Blaming In-Laws

We know how important it is as a parent to connect with your child in order to establish a healthy attachment, create safety, and encourage them to talk to you when they’re facing unhealthy issues or addictions. 

So when it’s your partner that’s struggling with sexual addiction, it’s common to blame their parents or be frustrated with their parents, looking for justice or validation for the issues you’re now facing.

We’re taking this opportunity to talk about some of the common thoughts our brains offer when we’re feeling threatened, when we’re facing sexual addiction or progressing through the stages of healing after infidelity, and shed some light on new ways to interpret the impact of the relationship between us and our partner’s parents.

Common thought #1: They’re not on my side

Often we feel that they’re not on our side because they’re not validating us or supporting us in this situation. We may even feel a sense of secondary betrayal with our in-laws because we feel like they’re siding with the one who acted out and discounting us. 

You may feel sad or angry or hurt because it doesn’t make sense to you. You feel like you’re being kicked out of the tribe, or that your integrity is being questioned when you don’t feel that’s warranted. And that’s totally, 100% valid and real to feel that way. 

And yet, to the point of connection and attachment, if your in-laws are putting you aside and connecting more to their child, as the primary caregivers that’s exactly where they need to be. 

Common thought #2: They should be supporting me

When you’re in the midst of navigating infidelity or sexual addictions, you’re desperate for anyone to fix the situation, fix your partner, fix the pain, and make you feel better. You’ll have all kinds of thoughts about how your in-laws should be taking responsibility and ideas about how they should behave and the actions they should take to right the wrongs.

But so often we find that the right thing in this situation is for in-laws to hold onto the connection with their child. 

It doesn’t make the acting out okay or give more credit to his pain than yours. It means they’re keeping the door open so that if he’s ready to connect and heal some attachment wounds, then they’ve created that space to do so.

You’ll Learn:

• The role of mom and dad in supporting their adult children
• Why it’s so important to heal those primary attachments in addiction
• How to work through feelings of betrayal from in laws
• Ways to see the relationship between your in laws and partner more compassionately
• When letting go of the need to be validated shows you how to set boundaries with in laws