My in laws don’t like me: how to handle being shut out

Do they dislike you, or do they not know what to do with you?

Most in-law coldness is a family carrying on as it always has, with no place made yet for the person who arrived last.

• Watch how they treat other newcomers. If every in-law gets the same handling, the family has a style and you are inside it.
• Count the direct refusals. Dislike says no to things. Distance never gets round to asking.
• Notice who sets the arrangements. In most families one person does, and being outside that person’s list is not yet a judgement on you.

Two things move an in-law relationship, and neither of them is your effort. Being told in so many words that you are accepted goes with a better relationship, and feeling like an insider in that family is what tracks satisfaction with the in-laws¹. Parents also arrive with a preference for an in-law who resembles their own child, family background most of all², formed long before they met you and no report on how you behaved at Christmas. That second finding comes from families in China, so take the shape of it rather than the figures.

Why does trying harder leave you further out?

Effort that comes out of unease reads as unease, and it costs you the ordinariness that would let them see you.

You arrive with something you made. The dread sits under your ribs for the first half hour, your voice comes out smaller than usual, and you answer in short sentences because the ease has gone out of you. Only in the car afterwards does the thought form: they do not want me here. The wish to be let in and the wish to stop needing it take turns in the same evening. From the other side of the table, what showed was someone who brought a cake and did not seem to want to be there.

There is something worth protecting in the withdrawal. Stepping back keeps you from asking for something you expect to be refused, and it spares your partner from being asked to choose. Both of those are worth checking against what actually happened last time rather than decided in advance: who spoke to you first, what they asked you about, whether anyone followed it up.

Why does it get worse at the family table?

A gathering runs on shared history you do not have, in a language that is a second language for one person in the room.

• The shorthand. Decades of references, nicknames and old arguments pass in half a sentence, and none of it is explained.
• The jobs. Everyone knows which chair they take and which part of the meal they carry, and nobody thinks to tell you.
• The language. A room that starts in English for you slides back into Danish within the hour, which is tiredness taking the easier route.

None of it is aimed at you and all of it lands on you. The step worth watching is the one from what happened to what it meant: a table that switches language is a room of tired people, not evidence about how Danish families feel about foreigners. Stop treating the gathering as the place where acceptance gets decided, because it is the hardest room to be accepted in.

What is your partner’s part in this?

Your partner is the only person with standing in both families, and their silence gets heard as agreement by both sides.

• Who asks for the change. A request from their own child is heard as family business, while the same request from you is heard as a complaint from outside.
• Who explains the absence. If you are the one making excuses for a missed Sunday, you are carrying their family for them.
• Who stops the remark. A comment your partner leaves unanswered gets heard by the room as permission.

Children-in-law who are unsure where they stand, and who feel their partner getting in the way, keep more subjects off the table with the in-laws, and the more they leave unsaid the less satisfied they are with those relationships³. It was all measured at one point in time, so which came first is not established. What I notice is that the subjects nobody raises are the ones that keep everyone guessing.

How do you change it?

Stop working on the in-laws, work out what the 2 of you want, and then act as a pair.

• Name one change, in one sentence. I want to be told about the plan when you are. Not a list, and not an assessment of his mother.
• Your partner carries it to their own family. Not a joint summit and not an email from you. Their parents, their conversation.
• Agree the arrival and the leaving before you go. Decide both between the 2 of you and keep to them whatever the room does.
• Answer the remark on the day. One plain sentence at the time does more than 3 months of composing replies afterwards.
• Stop auditioning. Bringing more, cooking more and trying harder buys nothing and tires you out.

All of it depends on your partner saying the sentence, and many will not say it at first, because it costs them something with people they have been managing all their life. Name that cost between the 2 of you rather than treating it as proof they do not care. Where they do say it, the first thing to change is how the 2 of you handle Sundays, not how the family behaves.

Where your partner will not say anything to their own family, or says it and then takes their side in the room, these steps stop reaching the problem, because the difficulty has moved from the family to the 2 of you. That is the point at which couples work, or individual work if your partner will not come, is more use than another year of Sundays. What stays open is whether the family is slow or closed, and a year of evidence is sometimes the only way to tell.

Questions people ask

Can therapy help if my in laws will never come to a session?

Yes, because the work is with you and your partner rather than with his parents. What gets decided is who says what to whom, and what the 2 of you do when it does not go well.

Should I bring my partner, or start on my own?

Bring your partner if the sticking point is what they will say to their family. Start on your own if what you mostly need is to stop feeling judged every Sunday, and bring them in later.

My partner says I am imagining it. Is there any point in therapy then?

There is, and this is one of the places where therapy earns its keep, because a third person can hold 2 accounts without having to rule between them. I would work on what each of you noticed rather than on who is right.

What actually happens in a session about something like this?

I ask for the detail of one recent occasion rather than the history of the whole family. From there the 2 of you get clearer about what you want changed and who is going to ask for it.

How long does this kind of work take?

I would not put a number on that before meeting you, and I would be wary of anyone who does. What I will say is that the part you have most hold over is how the 2 of you handle it, and that is where a change shows first.

If you feel shut out by your partner’s family, I can help you steady yourself and decide how to respond in couples therapy alone.

Sources

1. Morr Serewicz, M. C. and Canary, D. J., Assessments of disclosure from the in-laws: Links among disclosure topics, family privacy orientations, and relational quality, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2008
2. Wang, Y., Apostolou, M. and Peng, X., In-Law Preferences for Similarity: Comparing Parent and Child Preferences for In-Law/Intimate Partner Similarity, Evolutionary Psychology, 2024
3. Mikucki-Enyart, S. L. and Caughlin, J. P., Integrating the Relational Turbulence Model and a Multiple Goals Approach to Understand Topic Avoidance During the Transition to Extended Family, Communication Research, 2018

How this article was written: I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. I read the draft, correct and improve it and stand behind every clinical statement. The professional and clinical judgement is mine.