How Does Your New Partner Treat Their Family? Why Does It Matter to You?
The connection your partner has to their family could be telling. Don’t ignore signs you should pay attention to.
By the time I had my first serious boyfriend, I was desperate to put space between myself and my family. Things with my mother were getting worse and worse. At night, I would go to sleep dreaming I would wake up in a different home with a different woman to call my mom. But it didn’t work that way…
So when my first serious boyfriend “scooped me up” out of that drama, I was grateful. Super grateful. So grateful that I was willing to overlook the battlefield full of red flags that were rolling out in front of me.
Because, you see, as dysfunctional as my family was — his was something else.
His mother, carrying on a multi-year affair, was actively in the process of bankrupting his father before she announced her extracurricular relationship (and her intention to marry). She drew us into the middle of it, taking us on expensive trips and shopping sprees.
She also actively worked to create deeper wedges in the relationship with my family. My boyfriend’s mother wanted to possess me. She wanted me to belong to her and my boyfriend, so they could mold me into whatever homemaking princess he desired.
I had no clue.
My relationship with my family was so turbulent — I spent so much time being told how bad and worthless I was — that I couldn’t see the game his mother was playing. All I saw was someone treating me in a way I had never been treated before. They, however, saw the truth.
In me, they saw a little girl who was broken and alone. Easy prey for twisted intentions. I went along with it. I had no reference point for anything different. So, when it all imploded, I was shocked. How could this happen? How could this end like this?
I would have known if I had paid attention to the reality of my partner’s dysfunctional family relationships.
Family connections are important.
We tell ourselves that our romantic relationships are a 1:1 affair, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. Family always plays a part, be it good or bad, in the serious relationships of its members. To build a relationship is to build a bridge into a family, but if that family is toxic or dysfunctional…it adds up.
Our families are the first reference point by which we learn how to build relationships. We watch and mimic the way we see our parents build that love. Many of us go so far as to treat partners the way we are treated by our family members in turn.
The relationship your partner shares with their family is an important indicator of where they may be in life. Does it fully represent them? Their potential as a partner? No. Of course not. But observing their connection to parents and siblings can tell us a lot more about who our partner is, and who they want to be.
In a serious relationship, a committed relationship, these connections should be obvious. One should have a front-row seat to their partner’s connection with their family, able to see how they support each other, how they communicate, and how they build relationships within the family unit.
This matters because who your partner is with their family is who they will be with you (in some capacity). Our families form the basis of our personalities, how we view the world, and how we interact with others. If your partner doesn’t get along with their family, it’s important to take note. Will any of the dysfunction rub off on you? What about the life you’re trying to build together?
What are the red flags to look out for in your partner’s family relationships?
It’s all good and well to understand that your partner’s relationship with their family is important. It’s another to understand the specific red flags you need to look out for. There’s a difference. Specifics matter. Our relationships with our families are complex and the dysfunction is just as complex.
How do we know what’s a problem and what isn’t? Look out for the little things like humor, and the obvious things like codependency and abuse.
Harmful humor
Humor is a great trait to have. It can help break the ice, and it can help make difficult times easier to survive. Not all humor is good humor, however. Some people use their jokes to thinly veil barbs that are meant to wound and create doubt. This kind of passive-aggressive humor is common in toxic and narcissistic families.
Pay close attention to the humor in your partner’s family. Do they tell jokes that regularly cross the line? That treat straight into offensive, disrespectful, or insulting territory? How much does your partner engage with these jokes?
You should pay close attention to the time you spend with their family. Do you quickly become the butt of the joke? If your partner is willing to engage in that humor against you, in front of your family, it could indicate a pattern of disrespect. Be wary. If nothing else, it proves they are happy to degrade you in the eyes of others.
Major discomfort
Too many disregard their intuition when the family of their partner is involved. When discomfort is apparent, it’s something that should be noted. Your partner might be uncomfortable with their family, or the family may make you uncomfortable. That’s a big warning sign and a nudge to dig a little deeper.
