Do you know any adult S/D doing things like this?

Parent Cafe
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I honestly don’t think I could take in my MIL. My FIL, yes, but not my MIL. We are too opposite and we’re both extremely headstrong. We’ve already butted heads many a time and both my partner and FIL take my “side.”

I have zero relationship with my dad’s bio mother because she, essentially, made my dad choose between my mom and her (she was living with them at the time… I don’t know the story but I do know that my dad called her while he was in the hospital with meningitis and told her to be out of the house by the time he was out of the hospital).

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Double post

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Not from the religion’s point of view, what are pros and cons of getting married in a Catholic church?

When people says they get married in a church, what does it mean exactly? Is it the case that the wedding ceremony takes place there but there are still rehearsal, reception and brunch in the morning after the wedding day, Does it generally (I know it depends on the situation) cost more or less if you get married in a Catholic church? I actually think more Catholic churches in US put more emphasis (at least tend to talk more about it) on “taking care of” the poorer or weaker segment of the population than orher types of church in our country, generally speaking. But I could be wrong.

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There you go:

http://www.foryourmarriage.org/why-get-married-in-a-church/

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I was fortunate that my MIL usually took my side.

Mcat, I think your wedding concerns are valid enough to discuss. They may be speculation, at this point, but when one side has high wants and expectations, they can exert considerable pressures. You don’t know yet what the possible IL’s will expect, it’s too soon. But I was worried when D2 was serious with a bf from a very wealthy family,with tons of local contacts (theirs and the grandparents’) they would want to entertain lavishly, a lifestyle designed to impress the Joneses, so to say- and the mom was a vocal complainer about all sorts of things that weren’t my business. (They were very young, too young to be talking marriage, but they were.)

I dealt with this with my girls, having those casual talks about what matters in relationships, how people make choices and compromises, how to figure what really matters, etc, and yes, weddings and what sorts of contributions we could make. These started early- and were friendly. Some may find that- what?- intrusive-? But it was family talk, mostly mom-girl, and carefully neither defensive nor pushy.

About living with our parents: I think we have to distinguish between the ideal, in our hearts and minds, versus the reality in some relationships. Not everyone can do it. If not, do what you can, but try not to feel you’re falling short of some goal. What we tried to do for our girls was show them, by example, how we cared for my mother and MIL. They saw it and got it. My mother made it as challenging as possible, still does. No way I could have her live with me and remain sane, as an individual and as a parent.

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Thanks for your inputs, on both points.

I have never had any such a talk with my child. My wife, who, compared to me, has much closer relationship with my son, chose to have such a talk BEFORE any such a girl “came to the scene” but never again have a talk of the similar nature AFTER they were together. After all, he is lucky because the girl herself is indeed a very good girl. In my son’s word, he thinks 1) his mom is always level headed 2) this girl is very organized and level headed. I know my wife’s stance: Once our S has chosen one way or another, she believes being “intrusive” will almost never result well. One of my wife’s friends once told her: Never ask your S to choose the side. If you do, he will choose her. She firmly believes this. A CCer in this thread also said the same thing: the S will take her side and this is the way a good marriage is supposed to be - We believe this will be the case even before the (potential) marriage. So we are extremely careful to show any sign of being perceived as being intrusive or being slightly disagreeable with his choice, or to provide him any unsolicited “advice” - even though several of my posts here may indicate the other way but it actually not. In a sense, I mostly come here to “vent”.

I actually think the other side of the family may move forward as “cautiously” as we do on our end. Most level-headed parents will not be so dumb as to intervene on their offspring’s private life. Any choice has its pros and cons. But it is his life but ours. After we have raised him as “properly” as we can, we have done our job and we should fade away sooner or later. Like someone once said, raising a child is like seeing on his back while he us growing up and walking away from us. Once he is mature and is capable of handling things by himself, we should just look at his back and see him walk away to his chosen destiny. (remember teaching your toddler or young child how to ride a bicycle? You are on the back of the bicycle, not on the side, and definitely not on the front. Once he has learned it, he will ride it all by himself away and it is totally not needed and not appropriate to keep “helping” him. I try to make an analogy here.)

Do I have a lingering “concern” just because of my own growing up experience? (The journey in my own marriage, before and after wedding, was an extremely rocky one.) I do. So I came here to vent occasionally. Will I choose to be intrusive/invasive and, god forbidden, try to intervene, about his choice of life especially this aspect of life? Definitely no.

Thanks.

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mcat,
With all due respect, its beginning to seem that any responses to your original post are just feeding your angst and causing you to worry and rethink your own history, which doesn’t seem helpful to you at this point.

