a divorce or a death and that parent remarries and kind of gets pulled into that new spouse's world and family in a way where you feel abandoned, you feel like they've just moved on and they don't have time for you or space for you or your children. And it's heartbreaking. And so if that happens to you, if you're a parent and you've remarried, just, just make sure you don't turn into a ghost. Because your family, your kids, your grandkids, they need you, they want you. And so be Present as much as you can.

Definitely. Another dynamic that is similar to this ghost dynamic is when you have a blended family, okay, you have two people who've maybe been divorced before and have children. They make a new family. They're a blended family. And then there's the grandparents that come along, right, from multiple families. And you see where the grandparent treats one set of kids that maybe is their biological grandkids with all the love, all the nurturing, all the gifts, but they treat that step grandchild like they don't even exist. They're a ghost in their life, even though they're physically there for the other kids. That is heartbreaking. I mean, how many times have we talked to people where it's just so heartbreaking and so, like, if your kids, you know, get remarried, okay, make sure you're not a ghost to these new grandkids. God's brought these new kids into your life too. And yes, they have other grandparents, but it's so hurtful to see this different treatment going on. And if you want more about this, our friends at Blended Kingdom Family and their podcast, their resources, they go into great detail on this. But in talking with them, even that can be such a hurtful dynamic because you're literally a ghost. They see you're a ghost. I mean, that poor child, they just.

Look through you, and a child feels that.

They know that they see you looking through them. They feel like it goes to you, and that's. And it's heartbreaking.

No child should ever have to go through that. So just make sure you're not doing that, please. And again, like Ashley said, our friends Scott and Vanessa Martindale, Blended Kingdom Families, amazing leaders in this area. Living is a blended family and they have so many great resources, so definitely check them out. Only have time for one more. Again, there's 10 in the book. We're just doing five in this episode. So get the book married into the family for just so many important resources. I mean, I just am thrilled with how this book came together. It was a team effort. Ashley and I's names are on the COVID but the whole team here at XO Publishing really knocked it out of the park, helping put this together.

They really did.

So one final one, and I think this one may be the most difficult to navigate. And it's the chemically imbalanced. And this refers to an in law that either, like just as described, has a real chemical imbalance, maybe an undiagnosed mental illness where they're not being medicated for it, where they're Just not in. They're not really in their right mind. This could also, I would say it includes those who are dealing with an addiction, a chemical addiction of some kind that is not being treated, not being dealt with. And so you have this person that you're trying to love and honor and have a healthy relationship, and yet they themselves are not in a healthy place. And it can be so delicate to try to help navigate that, to help them see that, you know, we want to help you get healthy, right? Because they might. If you're not in a healthy place, you don't want to hear that sometimes. And this can be so tough, you know, I mean, we all have blind spots. We all have those areas where, you know, we don't want to hear like, I need to get on medication or I need to.

They need to go to rehab, right? Or I hear stories of where families will go to visit. You know, they'll be taking their kids to go visit a grandparent, and they check the trash cans before they go in because they know that grandparent has an addiction to alcohol, right? Or maybe they're looking for needles, you know what I'm saying? And that's so heartbreaking. But sometimes it takes those kind of steps because you don't want to expose your kids to what you're going to see on the other side of that if they've been using. And so it takes, you know, and a lot of times, too, when you address the user, they lash out at you. And even if they don't have an addiction, you address someone who's maybe having mental health issues, again, they may lash out because they're not even in their right mind. And so this takes you and your spouse really coming together. And maybe even. Especially if they are addicted or even maybe have an undiagnosed mental health issue, it takes you and your spouse coming together and maybe even the other siblings, if you have other siblings and doing a sort of intervention, you know, like. And maybe talking to a counselor to help guide you through this. But just out of love, saying, like, we want to have a relationship with you. We want our children to have a relationship with you. But right now, we don't feel like you're completely a safe person because you're dealing with these things. And it breaks our heart. And it's something that we know you can, you know, with God's help and with medication, with intervention, with rehab, whatever it is, with counseling, we feel like you can get better at this, and we are here to help you get better at this. But right now we have this boundary of not being able to be around you when you're lashing out, when you're full on rage, you know?

Cause this isn't you.

Because it isn't you.

And we want you to.

And we love you. We love you, but this isn't you. And I know that you don't want to be this way. Like, you don't want to react this way.

It's so true. Yeah, we've got great resources@xomarriage.com and also just past podcast episodes where we've addressed mental health issues, we've addressed addiction issues, and provide some specific resources in those. If you or someone in your family is struggling in those areas to help them get the help they need and the health that they need. Well, guys, that's our time for this episode again. Share these episodes There are so many people struggling in silence with these issues in their families and they feel alone and help them see that they're not alone, that God's with them in this, and that there are people who care and there are resources that can help help. And again, the new book, Married into the Family, I think could be a great resource as well to share and we hope that you enjoy it. We'll look forward to seeing you next time.