Praying for Untangling

Some parents have experienced the disruptive impact that a new son-in-law or daughter-in-law can have on an extended family relationship.

Doyle Roth says that impact should not be discounted or minimized. What happens with this toxic person that now is affecting the entire family with their negative energy? You know, you have someone that is like this come into the family dining room and they suck all the positive oxygen out of the room in about three seconds. So the questions become, what do we do when we're in a situation like that? This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com.

What can we do or what should we do as parents if our son or daughter has married someone who is toxic, is disrupting the family dynamic? We'll talk more about that with Doyle Roth today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. I came home from elementary school one day. And you can remember this.

Well, this is one of those days you remember. It was a Tuesday afternoon and I dropped my books on the kitchen counter and said hi to my mom. And she said, well, your sister got married today.

So that's one of those things that kind of gets your attention. Like she eloped? My oldest sister had been seeing a guy who my parents did not approve of. And he had asked for their blessing and they had said, we can't give it to you right now because he was unemployed, hadn't been to college. I mean, they were just looking at the pragmatic reality of your love is not going to sustain you when the bills come.

And we'd like to see a little more diligence. So they had said, no, we can't give our blessing right now. And my sister and her boyfriend went to somebody at the church and said, will you marry us? And that person said, yeah, knowing that mom and dad did not approve. And I'd go back to that person at the church and say, hang on. Right.

Yeah. That was the beginning of what was a tumultuous relationship. What my parents saw, I think, were probably some I don't want to say they were just superficial flaws that they saw, because I don't know any deeper than what kind of job does he have? What kind of future does he have?

I don't know what character issues they might have been concerned about. But I have another friend who his daughter met her husband when both of them were in rehab. And I remember that dad looking and going, what's this future going to be for both of them?

Right. It's scary, isn't it? And we're talking about those hard situations that moms and dads face when you look at your kids who you love and you see them making choices about marriage, about relationships.

And there are yellow flags or red flags flying. Maybe you see them early. Maybe you don't see them until after the I do's are over. Well, one of those mistakes is sitting right beside you. Me, her dad and dad barred me from dating his daughter. Really said you will not date my daughter. And he told and you will not date. He said, I like Dave Wilson as an athlete.

My dad was a coach, he said. But I don't like his reputation as a guy to date my daughter. So you will not be dating him. He's going to be a senior in college. You're going to be a freshman in college. And he's at a marrying age.

And so I'm not going to let this take place. And did you say, OK, daddy? I said, Dad, he has a new reputation. He's given his life to Jesus. He's like a new person.

You wouldn't even recognize him. And he said, well, we'll see about that. He came around and he did come around. He ended up asking the coach of the football team. He said, what do you think of Dave Wilson? Would you let your daughter date him? And he said, absolutely.

Yeah, he was a good coach. Well, we got a friend and he made fifty dollars to say that to your dad. We've got a friend joining us this week to talk about how we navigate these.

This is a great topic. It really is. Doyle Roth is with us on family life today. Doyle, welcome back.

Thank you so very much. Doyle is a rancher. He's an entrepreneur.

He lives on the front range in Colorado. He's been with us on family life today before. He's written a new book called Toxic Sons and Daughters in Law. Untangling Difficult Relationships.

We've already talked about the fact that you were that difficult son in law. When you married Nancy, fifty five years, seven fifty seven years ago, you are now the father of four, the grandfather of twelve and the great grandfather of six. Great legacy. Wow. Isn't that that sounds old.

And this is a subject that I know you you've stepped into with a little bit of fear and trembling, but you've been doing counseling with couples for decades now. Yes. And these themes have been showing up over and over again. Yes, it has. It's showing up more and more. And I think some of the reasons for that are that families are breaking up more when you think in terms of the divorce rates, both in Christian and non-Christian circles. And those kids that are growing up there don't have a real good understanding about what marriage is going to look like. There can be a lot of issues in those families. I think they bring a lot of this baggage into the relationship with their wives or husbands, as the case may be, and certainly bring it in for moms and dads in law.

And they have to deal with this. They come with a lot of emotional anger, frustration with their previous parenting. It seems like to me there's a lot of that that just transfers over into the marriage. Well, and we should not minimize the fact that most of them are coming into marriage after having become sexually active with one another.

Absolutely. No, that's right. Maybe with a history of sexual activity in their life. And there is no way to overestimate the significance of that kind of baggage coming into a marriage and what that can do.

No, that's right. And I do a lot of premarital counseling, as you, Dave, you and Ann do. And I see in Christian young couples a lot of that sexual activity that lays a bad foundation for them to grow in.