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jym,

Thanks. I agree that it will be wise to not keep thinking too much about this.

Also thanks to lookingforward for the wise words.

Before we moved, one of my close friends at that time had his inlaws move in. At one time, he complained , “in a mild way” that his inlaws asked (and got them) for two bedrooms and their family of four could only live in the other two bedrooms. Both sides of parents apparently believe it is their “right” to move in anytime they want.

Also, another family we knew of had the parents on both sides (4 totally) moved in with them simultaneously and the two sides of parents actually did NOT get along with each other very well. You could imagine how “well” it goes! Several times the wife of that family had the need to come to our home to get away from her own house to decompress with the help from my wife.

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Yes, Agree it will be wise to stop thinking about this. No need to think about the past situation of other people whose history has nothing to do with you.

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I think the marriage and family customs of other cultures and subcultures are fascinating. Why shouldn’t he think and chat about the history of people who have nothing to do with him in an attempt to understand their customs? Isn’t that what we are all doing in reading and posting on this board? I’m interested in Mcat’s family situation and history even though he has nothing to do with me. You seem to be too.

Mcat, it sounds like in real life you are not interfering in your son’s life. That is great. I enjoy reading your posts about other people’s customs.

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Its fine, but it seems to permeate many threads and cause him undue worry and stress. Usually better not to keep picking at a scab and causing it to keep bleeding. And it doesnt seem to be a culture he is unfamiliar with.

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I believe I did not interfere with this aspect of DS’s life. At least I try not to. After all, after I choose to move into this country, I am prepared to embrace this aspect of parent-child relationship.

Just a joke here: I heard some “conservative” parents in US may tell their daughter “not to kiss” when she has been dating with her long time BF for 2 years.

Her culture is actually somewhat different from the culture on our side of family. I also heard that, if anybody claims that these two cultures are about the same, it could get on their nerves.

Actually, at one time, my S told me that he once carelessly (partly also cluelessly) told one of his coworkers (a postdoc researcher) (during his gap year) that these two cultures are sort of the same. His colleague (who happens to be of the same ethnic group of his GF 3-4 years later) protested angrily and “lectured” him for the next half an hour. He learned his hard “lessons” that day. He is the kind of person who rarely offends anybody but he said he had never made somebody so angry. But he is indeed relatively ignorant about the eastern culture as a whole - except for the part we (not in a concerted effort though) unconsciously passed onto him by just being in the same close-knit family.

One reason why I started to try to pick up some of “nuisances” of her culture is that I believe her culture will still be ingrained with her to some extent, even if both my S and she think she is very westernized. If she interacts with, or is expected to be interact with, her parents and family in a certain way, we should respect it; we should not be so naive to believe we will be able to “change” it drastically. It is a part of her. It will unlikely work even if we try (i.e., try to change the way she interacts with her parents) IMHO.

For example, in some parts of the world even today, there is still something called “bride price” or “downer” or dowry. (Their meanings are different.) Actually, in the history, only in a very small number of societies (some but not all larger societies in the Europe and some but not all places in Asia – mostly in a more complicated/sophisticated societies) we could find the practice of dowry. In most other (and usually smaller, not as wealthy and not so “sophisticated” societies) the bride price was actually more popular. In the long past history, one form or the other form of “financial exchanges” due to the marriage was actually quite popular.

I speculate that, to some extent, the “burden” of weddings in US (both the cost and efforts) tend to be more on the bride side is likely because the main stream of American culture by and large originated from the Europe - one of the more “sophisticated” societies at least in the past 10 centuries. Some people even said it is somewhat like an indirect dowry but in a much smaller scale, when a big wedding is involved. (Why are there more bridzilla but fewer groomzilla in US?)

Even though these days some countries are more wealthy and all these practices are considered as outdated, there could be some “face” things. I heard of the cases that there are some show of “bride price” in some southern Asian countries (e.g., Thailand) but this is just for the show and the real money exchange really does not happen. Otherwise, it could be regarded as disgrace to the bride family. The modern societies may regard these as totally backwards ( believe me, I totally rebelled against these when I was young and firmly rejected all of that), but now I think now these are just some nuisances of our past we just could not decide one day to “get rid of” it altogether. It will die eventually. But before it dies, it could still potentially inflict us or at least harm many families if not proceeded with some care.

I remember when my grandparent married off my aunt, there was a large stack of money. He took the one piece of money (as a symbol) from that stack of paper money and give it back (or to the young couple? Not sure.) Everybody in the town were “pleased” - it is as if they were obliged to please everybody in that small town. My grandpas was happy about this and kept telling us how “good” of a father he is till his death. This was rare in his days but it could be the norm today.

