Married couples: are you closer to your spouse's family, or is he/she closer to yours?

It’s very hard to say. Mig and I spend holidays with my brother and his family, but his brother actually lives with us. However his brother speaks a language I don’t know so it’s mostly pointing and smiling when it comes to our conversations. The rest of Mig’s family is in Mexico so I’ve never seen or even spoken to most of them.

He is closer to my family. Currently, we live much closer to my family, but his family is only a couple of hours away. Before we moved, we were closer (physically) to his family and I would still say that he was closer to my family then I was to his.

I think the reason for this is most likely that his mother is crazy and thinks that I am out to get her. This is less true now then it used to be, but I still haven’t gotten over old wrongs.

Gay male couple. We’re far closer to his family because my family is borderline in accepting us. I think of his family as my own but the reverse is far from true.

Female here, closer to my in-laws because of geography–none of my family lives within 8 hours of me, while his parents are a 20-minute drive away. Plus, they’re awesome, while my family is at best benignly crazy.

Female here - I’m closer to his family than he is to mine… but that’s because his family is more or less functional, and I’m one step away from complete estrangement from the batshit crazy that spawned me. No gender politics involved there.

My family by its own nature is not very close. We haven’t reproduced at a replacement rate for 4 generations on either side. There just aren’t a lot of us. And without the efforts my grandmother made to keep everyone connected we just aren’t.

I’m closer to my sister than anyone in my husband’s family, but in a big picture sense we interact more with his. In fact, since my mom retired and moved far away my sister and her husband have spent several big holidays with us at my in-laws’ home.

I voted for the equal affection option. We’re down to one older generation person, her mother. But when all four were alive the older generation got along equally well with both of us, and vice versa. Hers lived closer by so we spent more time with them than with mine.

In my first marriage I’d say I got on better with her parents than she did with mine.

Female - closer to my family because my husband’s family, to put it mildly, is completely dysfunctional. My family, OTOH, is crazy but always means well.

All really interesting, and I’m surprised that (as of this writing) the poll shows a virtual dead-heat.

As a side note, I gotta say it’s sad to read how many people come from crazy/dysfunctional families. :frowning:

I’m closer to hers. When we got married we moved far away from either, but when I finished grad school we moved to NJ, 50 miles from her family, while mine had moved to California. Our kids spent a lot of time with those grandparents. When we moved to California, after my mother died, my father had remarried someone whom we are not so fond of, and we were still 500 miles away. Plus, my father-in-law is in a lot better shape mentally than my father, and I have to help him dig himself out of the messes he makes on his computer at 94. I’m almost more like my father-in-law than I am my father, which is pretty scary.

I always say once you’re an adult you really can choose your family.

I voted “both” but it’s weird. My family is very small and several hours away (basically my parents are the only ones we stay in any contact with, and I’m an only child.) My spouse gets along very well with my dad, and reasonably well with my mother.

His family lives much closer to us and is much larger and more close-knit, so we end up spending more holidays and whatnot at their place because it’s easier. However, his family are almost all extremely religious, and while I get along fine with most/all of them, I don’t really connect with them because they’re all about Jesus and I’m a tomboy gamer agnostic. This has gotten even more odd since my spouse has started going back to church and reconnecting with both the faith and the family.

So…while I would say that both of us get along fine with each other’s families, with the exception of one person on each side (my dad for him, our nephew on spouse’s side for me), we don’t really fit in too well.