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Parent Principles on Navigating the Relationship with Your Engaged Adult Child

  1. Be an elder.
  • See the big picture when others lose it:  all the stakeholders, a new family is now being formed, in laws take time to understand, the couple will be married at the end of it all.
  • Keep your cool when others lose theirs
  1. It’s not your wedding but you have a stake in it.
  • If it’s a family and community wedding, you are a player and have a voice.
  • Neither passive nor pushy be.
  1. Money is the root of many wedding evils
  • Money is more than money; it’s about emotion, relationships, loyalty, obligation, influence, control, competition
  • Clarity, clarity, clarity (about who pays, for what, when, what if costs run higher?)
  • Money brings influence but not the power to dictate.
  • Those who do not put up money can still have influence.
  • Money should not trump relationships.
  • Don’t use money to blackmail, threat, or manipulate—or you will pay a big price.        
  1. Know your role in decisions.  Three general roles:
  • Enthusiast (couple decide alone, e.g., rings, vows, honeymoon).  Typical response: “How nice.”
  • Adviser (expect information and input, e.g., on color scheme, music, ceremony, and on anything you are paying for).  Typical response: “Here are some thoughts, but it’s up to you.”
  • Partner (fully involved in decision, date, guest list, an on anything you are paying for).  Typical response: “Let’s figure this out together.”

Roles will vary issue by issue and family by family, but should as clear as possible to avoid problems.  Sometimes clarity only comes after a disagreement or conflict.

  1. Clarify roles and decision making with your spouse or co-parent.
  • Don’t assume your spouse does not care, even if he/says so.
  • With ex-spouse, focus on what the next generation needs and let past grievances go.
  • Do not make threats to withdraw support or boycott, and don’t be intimidated if threats come your way.
  1. Treat your DIL/SIL (daughter in law / son in law) and their parents/siblings as family from the first day of the engagement. 
  • Develop your own relationship with them.
  • Don’t say or do anything during wedding planning that you don’t want to live with for the rest of your life.
  1. Your relationship with your grown child has now tripled in complexity. Deal with it.
  • New loyalties, influences; more complicated decision making.
  • Major events such as the Holidays will be different.
  1. Deal carefully with wedding conflict; there are many years ahead of you.
  • When there is conflict, blood talks to blood
  • Do not mock the ways of your new in-laws, strange though they may be
  • Impossible relatives in your family will be impossible during the wedding; plan accordingly rather than being surprised and outraged.

 

- Elizabeth Doherty Thomas, is a co-founder of The First Dance, along with Marriage and Family therapist father Dr. William J. Doherty.  The First Dance was a Modern Bride Trendsetter award winner in 2007 for taking on the complex family dynamics of wedding planning.  Read Take Back Your Wedding: Managing the People Stress of Wedding Planning for more advice on working through the people stresses of wedding planning as a couple, with your families, and how to strengthen your upcoming marriage through this enormous first task of married life.

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