I may start to learn anthropology after I retire. This topic could be fascinating.

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“One reason why I started to try to pick up some of “nuisances” of her culture is that** I believe her culture will still be ingrained with her to some extent, even if both my S and she think she is very westernized.** If she interacts with, or is expected to be interact with, her parents and family in a certain way, we should respect it; we should not be so naive to believe we will be able to “change” it drastically. It is a part of her. It will unlikely work even if we try (i.e., try to change the way she interacts with her parents) IMHO.”

But you don’t know. You have literally NO IDEA how she will respond if and when she and your son decide to get married. She may have pushy parents who push their culture on to them, or she may have parents who are very accommodating and flexible and open to other ideas / Western ways. And even if her parents push their culture on to her, she may crumble complete and accommodate them – or she might tell them forget about it, I’m rejecting these things, I’m doing it my way.

You haven’t met ANY of these people yet – you have NO IDEA how things will play out.

And your job is not to “change the way she interacts with her parents” - whether she worships at their feet or ignores them completely. Your only job is to keep being good parents to your son, and to be warm and welcoming to her. How she interacts with her family is NOT YOUR PROBLEM. If that family decides that you ought to spend money that you don’t have for a wedding - then you get to tell them, nicely but firmly - I’m sorry, we simply don’t have that money and we are not going to go in debt for this. What they choose to do with that information is their problem, not yours.

You seem very afraid of the possibility that the girlfriend’s parents might not like you. Why? What’s the worst that happens if they don’t like you? So what? To tell the truth, I don’t think my parents liked my in-laws all that much at least at the very beginning. So? They didn’t have to like them. They just had to be cordial and pleasant.

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[QUOTE=""]

getting married in the Catholic church

Not from the religion’s point of view, what are pros and cons of getting married in a Catholic church?

[/QUOTE]

Well, the Catholic Church does not recognize marriages where a Catholic person isn’t married in the presence of a Catholic priest/deacon…unless some permission is granted. While such marriages typically take place within a Catholic Church building, permission can be obtained to have the ceremony elsewhere, including within the worship space of another faith or outdoors (but the Church does seem to frown on outdoor weddings typically.)

The Catholic Church certainly recognizes marriages between non-Catholics - no matter what they choose to do. Catholics are supposed to have a church-recognized marriage. There are means to obtain that recognition later, if the Catholic decides to make his/her marriage “valid” in the eyes of the Church.

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Yes. My MIL has made it clear that our marriage isn’t legitimate because we’re not having a priest. What makes it worse, in her eyes, is that we’re both confirmed.

You also have to go through pre marriage counseling. While I have nothing against pre marital counseling, it can be problematic for a non Catholic to go through Catholic counseling.

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"If she interacts with, or is expected to be interact with, her parents and family in a certain way, we should respect it; we should not be so naive to believe we will be able to “change” it drastically. "

It’s not for you to respect or not-respect. It just isn’t yours to manage one way or the other. This is the part I think you’re having trouble hearing.

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I was a non-Catholic going through Engaged Encounter, the Catholic pre-marriage program near my wife’s home, and found it very reassuring. There was only a little religious talk involved. It was mostly a test of compatibility.

To Catholics, marriage is a sacred event, blessed by God, and is to be performed by a priest, similar to baptism or confirmation. For us to be allowed to be married in the church I had to promise the priest that my wife could raise any children as Catholics - no other conditions. Now, 22 years later and a week away from confirmation of our youngest, I am glad we did.

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I’m glad it worked for you, mag, but it clearly won’t work for everyone and that is a major con (per mcat’s question).

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I may be naive here: If we really respect our offsprings as individuals, should we not insist on raising them as Catholics? Their growing up environment is not the same as yours so how can you tell your decision for the choice of religion will be good for him? (This is probably why I am not religious - I am the only one who is not in my family.)

I am not against Catholic here. In my family, everyone is free to choose his/her religion or choose to have none of it in his/her life. Heck, we do not care about political affiliations either: Do whatever you want as long as you also let me do whatever I want.

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In order to get married in a Catholic church, you must promise to raise your kids Catholic.
If you disagree with that, don’t get married in a Catholic church.
I mean, obviously you can lie if you want to start off the marriage like that. My dad made that “promise” in his first marriage because his ex-wife wanted to get married in a Catholic church. My sister (which resulted from their very short marriage) was certainly not raised Catholic

Personally, the idea of forcing a religion on your kid is not my cup of tea (which is why I will never get married in a Catholic church). To each his/her own.