Last Christmas, I hid for a few moments of solitude in my husband’s boyhood bedroom, as my in-laws flitted about below, making dinner, greeting guests. Though I had been contemplating a split from my husband, Rob, for months, I was along for the holiday as a favor to him, a good-faith effort that I was committed to getting through our rough patch.

Frustrated with the decision I had made, and feeling trapped in family festivities I didn’t want to be part of, I sat down on the faded rug in his room, leaned back against a small painted desk, and cried.

Voices wafted up from below and I heard my father-in-law say “Now that’s a family with problems.”

He was talking about my family.

My parents had recently divorced and within a few months my mother had remarried and moved far away. I felt his judgment not only on them but on me, as unbeknownst to him, I was thinking of leaving my husband just as my mother had.

I cried harder.

From worrying about what they think of us, to wishing them out of our lives, to not wanting to say good-bye to them, in-laws can loom large in our thoughts as we contemplate separation or divorce.

It stands to reason, since many of us work so hard to fit into our in-laws’ family (or at least make the relationship work on a practical level), that extricating ourselves is not easy.

In Part II – Inlaws and the Decision to Go