Good ol' family rules

                I remember going to my husband’s home for the first time. It’s always nerve-racking to meet the family. You’re not sure what to do, how to act, what to say. You don’t know what to really expect. Even if your boyfriend/fiancé/husband has told you all about them, you’re really not that prepared.

When I first went there I was trying to be helpful. I thought about my sister in-laws and how they acted while they were at my house. I know my mom was always telling them not to worry about picking up after people, but they did it anyways (Some still do). So that’s exactly what I did.  After a few days there I was helping Casey (my husband) clean the kitchen. I noticed that there was half an onion sitting out and a box of pizza from the night before. The onion had already shriveled up and the pizza had meat on it. I grew up throwing that stuff away if it was left out like that. I first threw the onion out and then I went to go throw the pizza away. Instantly Casey grabbed the pizza box from my hand and took it away. I had broken one of the “rules” in the home. They eat things that are left over like that. Casey told me that  our sister in law before me had thrown out some left over vegetables and her husband took the fault when their dad got upset that it was wasted.

There are unspoken family rules in all families, whether we realize them as rules or not. We most of the time don’t even know they are rules until someone breaks and suffer some sort of consequence because of it. Some people’s rules are pretty simple, like who sits where at the dinner table. We don’t really have it written on our fridge, but we all know our place at the table.

I know when my mom isn’t too happy, we all stay clear and try not to talk to her. She never set that as a rule, consciously, but we all took it as one once we quickly learned not to bother her. There are other families who make it clear that some things are not allowed to be shared outside of the family, which is another type of rule. Or another might be family first before anything else.

You might start thinking of what rules you have in your own family or with the family you grew up with. Do you notice that you might have brought some rules to your own families that were made previously in your family of origin? I think sometimes we really agree and like certain rules, they are there to help the family function. But you might think of some that you had and realize that you really don’t want those to be in your home now.

Contemplate these rules. Decide what you want to carry on and which ones to throw out. You might be surprised at what you find.