Marriage can be a very beautiful thing, in uniting two people, two souls, and two families in love – as well as in law.

But with family comes a significant number of responsibilities and relationships to maintain, and slotting immediately into someone else’s family can feel jarring at times.

That’s because all families are different, and a family’s idiosyncrasies may feel like second nature to your partner who has grown up with them, but for an outsider they could feel totally alien.

For the couple in this story, the family integration hasn’t really gone to plan – in a large part due to the distance between the couple and their families.

Read on to find out how this caused complications for the couple.

AITA for saying I don’t consider my mother-in-law to be family?

My husband (32, male) and I (31, female) weren’t together for our wedding anniversary in February, because I had a family emergency.

Now, we both have some time off soon and we wanted to do something on the anniversary of his proposal instead, so that we still get to have some sort of celebration.

I wanted to do something small, just the two of us or maybe a couple of friends, but he wanted to invite various family members.

He even said that it would be easier if we and our friends just travelled to his hometown and had the celebration at his mother’s house, so then we’d be surrounded by family, like his brothers, who always have celebrations there.

Let’s see why her husband’s innocent suggestion is unsettling her.

My husband is the middle child of three brothers.

Both of his brothers married their high school sweethearts who grew up in the same town as them. They have been having weekly get-togethers with his mother (67, female) their entire adult lives.

I, on the other hand, didn’t meet my husband until I was 25, and we didn’t start dating until I was 27. He was the only one of his family, including cousins, to leave his hometown and his parents have never come to visit.

We’ve been married for two years and I’ve only met his mother a handful of times. I’ve met his brothers, sisters in law and niblings more, but I’m not close with any of them.

Read on to find out how she responded.

I eventually told my husband that I was sorry, but unlike his sisters in law, his mother wasn’t a second mother to me and didn’t feel like family.

She’s a nice woman and I have nothing against her, but I don’t know her very well and she feels more like an acquaintance than a close family member. I’d prefer our anniversary be about us and not about how little he sees his mother.

My husband is furious that I said his mother wasn’t my family, and that since we’re married she has to be.

He’s now saying he’s not sure he wants to do this celebration as it is causing us to argue, and while I’d be happy with just a date night instead, I don’t think that that is the problem. Should I have not said anything?

AITA?

Sure in a legal sense people do ‘become’ family after marriage, but it takes a lot of work on both sides to actually feel like family.

Perhaps this is where their misunderstanding lies – but the truth is, his family have done little to integrate her.

It’s understandable that she wants her anniversary to be about her and her husband, not about his family.

Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.

This person thought she was quite right to speak up.

While others encouraged them to visit his family at a different time.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought they needed an open, calm discussion.

It’s clear that this couple have different attitudes towards family, and it isn’t sitting quite right with either of them.

Perhaps they need to arrange a visit to the husband’s hometown to spend some extended time with his family – but this shouldn’t be confused with an anniversary celebration, since the latter should be about them, while the former will undoubtedly be about everyone else.

It’s likely to be a little bumpy, but with a serious attempt at honest conversation, both partners can get their feelings out so that they can reach a compromise.

No one ever said marriage was easy!

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.