MarriedPolish
15 May 2009
Love / Dating a Polish guy..acceptance in family? [45]
I am Lutheran. My husband's family are a bunch of non-practicing Catholics who after attending our wedding in a Lutheran Church, still thought taht I was Catholic when I'm not. They kept insisting that he was still Catholic when he converted to Lutheranism (My heritage is German). THey were critical of me for a number of years afterwards. We have been married almost 9 years (Oct. 7 is our anniversary). Here's another kicker - We BOTH took on hyphenated names (each other's names) so that we carry both family names as our legal last name. You should have seen how ticked off his mother was after learning this. She said to my mom, "How can you let your daughter do this? This is untraditional! What are you going to do to fix this?!" My mom said "They are both adults and living together before marriage is non-traditional as well, but apparently that was okay with you since you let him do that, so what's a name change?" Needless to saw, she gradually adjusted. We married ater in life - He was 37 and I was 27. My parents paid for EVERYTHING, and his parents paid for NOTHING. We still talk to his parents but they live 1 1/2 hours away. The most recent issue is that Mothers deserve more respect than people who are married and have no kids. My husband's 19 year old niece got knocked up and suddenly we are told that it's a "blessing". She couldn't even bother to tell us until she was in her 8th month. The guy took off after a year of living with her family, and her mobility- disabled sister was told to drop out of college to stay home and take care of her sister's kid. Apparently this is all acceptable though, but in the beginning hyphenated names and not being Catholic was a bt of an issue. It took thenm approximately 7 years to finally start warming up to me. I have a good marriage with my husband, and yes some Polish families are very tightly knit - especially if they live near each other and communicate regularly with each other.
I did not let them dictate to me what I could do. They want my husband and I to apologize to my husband's niece and my husband's sister since they are both mothers (and I'm not unless you count rescued cats and dogs). They feel that an apology is needed since we haven't talked to his sister and niece in two years. The phone does work both ways and his niece cursed us out on our answering service two years ago since we weren't jumping for joy as we were worried about how she would support herself and her kid.
This is what I've dealt with. Hope it helps. Just remember that you can't please everyone and it is your life that is affected as well. You may both have to decide what you plan to do.
I am Lutheran. My husband's family are a bunch of non-practicing Catholics who after attending our wedding in a Lutheran Church, still thought taht I was Catholic when I'm not. They kept insisting that he was still Catholic when he converted to Lutheranism (My heritage is German). THey were critical of me for a number of years afterwards. We have been married almost 9 years (Oct. 7 is our anniversary). Here's another kicker - We BOTH took on hyphenated names (each other's names) so that we carry both family names as our legal last name. You should have seen how ticked off his mother was after learning this. She said to my mom, "How can you let your daughter do this? This is untraditional! What are you going to do to fix this?!" My mom said "They are both adults and living together before marriage is non-traditional as well, but apparently that was okay with you since you let him do that, so what's a name change?" Needless to saw, she gradually adjusted. We married ater in life - He was 37 and I was 27. My parents paid for EVERYTHING, and his parents paid for NOTHING. We still talk to his parents but they live 1 1/2 hours away. The most recent issue is that Mothers deserve more respect than people who are married and have no kids. My husband's 19 year old niece got knocked up and suddenly we are told that it's a "blessing". She couldn't even bother to tell us until she was in her 8th month. The guy took off after a year of living with her family, and her mobility- disabled sister was told to drop out of college to stay home and take care of her sister's kid. Apparently this is all acceptable though, but in the beginning hyphenated names and not being Catholic was a bt of an issue. It took thenm approximately 7 years to finally start warming up to me. I have a good marriage with my husband, and yes some Polish families are very tightly knit - especially if they live near each other and communicate regularly with each other.
I did not let them dictate to me what I could do. They want my husband and I to apologize to my husband's niece and my husband's sister since they are both mothers (and I'm not unless you count rescued cats and dogs). They feel that an apology is needed since we haven't talked to his sister and niece in two years. The phone does work both ways and his niece cursed us out on our answering service two years ago since we weren't jumping for joy as we were worried about how she would support herself and her kid.
This is what I've dealt with. Hope it helps. Just remember that you can't please everyone and it is your life that is affected as well. You may both have to decide what you plan to do.