Let me be real with you right now, because what you’re describing is one of the most common and most painful things I see in my office.
Fighting about in-laws is almost never actually about the in-laws.
You keep wondering whose side your partner is really on.
Do you know you can get personalized answers to all your questions from the same wisdom that wrote this article, right now?
Ask anything about your own situation and get an answer immediately. Keep asking, think it through, work out what to do next.
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Ask Figlet about fighting over in-laws.
I want you to hear that again. The mother-in-law who shows up unannounced, the father-in-law who criticizes your parenting, the family holidays that feel like battlegrounds… those are the stage. But the real fight happening underneath is this: whose side are you on?
That is the question your nervous system is asking every single time this comes up. Am I your person? Or am I an outsider in my own marriage?
Here’s what I see happen in couples. One partner feels caught between their family of origin and their spouse. They try to keep the peace everywhere. They minimize, they explain, they defend. And to their partner on the other side of that, it feels like abandonment. It feels like “you chose them over me.” So that partner gets louder, more demanding, more critical of the in-laws. And then the first partner gets more defensive of their family. And around and around it goes.
Nobody is wrong here. Everybody is hurting.
What actually needs to happen is that you two build what I call a Sovereign Us. That means the relationship itself becomes the thing you are both protecting. Not your family of origin. Not your pride. The relationship. When you get there, you stop fighting against each other about the in-laws and start standing together, deciding as a team how you want to handle family.
That looks like having honest conversations not in the heat of the moment. It looks like your partner saying to their family, “My spouse and I have decided…” It looks like you trusting that your partner is choosing you, even when it’s hard for them to set limits with people they love.
You keep wondering whose side your partner is really on.
Do you know you can get personalized answers to all your questions from the same wisdom that wrote this article, right now?
Ask anything about your own situation and get an answer immediately. Keep asking, think it through, work out what to do next.
No credit card required. Your first 10 messages are free.
Ask Figlet about fighting over in-laws.
A few things I would want to know if you were sitting across from me:
What is the specific hurt underneath this for you? Is it that you feel like a guest in your own marriage? Is it that you feel unsupported? Is it that you feel controlled?
And what is the specific fear your partner carries? Losing their family? Feeling like they can never do enough? Being put in the middle?
Those two underlying emotional realities are where the real work lives.
The in-laws aren’t ruining your marriage. The disconnection between you and your partner is what’s creating the opening for outside stress to get in and do damage.
If any of this is landing close to home, you can talk it through right now with Figlet, Figs’ AI mini me, and get an answer about your own situation in seconds. Ask Figlet about fighting over in-laws..
Get back to each other. That’s where this gets solved.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: How to Stop Fighting and Start Communicating in Your Relationship
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