It's probably not a great sign that I wrote "impending doom" in the title seeing that I'm talking about getting married..... All is pretty great between my partner and I when it is just the two of us. But our families bring in a lot of stress and it sometimes causes problems between us. From my side, I feel that his family accepts me to the point that they want me to be there for their sake. I know that sounds pretty conceited of me, but when my mother was terminally ill and eventually died, they did not ever once ask me how she was doing, or after she died, how I or my family was doing. Rather, I got pressured by my partner to go and spend time with them, and so I end up feeling like a placemarker when I'm expected to give them my company and they don't make an effort to get to know me or show that they care in my darkest moment. Of course, that's not my partner's perspective at all. He feels like I just don't want to spend time with his family, even though I have made many efforts over the years. It takes two to create a relationship. Also, it feels as if I cannot say anything about his mother, even if she's acting in a way that crosses boundaries. On a trip, she waited until my partner stood up and went to the bathroom to start grilling me about where we were planning to live and how we could afford to purchase a house. I felt so uncomfortable, especially because she waited until I was alone to spring her line of questioning on me. I brought it up to my partner in private afterwards, and he totally put it on me saying that I was being too sensitive and it's normal to ask people questions in making conversation. I do come from a more conservative background, but I've spent enough time with them now to know that was not what that was about. He's such a mama's boy though, it makes me wonder what it will be like if we have kids and I need to stand up to her at times. My partner got upset after his mom told him that her sister and husband spend a lot of time with their son and daughter-in-law. It was 100% to guilt him as I've seen her do it with him over other things. He brought that back to me and painted me out to be this uncaring partner. It got to the point where I literally had to point out how often I had gone to see his family before he eventually let it go. So that's the sense of impending doom. I try to communicate my perspective to him, but when it comes to his family, I'm this uncaring person that wants to spend as little time with them as I possibly can get away with. It really discounts all of the caring and time that I've spent with them over the years. The dynamic is such that I almost would rather not have children because I don't want to be stuck dealing with these dynamics or worse. That isn't the most reasonable conclusion to come to but it's an indication of how I'm feeling...and we aren't even married yet!