Isolate whatever it is that makes you or your partner uncomfortable. Does their family spend a lot of time yelling at one another? Do they criticize and disrespect each other over petty matters or major insecurities? These patterns could be patterns your partner engages in or not, but they are patterns that they get emotionally drawn into.
Lack of boundaries
Boundaries are crucial in any relationship. We have to have stable boundaries with our romantic partners, but that’s not it. If we get serious and join our lives together, we also have to have stable boundaries with their families. These boundaries exist to protect the relationship and each party inside of it, too.
That’s impossible to do if your partner doesn’t have strong boundaries with their family, to begin with. You see this through the constant interference. In-laws become nuisances as they interject themselves into conflicts, major decisions, and the most intimate moments within the relationship.
Some families think they have a right to every aspect of their members’ lives — including their romantic relationships. They don’t. There must be limits in terms of physical space and emotional space, as well. The family shouldn’t be allowed into every corner of a relationship. If your partner allows them to be, it’s a major red flag.
No meetings are necessary
Have you met your partner’s family? If you haven’t been together very long, it’s not that unusual or alarming. You and your partner should be sure of your relationship and each other before you go intermingling family connections. It makes things more complicated. But those “complications” should be welcome in a normal, long-term, committed relationship.
If you and your partner have been together for a long time, but you still haven’t met their family — it’s a red flag. At the very least, you should have an honest explanation. If their family is too toxic to introduce you to, then that’s okay. An explanation is deserved.
Keeping family completely compartmentalized and away from our relationships is a tough line to walk, and should be done only with good reason. Either way, it’s an indication of something amiss and a potential issue of trust or belonging on behalf of the family involved.
Total codependency
Codependent behaviors are pretty run-of-the-mill in toxic and dysfunctional families. One side builds an overreliance on the other, and that dependent party revels in its central role. Two sides can become so dependent on one another that twisted dynamics begin to play out.
Think of the mother who relies on her sons for the support of the spouse she doesn’t have. Or the father who expects his daughters to soothe his mental and emotional outbursts.
In all cases of codependency, there’s a dissolving of boundaries. Every line is willingly crossed and people are treated like objects, rather than their autonomous persons. The children trapped in these systems can become powerless as adults. Worse, they learn to build their relationships outside the family in similar ways.
Does your partner or spouse have a codependent relationship with their family? This is an extremely important dynamic to pinpoint (if it exists) as it could lead to incredible issues within your relationship.
If your partner is used to a codependent environment, they may come to expect a level of care from you that you can’t provide. Or, they may learn to perform for your love, to sell themselves short for you — which will lead to major conflict and resentment down the road.
Blatant abuse
Without a doubt, the biggest red flag to look for in your partner’s family is blatant abuse. Mental. Emotional. Spiritual. Physical. Narcissistic (which is multiple forms of abuse). A family that abuses one another is a family that teaches its members to abuse and be abused. Unless strict action is taken to address those behaviors, they tend to repeat.
Take a radically honest look at your partner’s family.
Do they go out of their way to harm one another? Do they use terror? Fear? Mental or emotional manipulation to turn one another against each other, or change the behavior of family members? Blatant abuse cannot be ignored, especially if you intend to build a family with this person.
Any children you bring into the world will be exposed to that environment unless steps are taken to radically heal and separate from the abuse (on your partner’s half). So will you. Is that something they are willing to do? Be cautious about investing in someone who is still invested in an abusive environment.
Zero connections
What about a lack of connection? Does your partner or spouse have no relationship with their family? Are they silent about what happened? Do they refuse to tell you anything about them? Your partner’s lack of a relationship can be just as telling as a dysfunctional relationship with their family.
If your partner is no contact there should be some kind of basic explanation. My family is toxic. My family is abusive. My family causes a lot of harm. All of those are completely valid explanations, but a lack of *any* explanation is a big red flag.
Demand honesty if not details.
