E43: Keep family and friends out of your relationship
We’re are true believers in keeping your relationship sacred. Sometimes that can be difficult, though. Perhaps you have overbearing family members or friends who get jealous.
Maybe you’ve had a really bad fight and need someone to talk to. Maybe your partner is acting different and you just need advice. In this episode, we discuss when this is okay and when it’s not the best idea, and how to have conversations about your parter that don’t paint them in a negative light. After all, you love your partner. You don’t want your family and friends getting a bad opinion of them.
Can’t listen to the episode? Keep reading for the full transcript.
Aindrea: Hello, and welcome to Episode 43 of From Long Distance to Marriage. This week, we wanted to talk about something that we know affects a lot of people in relationships, and that is keeping your family and friends out of the relationship.
Rich: Yeah, see, it affects a lot of people like you said, but I think what’s interesting about it is too many people don’t realise it affects them. It’s easy to think this is a good thing. These are people that you trust, and you value their input. So and, you know, nine times out of 10, I think they’ve got best interests at heart. So it’s a funny one that you actually, yes, it can be a big negative factor that we just don’t realise.
Aindrea: Yeah, I think to kind of elaborate on what we mean by keeping people out of it. That doesn’t mean don’t keep your relationships secret or anything like that. It means more, keeping people’s opinions, keeping people out of your business, Sometimes,
Rich: And trying to work on things yourself. I know someone who, age isn’t entirely important, but late 20s. And parents are very, very involved in decision making. So, you know, if there’s an argument with a partner, they go to the parents and said, “What do you think?” And it’s very understandable why we will do that. And the parents always have the best interests of, in this instance, their daughter at heart. But the reality is, they’re almost always going to take that person’s side, you’re always going to take your son’s or daughter’s side or your friend’s side, especially if you don’t know the partner very well. They’re also only hearing one side of it. And however objective we think we are, there’s always some bias in how we tell a story or version of events, so they’re only getting one side of events and they’re normally getting it when you’re quite emotionally charged, you’ll go to them when you’re upset or angry. And then they go into protection mode. So they’re like, “Yeah, well, you know, fuck them, you’re better than that. You don’t deserve that.” Which then reinforces to you that, yeah, you know, you’re right. You feel justified in the emotions, when really the mature thing to do is you talk to each other. And it’s fine to have an outlet, but you don’t necessarily want the outlet in the heat of the moment.
Aindrea: Yeah, I think if you absolutely do, being, I don’t know if it’s a male or female thing, not to cater to stereotypes. But I think women generally do need to talk through things more and sometimes sound things off a friend. I think that’s okay, provided it’s the right friend; it needs to be someone that knows your partner really well, and has a good opinion of them. Because they’re more likely to give you a bias sort of, “Okay, I think you’re overreacting” or “He wouldn’t have meant it like….” You know what I mean?
Rich: Yeah, if they know both of you, they’re gonna be more balanced and objective. Yeah. If they don’t know both of you, or know both of you but don’t like the other person, they’re always going to enjoy having a reason to put the boot in, I guess. But it can just be really damaging. You see it time and time again, I think, be honest with yourself that, you know, a relationship is two people unless you’re agreed to be polygamous or whatever. And, it’s very easy to let the parents become a third person in that relationship. And that’s never a good thing.
Aindrea: We’ve talked on many episodes about how we really tried to not, for lack of a better word, bad mouth each other to our families. And there was a period of time where things were really hard in the first year, and I probably did more of that than was right, And, you know, it wasn’t Rich being “Oh you’re not allowed to talk about me.” It was like “Well do you think that’s fair? Do you think you’re protraying the right sort of image of me?” And you have to think about that. I think your relationship is something you need to try and protect, and is running off and, again for lack of a better word, bad mouthing this person really healthy? Is it the right thing to do?
