Who Comes First in your Marriage: Spouse or Parents?

From the desk of The Modern Day Cindi: Let’s talk about roles in the marriage. Not just the typical husband and wife role, but the roles of those around the marriage; more specifically, the roles of parents. Now, this a touchy subject…one I dare speak to so I will be treading lightly. So, who comes first in the marriage? Or more directly stated, “Who is priority, your spouse or your parent?”
This can be a tough question for some to answer. It is likened to the question: “what comes first, the chicken or the egg?”  Both are equally important, so trying to prioritize and rank their significance can become overwhelming when the importance of the roles are evident in different stages of life.
I remember when I first met my husband, I immediately knew we came from two different worlds with two different philosophies. My parents were both born in NYC, were world travelers, and both very educated, but when it came to their little girl, they encouraged me to do the same-be adventurous, a risk taker and see the world. Consequently, as I evolved into a young woman I was very independent.
I remember when I went to college, my mom was like “go off as far as you like, as long as planes fly, we can send for you if needed.” And my dad’s philosophy was “no news is good news.” So I rarely checked in daily to just say I’m okay; my weekly check-ins were good enough for them. Both of my parents said they knew they raised me well, I was very responsible, and I knew how to handle myself so they had no worries.
My husband story is a little different. Both of his parents were from Memphis and like mine, very educated; however, he was primarily raised by his mom as her only child. So although he too was very adventurous and smart, my husband was not nearly as independent as I was.
He told me when we got married that I had opened his perspective up to a whole new world.  He and his mom’s relationship was more like best friends when I came into his life, he spoke to her almost every day, if they didn’t speak, they texted and engaged in a style of communication that I did not have with my parents, but it was all love none the same.
As we began moving toward marriage, I started sharing some of our differences with my husband and what we realized is that we both would have to do some adjusting in order to balance the expectations of our parents.  He would have to slowly start cutting back the frequency and time of his check-in with his parents, and out of love for my husband, I would have to start being more intentional in spending time with my family.
What we learned from the experience was that WE set the tone of how we wanted the people in our life to treat and respect us as a married unit, not as son or daughter.  We also learned that we needed to prioritize the health of the marriage above the heath of individual agendas…what that meant was we could not allow loyalties to sour our love for one another, and we also could not let guilt  keep us from effectively merging the two into one. (Genesis 2:24; Mark 10:8)
So, it really should not be a question of who comes first spouse or parent, because if you choose to view the marriage as a merger of people, not just assets, then it should not be if “he”, “she”, or “me” comes first. It is if “we” comes first. If you choose “we” over “me” Then start developing the mutual agreement of: Who do we need? What do we need? How do we balance? And, how can we make this work? …then the rest will naturally follow.