Letting Go of the Family I Once Wanted

When I first married my husband, I was full of hope and dreams. We naturally have always been one another’s family, so combining our lives in that deeper level of making children of our own and partaking in each other’s family’s holidays together felt like that natural next move for us. Yet, as I daydreamed of being the best daughter-in-law and sister-in-law I could be, I was not prepared for the next nine years of hardship the family I desired would put my real family through.

For you see, I have always wanted a sister and another mom.

I have longed for the day that I could provide that feeling of family togetherness, closing the gaps between names and hosting joint family holidays to help both sides of the family feel included and loved. My grandmother and mother trained me to constantly carry myself with an open heart and home, to be that person to make moments special for others and constantly put their needs first. As I aged and faced more adversities, it caused me to become more self-aware in how this attitude of constantly putting others’ needs first was affecting me. After years of anxiety, hating how I felt and being taken advantage of, I went to therapy. Little did I know, that therapist was going to tell me the advice that ended up being the most helpful in my adult life.

“Life is a bookcase and the people you keep in yours are the books. The structure of your life will never change. You cannot change what the books are or choose to represent. You cannot change the space they take up or the time it takes to get through them. But you can change what sits on your shelf. You can change the type of books you want to read, and how much time you dedicate to each one. You make the decision on what stays on the shelf or has to go. That is the main thing that you choose in life and can control.”

Through the first few years of my marriage, I felt like I had to fight to keep this idea of what I called family. I felt that no matter what was said or done, as long as I could get everyone together, it would fall in place. As long as we could be there for the people that we cared for, then over time they would feel the love of my presence and just come to accept me. I was constantly waiting for this turnover that was never going to happen. For no matter what I did to rewrite how my in-laws wanted to see me, to them I was the villain in their novel. I didn’t belong on their shelves and by the cover, I was something that deserved to be disregarded.

I know I’m more than that. I know my value, so at this point, we are about five years into a marriage. I look around and my marriage is struggling. I’m feeling exhausted and undervalued in so many ways. My husband and I were struggling with his work-life balance. He would fall asleep mid-conversation with me. I would spend all day taking care of our two young kids, cooking, and cleaning. I started to feel like a nanny and housemaid. I looked inward and discovered that nothing was going to fall into place. Nothing was going to be what I needed it to be without me giving 100% all of the time. I needed to slow down. I needed to prioritize myself (for once in my life).

After much communication and a few years of a pandemic, my marriage has not been stronger. By stepping back and prioritizing what was on my shelf and encouraging my husband to put in the effort to finish his story, it started to naturally feel more like what we were supposed to have. During this time of me providing the time and care to myself to feel whole, I started organizing my shelf by priority. So, the kids, my husband, and I were top shelf. Relationships that gave me something in return or equal effort became second and those that only took from my energy/time became third (my in-laws were there). What does a third-shelf priority look like?

I stopped reaching out and trying to plan things. I stopped being the one that insists on making more time or telling my husband he needed to reach out. I stopped worrying about trying for them in general. There was the occasional, “I know we must because of a holiday,” type of conversation that I was always willing to have. I never threw them completely away because my husband insisted that he wanted them in our lives, but I just didn’t feed into them anymore. The less they knew about me the less they could attempt to try to use my character against me or hurt my family. In fact, I’ve been afraid of writing on the Collective (something I’ve done the past five years) out of a fear that they will attempt to use something I write against me, again. It just became one of those books with a trigger label that was gathering dust on my shelf.

Fast forward to a year ago, my husband was feeling the stress that they have always brought to me.

Yet this happened in front of our children. He spoke to her on this issue when I assured him that she is who she is and this will never change. A few weeks go by and she started to gaslight me and belittle/threaten him. My mother-in-law has had a track record of when things don’t go her way, she crowbars them to be her way. She has gone through a lot personally in the past nine years. So much so that it is understandable why she did struggle with alcohol and losing herself for a bit. She’s working on it, but what she hasn’t done is been there for her son, his children, or ever accepted that we made a family. She hasn’t been with us through the hard and good times. She hasn’t taken the time to nurture a deep relationship with any of us, but she has had us in some very uncomfortable situations and blamed them all on us. Carrying that weight of the chronicles of her misery has buckled all of our shelves for far too long. My husband drew the line and I (knowing how she is) will always defend his right to make a boundary for himself and this family.

A little back story on my husband – he used to be a pushover just like me. Over the years of our marriage, I’ve challenged him to demand more out of life and his relationships. To demand respect when others don’t treat him well and to see himself just how great we see him. This confidence has never been nurtured with him, but as he has grown in that, he has with his voice as well. We fight less because I understand him more and have a partner proactively working with me for the same goal; our family’s happiness and building that family library of good healthy relationships.

Now that my children are filling their shelves more with these early elementary school years, it’s making it all a bit clearer to us parents what books we pass down in this library of life. We want the best for our children’s library and to let them have the energy and time to fill those shelves with plenty of love and adventures. We will not bog down their selves with such heavy things, like others’ toxic natures, or force them to question what genuine care is in the future. The books we place now on their selves will help them mold the ones they want to place themselves on the same selves as they get older.

So, the family I wanted nine years ago isn’t quite the family I have now. I could focus on why that is how it is or wallow in the misery of some dreams never becoming a reality. Yet, no. I will wake up every day and focus on my own shelves, mending my husband’s, and building my children’s with them, making sure their shelves get the support and strength they need to house years and years’ worth of love.