Rich: I’m a big believer, this is something more recent, I’ve not always necessarily thought about, but I’ve become a big believer in, people should never hear bad things about your partner from you. You should be the protector of their reputation. Now, again, I suppose the caveat to that is, if there’s someone that knows both of you very well, but there’s a big difference I think between that sort of honest conversation of “They were doing this recently that kind of irritated me” and being critical, making fun of them and trying to humiliate them for your own laughs and all that kind of thing. But I think going hand in hand with that is what we’re talking about today, of there being three or four people in the relationship. Three’s a crowd. Their reputation’s in your hands to a large extent. And you shouldn’t be the person that’s influencing people in a negative opinion. Because it’s also true that we never know what’s going on in people’s heads, we never know what’s going on behind closed doors. So if someone comes to me and says, “My boyfriend’s been doing this, this and this,” and I don’t know him, I have to say that word for it. But it may be that in his mind, he’s thinking, “I don’t know how to handle this situation. And I know I handled that badly.” Or maybe they both… we’ve had arguments where we’ve got completely different memories of what started it.
Aindrea: And it’s getting worse as we’re getting older.
Rich: But it doesn’t mean either of you is wrong. So you know, the version of events that person A gives could be 100% right in their mind. And Person B could have a completely different version of events that’s also 100% right. You know, neither is lying.
Aindrea: I think that’s the case of most arguments. You know, most people don’t usually think that they’re wrong, and they’re just trying to save face. I think you genuinely believe.
Rich: And most people also don’t want to start an argument, don’t want to piss you off, don’t want to anger you don’t want to, you know, it takes a special kind of psychopath to want that drama. So it goes back to what you’ve said in previous episodes when we had Sam and Jared, on from the Long Distance Activities book, when he said “Always assume good intent,” and of course, doesn’t mean people always do the right thing but it’s the intention behind it probably wasn’t deliberately set out to be a dick.
Aindrea: And I think in relationships, yeah, it may be not as easy as assuming good intent, but don’t assume bad intent. I think that’s what it comes down to. People might not actually have intent or think it through. But very rarely do people act because they want to fuck shit up.
Rich: But, you know, it’s also true to say that this stuff does happen. You will have arguments, you will have disagreements, you will have periods where you realise that you have fundamental disagreements in how you would handle a situation or. You know, maybe if you’ve got kids you think “We never discussed if we’re going to vaccinate them,” you know, or you get years into relationship and you realise one of you is opposed to marriage, they’re quite big topics. There are going to be smaller ones like “Why didn’t you do the dishwasher? We agreed you’d do the dishwasher.” You’re gonna have these arguments and one of you may be of the disposition to run to mummy or daddy and say “They were mean to me,” and if that’s you, it’s immature. And if that’s your partner, that’s gonna be frustrating and you have to think “How do I handle this in the appropriate way?”
Aindrea: And it’s immature.
Rich: Yeah, it is immature but there’s a reason for that. Is it the parents that are domineering and won’t let that child off the leash? Is it that that child never cut the apron strings and was able to get away? What is the reason for this behaviour? And just talk to your partner and have a serious, sensible but calm conversation, say words to the effect of “Look, I don’t understand why this happens. I’m not very happy with it. I feel like it prevents us from resolving it. I don’t want your parents getting the wrong impression of me because most of what they’re hearing is the result of an argument. One it’s not their business and two it’s influencing them in a way that I’m not happy with.”
Aindrea: I do think though that there may be a time and a place in the right parent-child relationship where the child can go their parent and say “This is happening in my relationship, I was wondering if I could get some advice, or do you think I’m being…?” Having been a teacher, I know a lot of people don’t think their children can do anything wrong, and that’s bad. But if your parents do have a good opinion of your partner, and they’re level headed and you have a good relationship with them, I think there are times when you can calmy go to them and say “I don’t know how to handle this, he or she is doing this.”
