In-Laws & Families
The messenger rule: each of you handles your own parents
The partner who raises a difficult subject with their own family absorbs far less damage than the one who raises it with someone…
Aisha Kureshi
Contributing writer, Fresh Marriage
Aisha writes about in-laws and the diplomacy of two families.
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15 articles
Running a Home
The kitchen is where two childhoods argue
Two people who agree on almost everything can disagree completely about a fridge. Why kitchen habits feel like rules, and how to…
Running a Home
A fair split when your working hours are not equal
Fifty-fifty stops meaning anything when one of you works sixty hours and the other works thirty. What to measure instead, and how…
In-Laws & Families
Cross-cultural marriage: what surprises people is not the food
Couples prepare for the visible differences and get caught by the invisible ones. What actually needs negotiating when two cultures…
In-Laws & Families
A loan from a relative is never only a loan
Family money arrives faster, cheaper and with terms nobody writes down. What the unstated conditions usually are, and how couples…
In-Laws & Families
Being the outsider at a family gathering in a language you do not speak
Three hours of conversation you cannot follow, and everyone assumes you are fine. What the exclusion actually costs, and the…
Running a Home
The fix-it queue: what to repair, what to replace and who is chasing the landlord
Every household accumulates a list of things that do not quite work. Why that list grows, what determines whether a repair is worth…
Running a Home
Little and often against the Saturday blitz
Couples argue about who does the housework and rarely about when. Two legitimate rhythms, why mixing them badly produces the worst…
In-Laws & Families
What do you call your in-laws, and why does nobody tell you
The first year involves addressing people you barely know in a role you have never occupied. Why the naming question is genuinely…
In-Laws & Families
The family group chat knows things about your marriage that you did not send
Extended family messaging groups are now where information about a couple travels. What tends to leak, why it causes trouble, and…
In-Laws & Families
Going home when home is a flight away
For couples living far from both families, visits are expensive, rationed and loaded with expectation. How to plan them so that…
In-Laws & Families
Keys, drop-ins and the front door as a boundary
Whether relatives can arrive unannounced is one of the most consequential household rules and one of the least discussed. What is…
In-Laws & Families
Two families, two gifting economies, one household budget
Wedding gifts, festival money and the obligations that come with them run on rules that differ sharply between families. How…
In-Laws & Families
When a parent needs care in the first years of a marriage
Caring for an ageing or ill parent arrives without notice and reorganises a young household. The practical decisions, the ones that…
In-Laws & Families
Everyone has advice for a newly married couple and most of it is autobiography
The first years attract an unusual volume of unsolicited guidance from relatives and colleagues. Where it comes from, which parts…