Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother….
-Genesis 2:24a, NKJV
Having a father-in-law (FIL) tell his son-in-law how he is “failing” as a husband and man–in general–is incredibly stupid and divisive on the part of the FIL.
Something like that happened in my situation as I remember it. I look back on that madness and just shake my head.
One would think someone in their fifties–at the time–who was once a church elder and former missionary would know better than to insert himself into his daughter’s marriage like that.
He didn’t.
(And he was even warned about the foolishness of doing so by my own parents who are older and–obviously–wiser Christians!)
Yet the problem was not–like so many of these situations–with him. He would not have been a serious problem if my (now ex) wife had done the godly thing and told him to stay out of our marriage.*
That’s the whole leaving your mother and father part of God’s model for marriage.
The thing that struck me today was how horrified (and angry) I would be if my own mother took my wife to task for what she perceived as my wife’s failures as a wife and woman in general.
Such is not a healthy dynamic.
Only a truly foolish, stupid, or purposefully divisive in-law would take upon himself or herself the mantle of correcting their child’s spouse to “fix” the marriage.
In other words, such an in-law is likely either disastrously unaware and foolish or pridefully wicked. Neither is good.
God puts leaving the parents at the beginning of the institution of marriage for very good reason. The wise heed such words and do not give into pride thinking that they know better than God on this one.
* It probably ought not to surprise us, faithful spouses, when we discover cheaters have “boundary issues” in other areas of their lives besides the obvious one. And I certainly would consider a FIL or MIL inserting themselves as judges into the marriage as a boundary issue or, more precisely, a boundary violation.