Rich: It also depends on the severity. If you’re getting beaten, but I think, there’s that saying that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And I think that’s true here in both sides. You go to your parents or they go to their parents probably with good intentions. Maybe the intention is they want to feel better about the scenario or maybe they genuinely want the advice. And I think on the parents’ side the intention is mollycoddling and “Don’t worry, we’ll help you feel better.” But the reality of it is that it’s faily toxic, or it has toxic potential. If it’s a one-off, like you said if it’s “This has happened and I want your advice”, yeah, by all means, that’s what family and friends are for especially if they’ve got experience in this. But if every time there’s an argument your reaction or your partner’s reaction is to run out of the house, and go home, that’s very very different. That is a toxic behaviour and one that that’s a fundamental failing of their responsibility to you, or for you to them, that yes you haven’t got to be, you don’t have to finish an argument in that moment, you can say “Look I need to cool off,” go for a walk, clear your head come back later on. But it’s a failing in responsibility to go and blab about that argument to other people. What we will do is, once that’s all passed and we’re in someone’s company, “Oh yeah, we had this argument recently,” and you know, we will be on sort of neutral ground, we’ll be there together and say “Oh we had this stupid argument” or whatever, it’s not that it has to be a taboo subject, you just don’t run away in that moment and say “He’s a dick.”
Aindrea: Yeah. I mean, we have very different, I don’t want to say fighting styles but maybe resolution styles to arguments or spats, whatever you want to call it, and you know my nature is to kind of just hash it out until it’s done. Get it done because I can’t really sit with things not being right, whereas Rich sometimes gets to a point where he’s done, he literally cannot discuss it anymore and he just needs to not talk about it for a while. And so I’m sure you can understand those two personality types clashing where he’s just done, he needs a break and I can’t let it be and it just goes on and then he explodes, like, it’s just not great. So I think obviously one of us had to give. And one day we were just having an argument and I got to that place, I was like “I can’t actually talk to you right now, we’re not getting anywhere.” And I left the house. I didn’t storm out, I literally had something I needed to do that day. And I said, “Look, I’m going to go do this. Do you want to come?” and he was like, “Absolutely not. We’ve just been arguing why would I want to come with you?” So I went out, did my thing, I wasn’t like storming out the house slamming doors, I just thought okay we need some air. And I think that’s fine, that’s healthy and then you know I got home and we were both calmer, we talked about it it was fine. It was resolved. And you actually thanked me and said “Hey, thank you, that was the first time that you were able to just like leave me be for a little while and let me do my thinking or whatever I need,” and since then I’ve tried to do it a bit more. So, if you’re doing that, that’s fine, but if you are storming out in the night and going to stay with your parents, I think that should only happen if something really big happens, like trust is betrayed, infidelity, stuff like that. I mean, even that maybe you don’t want to discuss it straight away with your parent, I don’t know really what’s right for that.
Rich: It depends what you’re doing. If you’re going there to vent, to get it off your chest, to say, “Can you believe they did this?” I think that’s immature. I think if you’re going there to say, “I’m at my wit’s end, I don’t know how to cope with this, what would you advise?” I think that’s very different because in that second scenario you’re going there with the purpose of saying, “I need help to fix this.” And in the first one you’re going there to whinge and to get a pat on the back and say, “Oh, don’t worry,”
Aindrea: Or even just, if you go over to say “Look, I’m sure everything’s fine. We had a big fight, I just need some space, I just want to be here in my old bedroom,” or whatever it is, but you’re right.
Rich: I think also there’s a respect thing here that, because some couples, some people would go to the their partner’s parents, you know not everyone’s close with their own parents, or they might say “Well he’s behaving this way so I’m going to talk to his parents,” maybe even just to find out if that’s if that’s normal behaviour, “Did he used to do this?”. Not necessarily to say “He did this.” But, to me that’s really disrespectful because that’s their family, you’re telling them things that they may not want you to, to say. What did you do?
