Dear Prudence,
I’ve been with my partner for a few years and we intend to be engaged soon. We were friends before we got together, so I’ve been around his parents a lot from the jump. I have a decent relationship with my own parents, but it’s complicated: Mine were neurotic, authoritarian immigrant parents from a socially conservative country. They had me very young, while they were pretty emotionally immature and I battled their control constantly growing up. They certainly love and support me, and they mellowed out in my adulthood. But they will mostly never understand me, whether due to their own (still existing) emotional limitations or to my unwillingness to stick my neck out after a turbulent childhood. I often spend time with them out of a sense of duty.
On the other hand, my partner’s parents have robust emotional connections with their children, have more in common with their children growing up (since they were also raised here), and are not controlling. They ask open-ended questions of me and have fascinating lives of their own. My partner often calls them for advice. We genuinely enjoy time with them; they know how to have fun.
Prudie, sometimes I feel guilty for how much I love my future in-laws—for thinking about what I would have been like if I’d been raised by them instead. I spend a lot of time with them, and sometimes I feel like I have to hide those visits/vacations from my own parents, who are prone to jealousy and (lovingly) somewhat possessive of me. How do I navigate my own guilt, as well as the grief of encountering “parents” who model so much of what I lacked growing up? If we have kids, I imagine this will surface even more intensely.
—In-Law Enjoyer