I see a lot of Christian young couples where one of them is new in the Lord because families put a lot of pressure. You can't marry this person because they're unsaved and all of a sudden they make a profession and then deny that profession just literally months. I had one about six months after the marriage said I don't believe any of that stuff anyway.

So there's reason for us as parents to be very concerned, careful about these matters. Doyle, I got hit with a question at one of our weekend to remember marriage getaways. We had just done a session for the premarried couples in the room and this couple came up to me and they said, we've got a dilemma. Both of us are believers. My parents, this is the wife saying her parents were not believers. And her parents had said to her, if you marry him, we will cut you out of the family.

You're not welcome for Christmas. We won't be there when the babies are born. It's you're making a choice.

It's either our family or it's him. And they said, what do we do? I'll tell you what I told them.

But let's put you in that room with that couple coming up to you. How would you have counseled them? Well, that's manipulation and control on the parents part.

I would never do that. I think that was putting themselves in the wrong place there. God is awfully small.

God is bigger than that. And they have to understand that as parents, that God may be doing something great in my kids lives that I'm not really understanding right now. And parents do get very controlling, manipulative, things like that.

And that's where the problems come later on with in-laws. And yet, you know, control is often out of fear because we're afraid. And so we, you know, we try to take care of that by control.

So they're still afraid. You're saying don't control. What can they do? Well, they can pray.

Yeah, they can pray. They got to have a big God. I mean, our God is large and in charge, right? And as soon as he gets small and we get big because we're putting these limits and these boundaries on things, we're in the we're in the wrong place spiritually.

We've got it. We've got a great big God. And I'd rather trust him than trust my own judgment. I looked at that couple and I said, first of all, you need to ask yourself the question, is there something that even my unbelieving parents are seeing about this relationship that we're blinded to?

Because it's possible that your parents who love you and know you may see something here. And you've got to pull back and say, is there anything that gives us pause about our relationship with one another? And then I said, and then you have to count the very real cost. You have to imagine it's five years from now and you've just had your baby and you can't call and say it's a boy because they won't take the call.

And you have to calculate that in. I said, now it's the reality is it may be that your parents are being controlling and manipulative, just like Doyle said. But that's a cost you have to count because you're making a choice today with the possibility that it's not going to get any better than this. And so are you ready to cut yourself off from your legacy?

That's a painful decision to make. And I had a chance, you know, this was you got five minutes to have these conversations and you wanted to know, have they been this way about other relationships you've had? What are the concerns that they've seen or that they've expressed? How have you tried to talk to them about?

You want all of those kinds of diagnostics. But I wanted this couple to know if this is what you believe God's calling you to in marriage, there may be a cost to it. You've got to follow God and be obedient to that.

But count the cost before you do. And I think a lot of couples, especially if we're talking before marriage, if they hear somebody, maybe a parent or somebody, offer caution, what do they think? They think what we all think. Oh, you know, especially, well, I see a little bit of that, too, but I'll change them. No, right. You're right, Dave. Just a little.

It's not that big. I'll change them once we get married. Talk about that. Does that happen? Do they change? No, absolutely. No, change comes very hard.

Period. No, I think that is something that couples often explain to their parents why we want to move ahead with this. He's just recently or she's just recently become a believer. Yes, he's got a little bit of a drinking problem. But when we get married, it'll be different. Or he's on this particular drug or something. It's going to be different.

No, he only does a little bit of pornography. And that'll all end when we're finally married. All of those things are excuses.

And no, they're they're inviting all sorts of troubles. And they say things like, yeah, but he's promised me. He's made a vow to me. And one of the things we always try to help pre-married couples, and this is true for married as well, is a person's past is more important than their promise. It really is because you think, oh, the past is there, but he made a promise. And again, promises are important. Vows are significant. But you can't underestimate if there's a past.

Look at it with a pattern. If you see a pattern, I've said to young women, pay careful attention to how your boyfriend treats his mother, because someday he will treat you the same way he treats his mother. If he's kind to her and helps her out and and supports her, he'll do that with you. But if he's like, oh, Mom, leave me alone.

Why do you have to? He's going to be that way with you. Don't you think that's true? Oh, definitely true.

Definitely true. But what happens when he turns against them and starts limiting their involvement with kids? What happens with this toxic person that now is affecting the entire family with their negative energy? You know, you have someone that is like this come into the family dining room and they suck all the positive oxygen out of the room in about three seconds.

Yes. The whole dynamic of the family has changed. The whole dynamic of the family. So the questions become, what do we do when we're in a situation like that? Because that's what's hard. You know, there's tons of books written on whether a mother and father should do this or that.