Aindrea: One time, I don’t know if i stormed out, I don’t remember the situation but we were having this, we’d had a string of arguments and we were just not getting along. And I don’t remember what you were doing or how you were behaving. But I just remember that you were doing something frequently. And it was resulting in us, it was was my actions as well it wasn’t just on you, but I just couldn’t, whatever it was, I couldn’t get through to whatever you were doing differently in this and that and obviously I don’t have really friends close by. I mean this was a few years ago, I have more friends now, but I don’t really have friends here that I’d be comfortable talking to you about, talking about you like that to. I mean my very best friend back home, she knows you, she loves you. You know, I’d be comfortable talking to her but yeah I don’t feel like that and obviously I didn’t have my parents to go to, who also have a very good opinion of you, and if I needed to say, “Gosh, I don’t know what’s going on with him,” I wouldn’t get a “Well fuck him, he’s a waste.” I’d get like, “Oh, there must be something going on, have you tried…?” I didn’t have that option. So I had to go to your mum, and she was really good, and you knew, I was honest with you.
Rich: Yeah. And again, I mean that would be one of the scenarios where the intent was okay, you didn’t go there and say, you didn’t go there to criticise me.”
Aindrea: No, I just needed to go talk to someone who knew you and I needed to say “I don’t know what’s going on right now, I don’t know what’s going wrong in our relationship.” I probably did say “Do you know if there’s anything going on with him?” Like I didn’t think you were cheating, just, you know, she’s your mum and obviously knows you best, right after me probably. And I think that’s where it gets tricky because you need your family and you should not isolate your family or separate them from your relationship, but you do need to protect it, and I don’t know, keep it keep it sacred and find the balance of how you deal with these really hard arguments because they’re going to happen a lot throughout marriage.
Rich Yeah, every couple’s going to have it and I suppose you’ve got a choice. Because, whatever your behaviour is, people will have a perception of you, and it’s either gonna be positive or negative. So you have the choice of “Do we want to be a couple that people look at and think, you know, ‘I wish we were like that, I hope we can be that happy or that solid'”, or do you want people to look at you and say, “God, what a mess those guys are, they’ve got no respect for each other, they’re always criticising each other, they’re the butt of each other’s jokes.” Which one of those couples do you want to be. And I never had to persuade you but I’ve always been, I’d rather be the couple that people will look at and say, “I want to be like them.” The funny thing about it though, is you stand out for a good reason if you’re that couple because I think so many couples aren’t like that. But the irony is, it doesn’t actually take that much to be that couple, like, we don’t have to roll the red carpet out for each other and treat each other in some magical way. It’s really, we get on, we make each other laugh, we show some affection. But we have respect for each other. And, you know, like last week’s episode is all about gratitude and saying thank you to each other. We still say thank you, we show each other we appreciate each other. And we do that in public too, you know, so if we’ve been out with people and someone’s buying lunch like, “I’ll buy lunch,” we say “Okay, thanks.” We still show appreciation in public. It just takes little gestures to be the couple that stand out a little bit. So, it’s very, very achievable.
Aindrea: And we always do get comments from, you know, I don’t know about friends and stuff, you don’t really hear them talking about you like that, but from certainly our parents and stuff, we hear them describe us as a really nice couple great couple. You know, “Really well suited to each other, really well matched.” And yeah, we work at that and don’t get me wrong there was a period of time where your stepmum in particular told us off for being really snappy with each other when we were newly married.
Rich: Was she? I don’t remember that.
Aindrea: Yeah. Like, I think we were at their house for a family lunch or something on a Sunday and you said something kind of picky and I really snapped at you about it, not like shouting but just, you know, really snarled at you a little bit and she said “Ooh, nobody wants to see people, don’t talk to each other like that in front of people.” A couple times. And, you know, we were young, we were fighting a lot, we’d just closed the distance.
Rich: Yeah, we were really trying to figure it all out.
Aindrea: Yeah, it was baptism by fire for us.
Rich: Let’s talk about, you know, we can talk all day about “Don’t do this and don’t do that” but let’s talk about, if you are in that relationship where either you or your partner or, from a different angle, if you’re someone and you’ve got someone who comes to you to vent to. How do you handle that? Are you a better friend by saying, “Yep, lay it all on me and I’ll tell you everything you need to hear, and I’ll make you feel justified in feeling angry to them,” or are you a better friend to say, I mean, “Look, I appreciate that I’m the person you feel comfortable coming to but actually I think you’d be better keeping this between you guys and try and talk it out between you.”
