APA Citation
Morr Serewicz, M. (2006). Getting Along with the In-Laws: Relationships with Siblings-in-Law. *Journal of Social and Personal Relationships*, 23(3), 479-496. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407506064214
Summary
This research on in-law relationships identifies boundary ambiguity—unclear expectations about loyalty, obligation, and appropriate involvement—as a primary source of marital stress. When families of origin have different expectations about closeness, involvement, and obligation, the couple finds themselves navigating conflicting demands without clear rules. For those married to someone from a narcissistic family, this research explains why in-law conflicts feel so intractable: narcissistic family systems have inherently ambiguous, shifting boundaries designed to maintain control rather than foster healthy relationships.
Why This Matters for Survivors
If you're married to someone whose family is led by a narcissist, you've likely experienced the impossible bind of in-law relationships: expectations that feel unreasonable, boundaries that keep shifting, loyalty tests that you can never pass. This research identifies the mechanism: boundary ambiguity. Narcissistic families deliberately maintain unclear, shifting expectations because ambiguity serves control. Understanding this can reduce self-blame (the problem isn't that you're bad at families) and support strategic responses (you can't resolve ambiguity that's maintained intentionally).
What This Research Found
Boundary ambiguity causes in-law conflict. The research identifies unclear expectations about loyalty, involvement, and obligation as the primary source of in-law relationship stress. When families have different, unspoken expectations about appropriate closeness, conflict becomes chronic.
Ambiguity prevents resolution. Normal conflict can be resolved through negotiation—we discuss expectations and find compromise. But when expectations are deliberately ambiguous, resolution is impossible. You can’t meet standards that keep shifting.
Different family systems collide. Marriage integrates two family systems with potentially different boundary expectations. Healthy integration requires negotiating clear expectations. When one family maintains ambiguity as a control mechanism, integration fails.
Ambiguity serves control. While the research addresses boundary ambiguity generally, the framework explains why narcissistic in-law relationships are particularly intractable: narcissistic families use ambiguity as control. Unclear expectations mean you can never be right, keeping you perpetually anxious and accommodating.
Why This Matters for Survivors
The impossible bind has a name. If you’ve felt trapped in your in-law relationships—never knowing the right thing to do, constantly failing unspoken tests, exhausting yourself trying to please—you’ve experienced boundary ambiguity. Understanding the mechanism reduces self-blame: you’re not bad at relationships; you’re dealing with deliberately unclear expectations.
Narcissistic families do this intentionally. Normal families have boundary challenges; narcissistic families weaponize them. The ambiguity isn’t confusion to be resolved through better communication—it’s control to be recognized and resisted. The rules keep shifting because shifting rules keep you off-balance.
Resolution requires different strategies. Normal in-law challenges benefit from negotiation, compromise, and goodwill. Narcissistic in-law dynamics require boundaries, limits, and acceptance that approval isn’t coming. Applying normal strategies to narcissistic dynamics produces exploitation, not harmony.
Your marriage may need protection. Narcissistic in-laws often work to damage marriages—the spouse is competition for control of the adult child. Recognizing this dynamic supports protecting your marriage through boundaries rather than sacrificing it through accommodation.
Clinical Implications
Assess family-of-origin dynamics in marital presentations. Couples presenting with chronic in-law conflict may be dealing with narcissistic family systems rather than normal boundary negotiation. Assessment should explore whether expectations are merely different or deliberately ambiguous.
Distinguish normal from narcissistic dynamics. Normal in-law challenges respond to communication and compromise. Narcissistic dynamics don’t—the ambiguity is maintained intentionally. Treatment approaches must differ accordingly.
Support the adult child’s boundary-setting. In narcissistic in-law situations, the adult child (not the spouse) must set boundaries with their own family. Therapists can support this process while helping the couple understand why normal relationship skills aren’t working.
Validate the spouse’s experience. Spouses dealing with narcissistic in-laws often feel crazy—they’re being blamed for failing tests designed to be unfailed. Validation that the dynamic is genuinely manipulative supports sanity.
Address enabling by the adult child. When adult children pressure their spouses to accommodate narcissistic family members, couples therapy must address this dynamic. The adult child may need individual work to recognize and address family-of-origin patterns.
How This Research Is Used in the Book
Morr Serewicz’s research appears in Chapter 20: The Long Shadow to explain in-law conflicts in marriages affected by narcissism:
“Research on in-law conflict identifies boundary ambiguity—unclear expectations about loyalty and obligation—as a primary source of marital stress. When one spouse’s family maintains deliberately ambiguous boundaries as a control mechanism, normal relationship strategies fail. You cannot negotiate clear expectations with people who benefit from keeping expectations unclear.”