There's enough to fill a landfill in those things. There are so many books like that. Mothers and fathers play an incredible role. That is true, but they can become very legalistic. They can, through fear and intimidation, they can control their kids. And that's part of their parenting model. But when this child actually is in my family, acting like that, what do I do when he comes in and the siblings detest him? The siblings don't care for him. Or the siblings don't want to be there. They don't want to be around him. Yeah, what do you tell those families? No, that's where this book lives, is trying to get the family together to encourage the siblings to trial to, Dave, smile, keep your mouth shut, and pray.

Because the more you speak, the worse this is going to get. You said you wrote this book for those parents who are facing these kinds of situations to coach them on how they can be like Jesus in these situations and how they can go against what may be their fleshly impulses to want to control or to manipulate or to engineer or to fix everything. That's a difficult place, and yet you go back to Genesis 2, 24, where all of this gets started, and the first thing the Bible says about marriage is a man shall leave his father and mother. This is something we talk about at our Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaways. I had a counselor tell me one time that he thought you could trace 90% of marriage problems back to a failure to leave on the part of the son or the daughter, that some emotional or financial or some kind of a mystical tie to that family of origin was undermining and sabotaging this new marriage. And I've watched that and seen how family history is so significant in influencing what the dynamic of a new marriage relationship is. You've seen that, haven't you?

Oh, absolutely, yes. And it's to your point about what the past has been is more significant than what the promise is. Yeah, I know when Ann and I were first married, I don't know how long this went on, but every time we would go see her parents, who I love. I was the toxic guy that her dad said, do not marry, and yet over the years, and that happened very soon in our marriage, we became almost best friends. And he did see Christ has literally changed this young man's life, and he's somebody I want in my family. So he became my dad. I never had a dad, and he became very close. But this leave part was really easy for me because I came from a broken family with no dad and alcoholic parents.

I'm out of here. You know, I love them, but I can't wait to start a new life. It was not so easy for her because Ann came from a wonderful family. And so we would go visit that family, and her brothers are great, and it's wonderful. We get in the car to drive home, and we fought 15 hours. Every single time we would be with my parents, and it wasn't that often because we didn't live in the same hometown. We'd come back, and I was mortified over how Dave treated my parents. And I would say things like, you can't treat my mom like that. You have to be nice to her. And why did you do this? And why do you have to up my brothers all the time?

It would be a fight every time. And none of that was true because I was perfect. I mean, I got to a point where I didn't want to see them, even though I loved them, because of the drive home. And here's what I felt.

She hasn't left. They're still more important to her than I am. I cared what they thought of me and you.

And of course, I couldn't see that I was being rude and being sarcastic, and that's what I was doing. And I was probably jealous of her relationship with them. And so I kept saying, you haven't left them. And that's what Bob said. It was a real thing in our marriage that I'm your number one priority now, not your mom and dad and your brothers. And I would be like, you are my number one priority, but why do you have to act like that when you're with them? So the question is, you know, as a parent or even as the son and daughter-in-law, how do you do what Bob said? How do you truly leave and cleave?

This is the question of the century out of Genesis 2. Well, I think that is an emotional thing that you have to decide, just like you said. And you are first, but that doesn't excuse the behavior that you're demonstrating to my mom and dad.

Thank you! Yes! And you're being a knucklehead if you're going to treat them that way. Doyle is now Pam's new best friend.

I like Doyle. So back off. This conversation is over. No, but you make a great point.

I think that jealousy is one of the big factors in families that are successful, like yours, Ann, where people wish they had a family like that and the husband is reacting to them, trying to pull them away from there, because he's insecure, Dave, or whatever. I mean, it just works like that. And that makes the transition for leave and cleave even more difficult, because he's trying to pull rather than just invite, and it just happens normally. Did you do that, Doyle, with your wife, Nancy? Yes, I didn't have a leave and cleave issue.

Right. And I didn't have a jealousy issue with her and her family. I was just a knucklehead like Dave. I just wanted my way. I was a self-righteous, self-centered young man that wanted my own way, and I wanted my wife, Nancy, to be with me. And that was probably more insecure, Ann, than anything. And that just created an awful thing for my poor mother and father-in-law.

It was terrible. You know, for Mary Ann and me, we would drive home from early visits to my folks, and Mary Ann would say, you're different when we're with your parents. Yes. And this was not with her parents, with my parents. Oh, with your parents. Yeah, what she was pointing out was when I would go back home, I would start to act like I had acted growing up.

I'm falling into patterns. I'm back in the house. I'm back with my mom and dad. I'm back to acting like I'm their son rather than acting like I'm her husband. When I'm away from my parents, when I'm with her, I'm her husband. But I'd go back home, and I'd start to be their son again. So I didn't have any emotional problem leaving my parents, but there are still strings and ties and patterns and habits that we don't even know are there, because I'd say, I'm no different. And she'd go, yeah, you are. You act this way, you do that, and I'd started to see, yeah, this is just ingrained in me.

