Hi everyone,
So I'm about to get married to the love of my life, my fiancee whom I have dated for four years. We love each other to death and are very eager to get married. However, there has always been a big issue with our relationship that was always a source of conflict between us...that is that she did not like my family. The reason why is because I had to support my family (my mom and my sister) at a young age and accumulated quite a bit of debt doing so and she feels that they have controlled and manipulated me my entire life and wants me to be completely independent from them.
She comes from a background where her parents were extremely caring and loving to her and paid for most her expenses and continues to support her when she needs it and that's what she thinks parents should be for their children. For myself, on the other hand, my father passed away when I was a junior in high school and my unemployed mother who could not speak a lick of english who eventually developed severe depression and end-stage liver disease. My sister, on the other hand, was deeply immersed in the drug/party scene and never really was home at all, I quickly had to become the man of the household and help take care of both my mom and sister. My dad didn't leave much behind and so we had to get by on meager means and received as much government aid as we could and lived in poverty for many years and accumulated lots of debt. I finally was able to graduate from a decent university and get hired at a decent paying engineering job and have been helping out my sister and mother ever since (who are not believers) in the hopes that my kindness and love to them will lead them to know Christ.
Initially it seemed to work as my sister no longer does drugs or hangs out with any of her old friends and showed interest in the gospel and wanting to become a christian...she has also since become a mother of two daughters and works a full-time job supporting her family as a single mother. My mom on the other hand continues to remain disabled and lives with me. Neither of them, however, to this day are christian and I have made it one of my life goals to evangelize to them through how I live my life and show love to them.
I have explained that background to her many times but it doesn't seem to effect or move her at all. To her, she just sees me as a victim. She imposes her perfect family standard on my family and looks at my family in disdain and disgust even though they have done nothing but try to be pleasant to her since we have started dating. She doesn't like them not for what they have done to her but how they have raised and treated me throughout my life.
To complicate things further, the last 2 years I struggled with an unknown illness that left me severely disabled for an extended period of time. During that time, she came to my bedside almost daily and took care of me in ways she thought that my family should have done.
Before I got engaged I asked my sister to move in to help take care of my mom as I have full intentions of weaning my family off of me and focusing my attention fully to my future wife. I didn't want to have my fiancee have to move in with us and so I made a deal with my sister that she would help take care of mom and I would send some fixed financial support each month.
My fiancee still isnt' comfortable with that as she wants us to save up to buy a house right away and that financial aid will delay that goal by a good couple years.
There were many times where she threatened to break up with me because she told me I could never cut off my family and I could never continue to enable them. Now we are engaged and 3 weeks away from our wedding and her relationship with my family is the worst it has ever been. The latest incident happened as we were moving stuff out of my family's house where I lived with them for a couple months before I was to move into our future apartment. There were some things that we shared together that I technically paid for (TV, vacuum, coffee table, etc.). However since they were things that the family shared use of and we were much better off financially, I thought that we can leave those things and get for ourselves some new things to replace those. However, my fiancee did not agree and went as far to come with me one night and demanded me to remove the tv from the wall in front of my sister, mother, and niece and demanded me to venmo them the amount it took me to buy the parts to remove the tv (roughly $5-6). My family got really uncomfortable and went upstairs as everything unfolded. Then my sister, texted me from her room that she was very upset at my fiancee and that what she did was really rude and unnecessary. She also said that she shouldn't come over again if she's gonna act like that in front of them. Unfortunately, my fiancee was on my labtop at that moment that was linked to my phone and read everything my sister said...she promptly responded that she didn't like her either and that her parents didn't like her at all and that she would not come back. And this is how it remains a weeks later.
My sister has since apologized but my fiancee is reluctant to do so. I sought counsel from our pastor and he told me that my fiancee needs to deal with the hatred in her heart towards my family before moving on. She is justified in feeling upset and being disappointed at my family for their actions toward me but that never means we treat them badly as christians. Aside from the fact that they did anything, we shouldn't treat anyone with hatred no matter what they have done because we are to show the love of Christ in our actions regardless of how they treat us. In this case, my family didn't necessarily ever treat her bad but she continues to build up ire for them based on how they continue to treat me. It seems like any gesture that I make to remotely try to help my family or do them a favor, she gets angry and upset because she feels that my sister needs to learn how to take care of things on their own.
After counseling from my pastor, my fiance has decided to apologize to my sister...but I don't feel like her heart is in it. She agreed but there was no emotion in her face, she made sure to mention the things she is NOT apologizing for including the fact that she does not like her and that she is not willing to go back to her house to meet up to apologize and it needs to be at a local coffee shop and no longer than 10 mins. Furthermore, she demands that if we are to get married, I am not allowed to see them more than once a month and doesn't want our children (if God blesses us with them) to spend time with my side of the family.
At this point, I'm not sure what to do...I'm supposed to schedule a meetup with my sister but it doesn't seem like my fiancee's heart is in it. How is this gonna work? Will she hate my family forever? Do i need to cut them off as part of the "leave and cleave" principle of scripture?
Any advice would be appreciated.