Aindrea: I think it’s combination of the two, personally. I think it’s listening without judgement…
Rich: Let me just clarify this scenario. This isn’t, you know, abuse. This is just standard, we have arguments. “He went to bed and didn’t lock the door,” I’m just saying it’s just a general kind of domestic argument that happened, and one of you goes to your friend’s and in this scenario you are the friend that gets unloaded to.
Aindrea: Yeah, I still think that it’s a combination of the two. It’s letting your friend get it off their chest, and then being like, “I’m sorry is this happening, I’m sorry you’re feeling that way, it doesn’t sound nice, but the only way you’re going to get through this is to go and talk to him or her about it. You need to talk to your partner,” That’s what we do, we encourage people to communicate. That’s what we do with each other. When you can tell something’s off with me… Sometimes I just don’t want to talk about it. Sometimes I just know there’s no point, I’ll get over it or it wasn’t that big of a deal, but you will not allow me to just sit on something that’s bothering me in our relationship, you can tell something’s off and you make me talk to you about it, and then we work it out and it’s fine. So I think communication is the only way to fix anything in a relationship, for the most part, because it will lead to then other actions that are needed. So yeah, I would say listening without giving out your judgments, and then, encouraging them to talk to your partner and if it’s something you’ve been through then “This is what I tried. When, you know my girlfriend or boyfriend was doing something maybe similar or that I can relate to,” or whatever. I think that’s the best way. If someone needs to talk, unless they’re being really disrespectful I don’t think they should be shut down.
Rich: Okay, so now you’re one of the people that does the running away. What do you do?
Aindrea: So what, we’ve had a fight and I need to get away? Where have I gone?
Rich: Wherever, you’ve gone to your parents. Again.
Aindrea: Again?
Rich: Again. This is frequent. This is the relationship where whenever there’s a problem, you run away to your parents.
Aindrea: You want to know what I should say?
Rich: I’m saying for the people listening to this and they’re in this relationship where one of them is in that position where there’s an argument and instead of saying, “Let’s resolve this” or “We’ll call off and then resolve it,” their default response is “I’m going to go to my parents.”
Aindrea: So you’re saying what should someone say in a situation or like…?
Rich: I’m saying, we spent the episode talking about why you should or shouldn’t do it, but for the people who are listening and thinking, “Oh shit this is me” or “This is my partner.”
Aindrea: I think if you feel you have to talk to your family or parents about it, first of all, take a step back and think why is that, “Why do I have to go to my mummy and my daddy, you know, to talk about my relationship?” They’re not writing the rule book. But if you feel you need to then do it in a respectful way, say “Hey, something’s going on.” If it’s sex related don’t go talk to your parents, I don’t know if I even need to say that but feel like it’s just a safe thing to say. But, do it in a respectful way. If you’ve been going to them for a long time then maybe they don’t have a good opinion of your partner, if this is all they hear. But just frame it in as positive of a way as you can, you know “This is happening, I don’t know how to deal with it, I want to make it right. I want this not to be an issue in my relationship or marriage.”
Rich: Something else that’s just occurred to me is when you think about these couples that you’ve looked to and think they seem to have their shit together, try and find out do they run away and, you know, rush to their parents when there’s an issue? I would bet a lot of money that they don’t in most cases. Every rule has an exception but I would say, generally speaking for the majority of them they’re solid enough in themselves that they resolve these things with each other. In good example couples I don’t think that’s typical behaviour.
Aindrea: No and I think, not to be judgmental or anything but you recognise things in other people that you don’t want for yourself. And I know that the couples who have the relationships that we know that we don’t want, do things like that. Storming off to parents’ houses, going into group chats and saying things about their partner, maybe they’ve been drinking a little bit, I don’t know I think in relationships that make me feel really glad for what we have, they do things like that.
