Marriage creates a new family, and sometimes that means setting boundaries with the family you came from.
BlazeTV host Ron Simmons tackles complicated viewer questions of dealing with in-laws who might be causing more strain than the relationship is worth.
One viewer asked Simmons how to “deal with in-laws” who don’t share the viewer's faith “when a child is involved.”
“I think you have to always respect your in-laws, up to the point where you make sure that there’s obviously no abuse or anything like that,” he says. “But I would say respect with boundaries.”
Simmons explains that a job that comes with being a Christian parent is to “expose our children to the love of Christ … so that the Holy Spirit can begin working on them and bring them under his umbrella.”
“And I wouldn’t allow anything, as much as I could, that would get in the way of that,” he says.
Simmons then reads a question from a viewer who explained that her father-in-law asked her husband “to keep his estate and money from the wives.”
“He said it’s not for us to know, but me and my husband tell each other everything. So it feels wrong for him to ask that,” the viewer explained.
“First of all, that’s wrong for … the dad to do that, all right? That automatically puts a strain between his son and daughter-in-law. I mean, that sets up a marriage strain right there,” Simmons explains.
“Now, a lot of people, maybe they're first-generation money, they’re afraid that, you know, the wives are going to not respect that and, you know, go off and spend the money or something like that,” he says. “But as far as you and your husband go, it’s perfectly OK for your husband to talk to you about that, right?”
“You don’t break that bond,” he continues. “That’s why the Bible says that when we grow up and we get married, the husband leaves his mom and dad and clings to his wife, that they become one flesh, and one flesh shares with each other. I promise you, my right hand knows what my left hand is doing, right?
“Is it wrong for him to ask that? Personally, I think it is,” he adds.
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