The Triangular Relations in the Families

Problems in the families in the world, translated…

In the mock scenes of the family course, the man who is a son, and a husband, was having a heated conversation with his mother, the seven-year-old daughter was close by, hovering up her ears, the wife had her arms around the child, looking at her husband, arguing with her mother-in-law. “Mom, can you please, just BUTT out of the relationship between the two of us already? I’m an adult here, I KNOW how to live my life, just live out your own elderly years well!” “How, can I feel at ease? Look at your wife, she couldn’t even prepare a homecooked meal for you after work, either that you guys head out to eat, or buy the meals back to eat at home; and, your child is going to cram school, and, his mother does NOT have a clue, all she knows is shop online, and I, the elderly person had to be here, signing for her packages! How is this fitting?”, the elderly woman pointed to her daughter-in-law angrily.

The daughter-in-law tried explaining, “Mom, I don’t have it easy at work, and, I’d gotten too tired, picking up Xing after her cram school, she’d still needed to go to cram school later on in the nights, getting the packed meals would be easier and saves up the time, and, going out to small restaurants every now and then is no big deal. Why are you getting so angry? You’re scaring Xing right now!”

Hearing her own name, the young girl pulled on the elderly woman’s sleeves, said, “Grandma, can you not be mad anymore, please?”, looking at her young granddaughter, the elderly woman said, “Fine, I’m a nag! I will NO longer bother about your businesses, I’m too old, to even make a difference, besides, nobody in this home listens to me anymore anyway. Honey, how come you’d died so early? And I’d raised our son up on my own, and he’d married his wife, and given me hell………” as she’d talked on, she’d started, crying, and the son and daughter-in-law were with that helpless look on their faces.

The above triangular interactions, had been played out in the various families. In the traditional beliefs, the women are the ones, marrying into the men’s families, and so, they’d needed to, live by their husbands’ households’ rules. If you live with your in-laws, then, the elders are the owners of the house, and everything you do, you need to, follow the ways of your in-laws, things as miniscule from washing the vegetables, chopping the vegetables, cooking, laundry, hanging up the laundry, sweeping the floors, how things are placed, the way you feed your own children, etc., etc., etc., you can’t have your own opinions o, otherwise, you’d be “named”, an “unfitting daughter-in-law”.

And because of this, as daughters-in-law, women often had adjustment difficulties, or rather, just leave everything. And, in this home background, the son grows up, under the influences of the parents’ actions and words, wouldn’t take their behaviors as abnormal, and so, he’d easily, ignored his own wife’s thoughts and feelings, and it’d, affected the way the man and woman relate to each other as husband and wife.

As an elder, why not just be open in-laws? And, know, that the younger generation needed their own space and schedules, and allow them to raise their own young, live life their own ways, not expecting how your sons and daughters-in-law will treat you, and just, set up a fuller schedule for your own old age, and, if you still have the energies, then, help out with looking after the grandchildren, that way, both sides are getting what they need and want out of the relationship, there would not be any more discords in the households.

Yeah, uh, that’s, EASY for you to say, you’re on the OUTSIDE of these messed up families, looking in, and, it’s too easy, to pass judgments on what we see, when it’s not related to ourselves personally, and, until you’d encountered this sort of situations in life yourself, you’re NOT at liberty to say, and, this still just shows how much the effects of families of origin can have on a person’s life, even as we grow older, we still carry the baggage of our own separate families of origins with us in interacting with one another.