The chapter uses this framework to help readers understand why their in-law relationships feel impossible—and why normal advice doesn’t work.
Historical Context
Published in 2006, this research contributed to family communication scholarship on boundary management—how families decide what’s private, who’s included, and how access is controlled. The concept of boundary ambiguity, originally developed in family systems theory, was applied specifically to in-law relationships, identifying why some in-law dynamics are manageable while others seem impossibly fraught.
The research doesn’t specifically address narcissistic families, but the boundary ambiguity framework proves particularly useful for understanding narcissistic dynamics. Narcissistic families exemplify boundary ambiguity taken to an extreme—ambiguity maintained not through confusion but through control.
Limitations
This research examines boundary ambiguity generally, not specifically in narcissistic family systems. The application to narcissistic dynamics is by extension. Additionally, the research focuses on sibling-in-law relationships specifically, though the boundary ambiguity framework applies to all in-law relationships.
Further Reading
- Morr Serewicz, M.C. (2008). Toward a triangular theory of the communication and relationships of in-laws. Journal of Family Communication, 8(4), 264-292.
- Boss, P. (2006). Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss. W.W. Norton.
- Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and Family Therapy. Harvard University Press.
- McBride, K. (2008). Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers. Atria Books.
- Bowen, M. (1978). Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. Jason Aronson.
About the Author
Mary Claire Morr Serewicz, PhD is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Denver. Her research focuses on family communication, particularly in-law relationships, family transitions, and how families negotiate boundaries and privacy.
This research emerged from broader family communication scholarship on boundary management—how families decide what's private, who's included, and how information and access are controlled. In-law relationships represent a key boundary negotiation challenge as two family systems must integrate.
Historical Context
Published in 2006, this research contributed to growing understanding of family boundary dynamics and their effects on relationships. While in-law conflict had long been recognized as a marital stressor, this research specified the mechanism: boundary ambiguity. This framework proved particularly useful for understanding why some in-law relationships are manageable while others seem impossibly fraught.
Frequently Asked Questions
Boundary ambiguity occurs when expectations about who's in or out of the family system, what's appropriate involvement, and where loyalties should lie are unclear. Healthy families develop relatively clear boundaries—expectations are understood, even if not explicitly stated. Dysfunctional families, especially narcissistic ones, maintain ambiguity because unclear rules serve control purposes.
When rules are clear, you can follow them. When rules are ambiguous, you're constantly uncertain: Is this invitation optional or mandatory? Should I share this information? Am I being too close or too distant? This uncertainty produces chronic stress and anxiety. For people-pleasers (common among those from narcissistic families), the inability to know the 'right' answer is especially distressing.
Narcissistic families maintain ambiguity strategically: rules change depending on the narcissist's needs, expectations shift without warning, loyalty tests have no winning answer, and reasonable boundaries are treated as betrayal. This isn't accidental confusion—it's control through uncertainty. You can never feel secure because security would reduce the narcissist's power.
Normal in-law challenges (different family cultures, competing loyalties) are amplified when a narcissist is involved: expectations are impossible to meet by design, the spouse may be triangulated against the partner, boundaries are treated as attacks, and the narcissist may actively work to damage the marriage. You're not navigating cultural difference but deliberate manipulation.
When spouses have different expectations about family involvement, conflict follows. But when one spouse's family has deliberately ambiguous boundaries (as narcissistic families do), the conflict can't be resolved through negotiation—the ambiguity is maintained intentionally. Couples may exhaust themselves trying to find the 'right' balance that doesn't exist.
Key strategies include: the adult child setting and maintaining boundaries with their own family (rather than outsourcing to the spouse), accepting that the narcissist's approval is unobtainable, reducing exposure and information sharing, and building marital unity against external manipulation. The goal isn't pleasing the narcissist—it's protecting the marriage.
Because 'getting along' with a narcissist typically means submission, not relationship. Normal relationship skills assume mutual goodwill—I adjust, you adjust, we find a middle ground. Narcissists don't want middle ground; they want control. Applying normal relationship skills to narcissistic dynamics produces escalating boundary violations, not harmony.
Spouses who grew up in narcissistic families may normalize the dysfunction—it's all they know. They may defend the family system, pressure their partner to accommodate, or fail to set necessary boundaries. This is one of the most difficult dynamics in marriages affected by narcissistic in-laws. Couples therapy with a therapist who understands narcissistic family systems may help.