Living with the in-laws… To Be or Not To Be!

As an unmarried woman I was often apprehensive of staying with in-laws. The question of whether I will be able to adjust pops up in even girl’s mind before getting married. While our culture allows us to stay separate our values often makes us to choose living with in-laws.

Considering that in-laws are your spouse’s most important part of life till he gets married, and so they become an important part of your life as well.

The major impacts of living with in-laws can be both physical and emotional.

While staying together seems like a wonderful idea as it minimizes living expenses and saves a lot in the initial days of career; hence that choice is appealing. Problems arise, however, when limited living space demands sacrifices.

On a physical level, many a times the guest rooms, bathrooms have to be shared, there is a common kitchen for cooking. Every open space soon serves as a storage area. Further aggravation mounts in when you have to sacrifice simple pleasures like late-night outings (as oppose to early risers), entertainment preferences, TV channels and having guests at home. Many a times they may often criticize on your cooking or not keeping the house clean as per their wish.

The emotional impact of living with in-laws results from hindering your freedom, having regular arguments, matching up to the generation gap. They may disagree on how you raise kids, and often will refer to what they used to do while their kids were young.

However, while it’s easy to point out the cons, there are a lot of hidden benefits which we often ignore while living with our in-laws.

You do not even realize but your lifestyle suddenly begins to improve with healthy eating and home cooked food being served to you daily. While daily grocery shopping is no more your headache you can relax and leave from work late.

Once you have a kid, you know you can get back to work after a couple of weeks for the reason that your little one is in safe hands. And after a kid the ‘me time’ is not a dream any more.

If you have the required kinship with your in-laws life can be a better place with them around. While I have personal experiences of emotional ups and downs, but, living with in-laws has certainly given me the freedom to pursue my career and live life to the fullest. So build that affinity with them and make it a win-win situation for both the families.