You've known your partner's family for a while now. Love 'em or leave 'em, becoming a part of his or her family requires a different, more flexible and more patient mindset. For all the brides-to-be who are about to become daughter-in-laws, here are some tips and things to remember to seamlessly becoming a part of your new family.

1. You are a stranger in a strange land. 
Think of your time with your new in-laws as if you're traveling to a foreign country. His family's traditions and customs will be different from your family's. Have respect and remember that they've functioned perfectly well for generations their way. Don't go in guns-blazing to try to make them more like yours.

2. They speak a foreign language. 
You may all be speaking English, but as a newcomer, you can't know the subtext of what's going on in a conversation: the meaning, intent, and history behind the words spoken are unknown to you. Don't assume you understand the deep meaning of your father-in-law's "Hmmm, that's interesting."

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Chapter 4 dives into the concept of family, and how certain roles and relationships may be altered during the length of the engagement, and ultimately in married life. 

From the mothers who insist on taking on the wedding-planning-role, to siblings refusing to build a relationship with the fiancé – it can be a hectic, overwhelming time.

I share stories of brides who each had different experiences, but all eventually had to face what was really going on beneath the surface.

Below I have included a portion of Maria’s story.

Somewhere between getting engaged, and desperately trying to keep playing her role of the peacemaker of the family, Maria forgot about one person – herself. 

We all play roles within our families of origin; fulfilling our family's needs is one way we get love and attention.

In Maria’s warring family, for example, someone needed to play the role of peacemaker. Her parents and siblings obviously couldn’t do it, since they were combatants, so she was inevitably cast in the part. 

Playing that role fulfilled both her need to feel appreciated by each family member and her family’s need for a calming presence....

So that you can embrace new ways of being. 

Maria, for example, wanted to be fully and wholeheartedly married to Jeff. She wanted to expand her self-image to include the role of wife.  

She would always be there for her family in some capacity to offer them love and support, but she was tired of refereeing squabbles and ready to live more for herself and her husband-to-be.

This required a major change not only in her perspective, but in her behavior as well.

Please share your thoughts in the comments below, and stay tuned for next week’s installment of ‘Book to Blog’ – Chapter 5!

These brides contacted me because they felt anxious and alone in their struggles.

Anxious and alone because the world expected them to be only "brides" -- only excited, only happy, only thinking about dresses and shoes and aisle runners.  

These pressures and expectations didn't match their own inner emotional experiences, which were rich, deep, and lifechanging.  In our work together, each of these brides could be their complex, "unbridely" selves, as they made sense of the very real changes their impending marriages caused them to face.

I'm happy to say that, across the board, without exception, all 7 brides successfully worked through their issues. Each and every bride has reported back to me about the happiness and joy they felt on their wedding days.  Most couldn't believe they had traveled such a distance, emotionally, from where we first started.  At the beginning of our work, they couldn't envision a happy wedding day, they were so wrapped up in their angst and pain.  

And yet, as one bride just told me during her FREE post-wedding download session:  

"Our wedding was phenomenal. The whole thing. Emotionally, I was calmer than I expected to be -- nothing was going to get me down --  and I was surprised at how choked up I got saying my vows.  It was amazing and so satisfying to see all the million tiny details that I worked so hard on, sweated over, and fought for, come to life.  It was perfect."

If you see yourself in any of these 7 brides, or if you are feeling anxious and alone, pressured to be a "perfect bride" and not your complete, complex self, contact me for a free 15-minute Skype consultation.  For these 7 brides, working with me -- having a place in their lives to be "unbridely" -- allowed them to be real, delve deep, grow, learn and come out the other side happy and ready to be married.  

If you'd like that too, please, be in touch.