So I'm about to get married to the love of my life, my fiancee whom I have dated for four years. We love each other to death and are very eager to get married. However, there has always been a big issue with our relationship that was always a source of conflict between us...that is that she did not like my family. The reason why is because I had to support my family (my mom and my sister) at a young age and accumulated quite a bit of debt doing so and she feels that they have controlled and manipulated me my entire life and wants me to be completely independent from them.
She comes from a background where her parents were extremely caring and loving to her and paid for most her expenses and continues to support her when she needs it and that's what she thinks parents should be for their children. For myself, on the other hand, my father passed away when I was a junior in high school and my unemployed mother who could not speak a lick of english who eventually developed severe depression and end-stage liver disease. My sister, on the other hand, was deeply immersed in the drug/party scene and never really was home at all, I quickly had to become the man of the household and help take care of both my mom and sister. My dad didn't leave much behind and so we had to get by on meager means and received as much government aid as we could and lived in poverty for many years and accumulated lots of debt. I finally was able to graduate from a decent university and get hired at a decent paying engineering job and have been helping out my sister and mother ever since (who are not believers) in the hopes that my kindness and love to them will lead them to know Christ.
Initially it seemed to work as my sister no longer does drugs or hangs out with any of her old friends and showed interest in the gospel and wanting to become a christian...she has also since become a mother of two daughters and works a full-time job supporting her family as a single mother. My mom on the other hand continues to remain disabled and lives with me. Neither of them, however, to this day are christian and I have made it one of my life goals to evangelize to them through how I live my life and show love to them.
I have explained that background to her many times but it doesn't seem to effect or move her at all. To her, she just sees me as a victim. She imposes her perfect family standard on my family and looks at my family in disdain and disgust even though they have done nothing but try to be pleasant to her since we have started dating. She doesn't like them not for what they have done to her but how they have raised and treated me throughout my life.
To complicate things further, the last 2 years I struggled with an unknown illness that left me severely disabled for an extended period of time. During that time, she came to my bedside almost daily and took care of me in ways she thought that my family should have done.
Before I got engaged I asked my sister to move in to help take care of my mom as I have full intentions of weaning my family off of me and focusing my attention fully to my future wife. I didn't want to have my fiancee have to move in with us and so I made a deal with my sister that she would help take care of mom and I would send some fixed financial support each month.
My fiancee still isnt' comfortable with that as she wants us to save up to buy a house right away and that financial aid will delay that goal by a good couple years.
There were many times where she threatened to break up with me because she told me I could never cut off my family and I could never continue to enable them. Now we are engaged and 3 weeks away from our wedding and her relationship with my family is the worst it has ever been. The latest incident happened as we were moving stuff out of my family's house where I lived with them for a couple months before I was to move into our future apartment. There were some things that we shared together that I technically paid for (TV, vacuum, coffee table, etc.). However since they were things that the family shared use of and we were much better off financially, I thought that we can leave those things and get for ourselves some new things to replace those. However, my fiancee did not agree and went as far to come with me one night and demanded me to remove the tv from the wall in front of my sister, mother, and niece and demanded me to venmo them the amount it took me to buy the parts to remove the tv (roughly $5-6). My family got really uncomfortable and went upstairs as everything unfolded. Then my sister, texted me from her room that she was very upset at my fiancee and that what she did was really rude and unnecessary. She also said that she shouldn't come over again if she's gonna act like that in front of them. Unfortunately, my fiancee was on my labtop at that moment that was linked to my phone and read everything my sister said...she promptly responded that she didn't like her either and that her parents didn't like her at all and that she would not come back. And this is how it remains a weeks later.
My sister has since apologized but my fiancee is reluctant to do so. I sought counsel from our pastor and he told me that my fiancee needs to deal with the hatred in her heart towards my family before moving on. She is justified in feeling upset and being disappointed at my family for their actions toward me but that never means we treat them badly as christians. Aside from the fact that they did anything, we shouldn't treat anyone with hatred no matter what they have done because we are to show the love of Christ in our actions regardless of how they treat us. In this case, my family didn't necessarily ever treat her bad but she continues to build up ire for them based on how they continue to treat me. It seems like any gesture that I make to remotely try to help my family or do them a favor, she gets angry and upset because she feels that my sister needs to learn how to take care of things on their own.
After counseling from my pastor, my fiance has decided to apologize to my sister...but I don't feel like her heart is in it. She agreed but there was no emotion in her face, she made sure to mention the things she is NOT apologizing for including the fact that she does not like her and that she is not willing to go back to her house to meet up to apologize and it needs to be at a local coffee shop and no longer than 10 mins. Furthermore, she demands that if we are to get married, I am not allowed to see them more than once a month and doesn't want our children (if God blesses us with them) to spend time with my side of the family.
At this point, I'm not sure what to do...I'm supposed to schedule a meetup with my sister but it doesn't seem like my fiancee's heart is in it. How is this gonna work? Will she hate my family forever? Do i need to cut them off as part of the "leave and cleave" principle of scripture?
Any advice would be appreciated.
-
1
- Show all