Rich: And think also, what good do you expect to come from it? Do you go to your parents with the honest expectation that they’re going to say, “Here’s what you do.” Objectively and you go and do it and it makes things better, or do you hand on heart go there because you know they’re going to take your side and make you feel better.
Aindrea: Yeah and you know your parents, at least hopefully you do. I know that if I went to my mum and just started bitching about you, she loves a good bitch and she wouldn’t be bitching about you necessarily but she’ll be talking about, “Oh yeah men do this,” or “Your dad’s done this.” You know, she’d be right in there for just, “Let’s have a complain fest.” If I went to her and said, “How should I handle this?” or What do you think?” She would be completely different. So I think it’s how you present it; if you present it “I’m just here to bitch and moan and get it off my chest,” you know, misery loves company, people will commiserate. But if you go in there with an attitude of “This is what’s happening and I want to fix it,” you might actually get some useful help out of that.
Rich: And I think also, kind of touching on that, I think never go to someone for advice on something they haven’t also got. So, you know, no one’s going to come to me for advice on how to run a marathon because I can’t fucking run one.
Aindrea: Or parenting advice.
Rich: Yeah, I haven’t got kids, but there are things people would come to us, people listen to this podcast because this is something that we think we’ve got some value in.
Aindrea: You have a friend at work that comes to you for relationship advice.
Rich: I do, yeah, but the but the point is if you go to people for relationship advice think what are their credentials here. If they’ve been happily married for 34 years and you never hear them speak bad to each other, you never hear them criticise each other, yeah, they sound like a decent choice to go to and say “Hey, I need some help figuring this out,” and maybe they’ll say, “Keep it to yourself.” But if you’re going to someone who is always critical with their partner
Aindrea: Or divorced many times.
Rich: Yeah, they can’t keep anyone or their partner is not good enough for them and they just never really seem happy and, hopefully you can tell the two to two different people I’m talking about. That second person, why would you go to them and say “Hey, what would you recommend me do to have a healthy stable relationship?” because it doesn’t sound like they know how to have one either. So bear that in mind and you know, with all due respect parents come in all different shapes and sizes and some of them will be very very good at this kind of advice and some of them will be the kind of people that can’t manage the relationship properly or
Aindrea: Or they can’t stay partial
Rich: They can’t stay partial or they’re someone that always feel a victim, like “We’re always the victim, yeah you shouldn’t tolerate that.” Or they’ll just always take your side because you’re their pride and joy and “No one’s gonna hurt my baby.” So just really think properly what do you want to get from it and are they the right person and how are you framing it when you go to them, and if it’s your partner, let’s do that roleplay. I I always run off to my parents when we have an argument, you’ve heard this episode, “I’m going to talk to you about it,” what would you recommend people say?
Aindrea: What?
Rich: For people who are listening to this, and their partner runs off to the parents when there’s an argument, what would you say?
Aindrea: I guess, you know when they came back, I would first thing check “Are you okay?” I think you have every right to ask “Where have you been?” Not like interrogating “Were you talking about this?” but you know, “Okay, you were your parents’, did you mention that we were having some problems?” I think just try and find out what they said and if it’s something that you’re not comfortable with, hopefully they’ll be honest with you if they’ve cooled down enough, but say “Okay well, you know, I’m not really comfortable with that. I’m not saying in any way that you can’t talk about our relationship but how would you feel if the situation was reversed and I was doing this to you?” It’s going to be a hard conversation to have because you’ve just been fighting. So choose your timing, but in a perfect world that’s what you would do is just say, “I know that I can frustrate you and I’m not perfect but I think that when things like this happen, unless you’re really desperate, let’s try and keep them private and work it out between the two of us.”
Rich: Maybe say, like, “It would mean a lot to me,” frame it so you’re not accusing them, but you’re framing it in a way that makes them feel like
Aindrea: What they need from you.