Your partner should be able to give a reasonable and believable explanation for their lack of connection. If they cannot, or will not, provide that, then some bigger questions have to be asked. Namely, why won’t they share any details? Is there something serious lurking beneath the surface that they don’t want to tell you about?
The key points to remember…
Have you spotted some of the red flags above in your partner’s family connections? Before you confront them or jump into a grand display of boundary setting, there are some key points to remember. Specifically, you need to draw back into your knowledge of self. You can’t other people. Family patterns repeat until we’re ready to end them and that applies to your partner and their family too.
1. You can’t change it
Family connections have deep roots. The attachments begin at birth. Members become emotionally drawn to each other after going through shared experiences — good and bad. Even when there are abuses and major pain points, members remain connected and emotionally driven.
You can’t change that. It doesn’t matter how much you love your partner or how wicked their family is. The only person who can shift that dynamic is them. No amount of love or fantasy life that you provide is going to shift those dynamics or heal the deep wounds that exist.
That means your only option is acceptance. Seeing the flaws in their relationship is not a call to action. You have to accept your partner’s relationship with their family as it is and then decide whether or not those are boundaries that you can live without. If your partner never changes anything between themselves and their family, is that a peace you can live with?
2. We repeat family patterns
There’s an even more important truth that’s often at play. Remembering it can make the difference between your suffering and your joy. Hard as it is to accept, we have to look at the traits of family patterns and how they are inherited (and repeated).
If your partner was raised in a toxic, boundary-less family then they could develop those same toxic, boundary-less patterns. They may not even realize that they’re doing it. All the same, be aware. They may react and behave the same way their family does…because that is the primary example they have had to learn from.
Those patterns could repeat now, or they could repeat sometime in the distant future when life gets tough. Also, realize that these traits could manifest in many different ways.
Sometimes your partner will become the toxic parent by trying to prove them wrong. Trying so hard to control their reality, they can become similar monsters. On the other hand, they may act and react in the same toxic ways their family does. Be careful and diligent in observing these patterns.
3. Not everyone can come
Like attracts like. That’s a universal truth. It’s common for us to be attracted to people who have similar backgrounds, and similar relationships with their families. If you are someone who has struggled with a toxic or manipulative family, then there are pretty high odds you’ll find yourself in a relationship with someone who has similar family problems.
That’s often where the similarities end and people start getting themselves in trouble.
Seeing that your partner has a similar family, many will assume that their partner is on a similar journey. They assume that they can tell their partners the same truths they’ve arrived at and that their partner will hop on board and start healing those relationships in the same way.
That’s a delusion. Not reality.
Not everyone can come on the family healing journey. Not everyone will want to. Your partner may be aware of their family’s toxicity and unwilling to do anything about it. Some people would rather hold on to toxic families than embrace a better life filled with people who love them. Letting go of the delusion is too painful for them.
You can’t save your partner from a toxic family. You can’t force them to be different, to draw lines they haven’t drawn for themselves. You can only choose whether or not their relationship with their family is one you can live hand-in-hand with.
It doesn’t matter how much you love someone. You cannot ignore the relationship they have with their families. These connections tell us so much about someone’s real intentions, their real needs, and what our future with them might look like. When you observe your partner’s interactions with their family, you see a deeper part of them.
This can be either good or bad. You may find a genuine person, awake and aware, breaking the cycles and changing their lives. Or, you may find someone who is stuck in the fold, unable to break through.
Ultimately, what you find and the decisions you make are going to come down to you. Are you prepared to deal with codependency? Toxic interference? You can’t change your partner’s family or their relationship with that family. You don’t have the right.
So what are you left with? Making the right choice for you. Don’t settle for someone else’s chaos. Find the right person who is doing the work of establishing themselves and their family free of the chaos that birthed them.
That’s the most important thing to remember.
We are not cursed with the burden of our family’s pain. We can always break through. We can always choose to do things differently, better, for ourselves and our loved ones.
© E.B. Johnson 2023
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