Circle of Trust

This weekend we drove the hour to the suburbs of the DFW metroplex to visit my fiance's family, or rather, my soon to be relatives. We try to always get together for major events and holidays like birthdays and whatnot. This weekend's major event included my future SIL's bday as well as drum roll..... We had tickets to see The Hunger Game's! Now not everyone was a participant in the viewing. The women of the family were the only one's who chose to go, while the men stayed home and watched the youngest little man in the family, my future nephew.

The reason I'm writing this is not too talk about how great Hunger Game's was and recommend that everybody should go and see it, but to talk about my future relatives. I keep using "future *acronym" to describe my "future" relatives but I can't wait to be able to drop that part of their title's. They already feel like family to me and I think I'm so lucky to be included in their "circle of trust" (sorry, Meet the Focker's is on tbs).

I realize that not everyone is as lucky as me as far as relationships go with future relatives, and that there can be many dynamics that come into play when combining families. Notice that most of the issues arise when the MIL is around (Sorry E if you ever read this! You know I love you!).

Some in law relationships dynamics are so bad, it drives a wedge between the family and they never talk to each other. Or, like Kitty Foreman in That 70’s Show, they take up smoking during visits to ease the stress.

Some are middle of the road where they annoy the crap out of each other but when push comes to shove, they have each other's back.

And then some relatives can all live happily together under one roof with little squabbles that once resolved, just bring them closer.







Haha, but seriously. We're somewhere between the last two, but only because we're not going to experiment by putting us all under the same roof. This is something that I can really appreciate coming from divorced parents myself. In a way, it makes me look to the future and how it will be for our kid's. Holidays for me and my siblings have always been a little rough since our parents divorced about 8 years ago, driving from one house to another, trying to fit everybody in. I have yet to actually spend a major holiday with Michael because I haven't felt like putting him thru any of my whirlwind holiday weekends just yet. Since his family lives about 5 hours north of mine, we have celebrated separately since we started dating.

It's nice to know that as the "new" Pierson family grows in the future, that the Original Pierson's circle of trust hasn't been broken, but has been lovingly expanded to include all who wish to join.