Grow Your Marriage Blog Tour Guest Post!

This guest post was brought to you by Jerry Cook!! 

We have been fed, clothed, and nurtured by our parents for 18 years, and for some of us, it’s much longer than that. It’s natural to feel a connection or a sense of dependency on our parents, even into our adulthood. While it’s a great idea to stay emotionally close to your parents, you do not want to get “so” close that it disrupts your marriage.

We may even feel close enough to ask our parents for advice.  It’s not wrong to ask a parent for advice---it’s actually a good thing, so long as your spouse is okay with it. If your parents or in-laws are offering advice where they should not, the biological child should be the first to say something to those parents. If the biological child will not, the son/daughter-in-law may need to or else the cycle will continue and likely intensify, and that spouse needs the support from their spouse when doing so. Chances are good your parents and in-laws will respect you, at least in the long run, but your language must clearly show you are standing up to them because you are standing up for your marriage. Here are some words you may want to use.

Mom and Dad, I love you very much. You have offered me great advice through the years, and one of those things is to love my spouse more than anyone else. I have found that person, and I need you to know that we will ask for your advice, but we feel you are trying to tell us what to do and it’s really causing a lot of stress on our marriage.

What do you think? Have you had any experience with this? What did you do/say?  Here are some responses from that question on Facebook.  (PS. “Like” my Facebook page and you may have some of your comments included in my upcoming posts!)

-I think having a couple learn to struggle and grow together is part of the bonding needed for a stable marriage.

- Unless you're broke, starving, and living on the streets, married kids should figure out how to make it on their own.

-It's absolutely important.  Couples need to learn to build their own foundation by becoming independent of their parents and deciding what's most important to their relationship.

For more help on creating boundaries in a way that strengthens your marriage, purchase your copy of "Grow Your Marriage by Leaps and Boundaries" today!