Rich: Yeah, “It would mean a lot to me if you didn’t do that because I just worry that if people only see the worst of me or our relationship,” whatever it might be, but don’t frame it “You have to stop doing that, that’s not good enough. What kind of man baby are you?” Frame it in a “I would prefer that we really handle this ourselves maturely,” and see what the response is to that because if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years it’s, it doesn’t matter what you say, it’s entirely how you say it. If you go in there loaded and very confrontational, or you can go in there and do it in a “You’d be doing me a favour.” I think people are quite inclined to respond positively because the love is still there. They’ll probably respond and say, “Oh, I didn’t know you felt that way, I’m not doing it to hurt you, it’s just kind of what I need, it’s how I’ve always been” then you say, “Well, okay, well, maybe we can think about how else we can make you get to that point without going to those people. Do you need an hour to cool down by yourself, if I leave you alone for an hour, will that help you calm down.” “Oh yeah, maybe, I didn’t think about that,” or “No it won’t, I need someone I unload to.” “Okay and…” you just have a conversation, like a game of tennis it’s back and forth, and you hopefully will get to a point where you say, “Okay, well, we’ll do this” or “We don’t know what the resolution is yet but I promise you that I’ll try not to do that next time and I’ll see what works,” you know.
Aindrea: So I think we’ve covered that pretty well but there’s also another side to this of keeping your family and friends out of your relationship that I want to cover quickly before we before we wrap up. And that’s, you know, maybe you’re not running to people, maybe people are butting into your relationship and telling you how to treat each other. And we all know that there are overbearing parents, overprotective friends who, you know, are kind of, “Well, you guys are…”
Rich: You mean the people that give you the advice without you asking for it?
Aindrea: Not even necessarily that. That’s one thing, but also people who are just always trying to get involved and maybe in the time that you have together. Friends I think do this more than family, friends invite themselves along, you know, I think just people getting all up in your grill, essentially, how do you think people should handle that? So let’s start with overbearing parents where, for instance, it doesn’t have to be your relationship, like parents who come over and maybe criticise how you’re running your household, or, “Oh really, you should be doing things this way,”
Rich: So I think it depends. Are they saying it because they think, “We think this would help” and to you it’s water off a duck’s back and you think, “Okay, yeah, I’ll just nod and smile and they’ll be leaving soon,” or is it someone who comes over every week like “I told you to do that why have you not done that?” They’re two very different things and I think in the first scenario you can just say, “Oh yeah, that’s interesting, I’ll bear that in mind.” The second one I think you’re gonna have to be a bit more, put your foot down.
Aindrea: But what about little things where people are constantly correcting you?
Rich: Like what?
Aindrea: Well, well, I don’t want to be specific. But, like, people coming around and like, “Oh, why have you done this” or “Oh you shouldn’t do that.”
Rich: Like “Why have you decorated like that?”
Aindrea: Stuff like that or like, a small example, your mum, a theme is every time she comes over she comments on the fact that the keys to the windows and then she moves them and then I don’t know where they are.
Rich: Oh yeah, she’s worried about safety.
Aindrea: Yeah but she just, every time and we’ve said “No, this is how we do it,” but then every time she comes over, and that’s fine, she’s only doing that. But I’m talking about, maybe they’re commenting on how you do the laundry or how you dry your dishes. I just know that there are a lot of in-laws who do that.
Rich: Yeah, so I’d just say, “Well, look, that’s just how we do it. We don’t comment on how you run your house, this is how we do ours, you’re welcome to not come around anymore,” say it in a fairly jovial way that last line perhaps.
Aindrea: I don’t think that’s needed necessarily.
Rich: But just say yeah, “This is just what works for us, we’re quite happy.” I think a favourite for me is, “I’ve got other things to worry about than that.” And then, as always, it depends on how they respond to that. They’re either going to say “Yep, I was just commenting,” or they’re going to double down like “No you need to do this!”
Aindrea: And then it’s “You can leave my house now.” One time your mum came shopping with me and she had a comment about everything I picked, like “You really should take something from the bottom of the freezer. You really shouldn’t take the meat off the front,” and just like “Oh my god you’re never going shopping with me.” Those are little things.