It's subconscious. I didn't know I was doing it, but when she brought it to the surface, I could see it, and I could recognize when I go home, I'm not going home as their son anymore. I still respect them and honor them. That's appropriate for me to do.

But I'm now her husband, and that's the priority relationship. That's right. And sometimes when they go into the home like you're speaking, they are more comfortable in that environment, and they play with their siblings. They go out and shoot baskets. And in essence, they ignore their wives, right? They ignore them.

Our daughter-in-laws complain about their husbands. They come back, and they're playing video games again, ignoring the wives. They're being brothers again. They're being brothers again. One of the things that you say in your book, which I thought was so good, you talk about a time for prayer for parents, for the parents of these in-laws.

You say, just like going slow while breaking a horse. I don't read that every day in a book. I like this.

It's the same with sons and daughters-in-law. You must move patiently, slowly, and respectfully, or the job will be increasingly more difficult. And this is when you get into saying, one, pray for Christ-like response to your feelings and emotions. Two, pray for a positive attitude. Three, pray for patience. Four, pray for protection. Five, pray for heart change.

And six, pray for strength to trust God. Those are good, practical steps that we can take. I think we get so fearful of losing our kids.

No, right. Of losing our grandkids that we kind of take things out of perspective. And we disconnect from our spiritual convictions. We're Christian people. We're people who really trust the Lord. We do pray. God is bigger than our events.

He's the one that controls all those things. And we leave prayer out of these things, and we turn into sort of spiritual monsters, in a way. We get angry. We get frustrated.

Our God gets smaller, and we get bigger. And it just doesn't work like that when you're in a situation with a very difficult son or daughter-in-law. It just doesn't work. It's what you say in the book. It isn't pray one day. Right. It's pray patiently.

It's going to take a long time. I mean, your story is your in-laws gave you grace. My story is Anne's parents loved me. That's right. Gave me grace. For years. For years. Yeah, I was going to say, I did not change in a year. It was close to a decade, probably.

Maybe Anne would say two decades. Right. But, you know, I was still sort of a jerk when I get around. And I think at the heart of it, you said I was insecure, and I was jealous. I never had this family.

And instead of relishing and cherishing it, I was feeling like it was Anne's fault. And they prayed, and they loved and gave grace. I don't remember them ever once saying, you're being a jerk. Right. And I'm not saying they should have said the truth sometimes. But they just patiently watched God change me.

That's right. And so I would say to the parent, don't give up. No, don't give up.

Just keep getting on your knees. And they never critiqued you to me. Ever.

Not one time did they say something negative about Dave. Had they at the beginning, I would have jumped on that. That would have been hard. You know, the enemy's always looking for a foothold.

That's right. And so if they would have said something negative, I would have probably gone back and thought, yeah, he does do that. And then it could have led me to the place of maybe I shouldn't have married him. And that's the thing that the enemy can do as well. If the parents have said something negative, the kids later, if they're having difficulty, they're probably thinking, my parents were probably right. I shouldn't have married them.

And that can put us in a tough spot. That's exactly right. This is where I think to have some ongoing coaching, to have a book like the one you've written, Doyle, is almost essential for us as parents-in-law, especially if we're facing anything challenging like this, to be able to be pointed to this is how you pray, and this is what you say, and this is what you don't say. We're making your book available this week to Family Life Today listeners who can help with the donation to support the ongoing work of this ministry.

Doyle's book is called Toxic Sons and Daughters-in-Law, Untangling Difficult Relationships. And the book is our gift to you if you can help extend the reach of Family Life with a donation today. Your donations go to help cover the cost of producing and syndicating, making this program available in all kinds of channels through all kinds of outlets. People are now hearing Family Life Today as a podcast on the Family Life mobile app. They're listening to Family Life Today by telling Alexa to play Family Life Today.

Many of you are still listening on your local radio station. You make all of this possible along with the extended work of Family Life when you make a donation today. And again, we'd love to send you a copy of Doyle Roth's book, Toxic Sons and Daughters-in-Law as our gift when you donate. You can donate online at familylifetoday.com, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. Again, the website is familylifetoday.com, or call 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. Be sure to ask for your copy of the book, Toxic Sons and Daughters-in-Law by Doyle Roth when you donate to support the ministry.

Now tomorrow we want to dig into whether we should try to confront a son-in-law or a daughter-in-law who is disrupting family harmony. Doyle Roth will be with us again. I hope you can be here as well. I want to thank our engineer, Keith Lynch. We got some help again today from Bruce Gough. And on behalf of our entire broadcast production team and our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.