Rich: That’s not critical like, “Oh I don’t like the colour of your living room,” that’s just like, well, she’s always been that way with the shopping because it’s like the stuff’s fresher or colder at the back.
Aindrea: Yeah, I know. Those are just little examples, they’re not big problems.
Rich: You just have to decide. Try and decide how they’re going to respond to this. And is it worth the potential aggravation of it, you know, and if it’s something that’s repeated and it’s frequent and you just can’t deal with it then just say, “Look, I appreciate your input here but we’re happy with this, and it’s just not a concern of mine.”
Aindrea: Yeah, and I think boundaries are also really important if you have parents who are starting to really interfere or even stir trouble. I mean, some parents will tell your partner what you say about… some people are conniving or they just don’t even realise the implications of what they’re saying.
Rich: Well I suppose this goes back to the earlier conversation about keeping parents and friends out, there are parents and friends who don’t like your partner, and you may not know they don’t like them but that influences what they say to you. Like, oh, you know, “They’re not right for you, you need to reconsider this relationship,” and they can plant seeds of doubt that shouldn’t really be there, and they’re using you coming to them to manipulate how you feel about your partner, so be wary of that.
Aindrea: What I thought you were gonna say, which is also true is, if you’re going to them venting about your partner, complaining, they could then pass that on. So it’s really important to set some boundaries and just make sure that you’re doing what you can to protect your relationship. Keep your family, you know, not locked out but just know when there’s times to say, “Okay, this isn’t a place where they need to be.”
Rich: Yeah, and then look back a bit. Think “What kind of advice have they given me?” If in hindsight you can see what they said was manipulative or it was negative, then maybe you think, “Okay, I won’t do that anymore.” If it’s generally been very helpful and your partner knows that you’ve spoken to them and they think actually it was good advice then by all means carry on. It’s not a “never ever do this” but it’s “Be very careful and be very aware of the potential toxic environment it can create.”
Aindrea: Yeah and just think no matter how much you feel like you hate your partner in the moment, you don’t actually hate them, because you wouldn’t be with them and just think, “Am I gonna feel bad for saying this?”
Rich: Yeah, do they deserve the potential reputation damage?
Aindrea: Maybe in the moment you feel like they do, but at the end of the day you chose this person, you love them, they’re probably not doing this on purpose, or they’re going through something that’s making them short fused or stressed or whatever. And you know, they love you, they don’t want to hurt you. So try and deal with it with them, really I think is what it comes down to.
Rich: And sort of as a tangent to this – I think we’re at the end of the episode – we’ve got a very exciting guest coming up, not to give any details away. I think some people may know who it is. And I think along the lines of strong relationships and dealing with conflict
Aindrea: And not being a dick to each other.
Rich: Not being a dick to each other. We’ve got a very exciting guest coming up so if you’re not a regular listener to us, make sure you tune in. I don’t know when it’s going to be yet, I think the near future but probably not next week.
Aindrea: Maybe we should save it for our special 50th episode.
Rich: Maybe. Also, on the note of guests, if anyone has any people they would like us to talk to, think would be good guests here or we would be good guests on their show, let us know, we’re always open to ideas. And we’re also always looking to talk to couples who, in the long distance sphere if you’re like Lawrence and Nyla and Sam and Jared, if you’ve closed the distance or you see yourself as a success story, or maybe we can have people on who need some advice.
Aindrea: Like put us in the spotlight? That sounds scary.
Rich: Yeah, it is scary. Yeah, so yeah, guests and stuff, we’re always willing and open to that so feel free to let us know. Is there anything else we need to say?
Aindrea: My birthday is next week, so all presents can please be addressed to… Nah just kidding.
Rich: We have a P.O. box in our email.
Aindrea: Oh yeah!
Rich: If you’re not on our email list get on our email list, you can sign up on our website, and then you’ll get the P.O. box that you can send Aindrea’s presents to. Only good presents. What, like a value of £1,000 or more?
Aindrea: No, I’m not picky. Anything nice and thoughtful.
Rich: Okay.
Aindrea: Be good to one another.