When Tradition Enters the Marriage - Part 1

This Is How We’ve Always Done It” — But Why?

There are certain expectations within Albanian families that have been repeated for so many generations that we rarely stop to ask where they came from or whether they still make sense for the families we are creating today. We know what our parents did, what our grandparents did and what is considered respectful. Sometimes that is enough to keep a family pattern going for another generation. One of those expectations is the idea that a son gets married, remains in his parents' home and his wife joins the family household.

Before anyone gets defensive, I am not saying every Albanian family lives this way, nor am I saying that a married couple cannot live with parents and have a healthy marriage. Many multigenerational households are loving, supportive and incredibly close. What I am challenging is the automatic assumption that because something is culturally familiar, it must therefore be healthy, necessary or respectful. Those are three very different things.

Historically, there were reasons Albanian families lived this way. Family life was often organized around multigenerational households where property, work, finances, caregiving and survival were interconnected. Sons traditionally carried significant responsibilities toward the family, including caring for parents as they aged, and when a son married, his wife commonly entered his family household rather than the couple immediately establishing a separate home. Understanding that history is important because these traditions did not appear out of nowhere.

But families have changed. People immigrated. Women entered the workforce in greater numbers and developed careers of their own. Couples began marrying later. Financial opportunities changed. Gender roles changed. Expectations within marriage changed. Yet in some families, the expectation that the married son remains home never changed with everything else.

That is where I think we need to become curious.

Family patterns can continue long after the circumstances that originally created them disappear. Eventually, people may not even know why something has to be done a particular way. They simply know that doing it differently creates a reaction. A son says he wants to establish a home with his wife, and suddenly the conversation isn't really about housing anymore. His parents may ask why he would waste money when there is already a home available. His mother may wonder why he wants to leave. His father may remind him of his responsibility to the family. Someone may ask who will care for them when they get older. Before long, the decision has become a test of loyalty.

Now the message is no longer simply, “We would love for you to stay.” The message the son may hear is, “A good son stays.”

That is an enormous difference.

Once independence becomes associated with abandonment, a son may have difficulty even considering another arrangement without guilt. He may love the idea of having his own home with his wife but immediately think about what it will do to his parents. He may convince himself that remaining home is completely his decision when, in reality, he has never felt emotionally free to consider anything else.

And this is where I want to challenge the word respect.

A son can respect his parents without living with them. He can help them financially, care for them when they are sick, visit them regularly, include them in his life and remain deeply connected to them. Moving into another house does not erase his family, his responsibility or his Albanian identity. An address does not determine loyalty.

What becomes especially interesting to me is when I listen to women from older generations describe their own experiences as young brides. Some remember living with their husband's parents and having very little authority in the home. They remember being corrected, watched or expected to adapt. Some remember arguments with their husbands because he would not stand up to his parents. Others remember feeling as though they were living in someone else's home for years, even though everyone kept telling them, “This is your home too.”

Think about what that actually means. Imagine being told a home belongs to you while knowing that you cannot change something without asking, that someone else determines how the household operates, or that disagreeing with an older family member may immediately be interpreted as disrespect. You may technically live there, but emotionally you understand exactly whose home it is.

Many women from previous generations were unhappy with parts of this arrangement. Some complained to their own mothers. Some fought with their husbands. Some dreamed about eventually having their own space. Some simply accepted it because they believed there was no other option.

Then something fascinating can happen thirty years later. That same woman becomes the mother of an adult son, he gets married, and suddenly she expects his wife to move into her home.

This is where I want us to go deeper than saying, “That's Albanian culture.”

How does an experience that once caused someone pain eventually become something they defend as tradition?

Sometimes we normalize what happened to us because admitting that it hurt would require us to look at our own history differently. Sometimes we tell ourselves, “I did it and I survived,” without realizing that survival is a very low standard for what we should want for the next generation. Sometimes people spend years having very little power inside a family structure and, once they finally become the person with authority, they unconsciously protect the same structure that once made them feel powerless.

There can also be a rewriting of the past. Something that felt controlling when we were younger becomes “respect” when we are older. Something we resented becomes “the way things should be.” The privacy we desperately wanted becomes something we don't understand when our daughter-in-law asks for it.

For example, imagine a woman who spent years frustrated because her mother-in-law entered the kitchen and corrected how she cooked. Thirty years later, her son's wife cooks something differently and she finds herself saying, “That's not how we make it.” She may see herself as helping. Her daughter-in-law may experience exactly what she experienced decades earlier.

Or imagine a father who spent much of his marriage frustrated because his own parents interfered in decisions between him and his wife. His son gets married, and now he expects to be consulted about the son's finances, housing decisions and future plans. He may not see himself as interfering at all. He may believe he is guiding his son.

This is how patterns repeat. They do not always come back looking exactly the same.

Sometimes they come back with a different explanation.

None of this means multigenerational living is inherently unhealthy. I want to be very clear about that. Some families make it work beautifully. Grandparents help with children, families share resources, aging parents have support, meals are shared and relationships can become incredibly close. There are benefits that many more individualistic cultures do not experience.

But a healthy multigenerational home requires something more than love. It requires boundaries.

A married couple needs enough privacy to become a couple. They need to be able to disagree without the entire household knowing about it. They need to make decisions that other family members may not like. If they eventually have children, they need to become the parents rather than feeling as though they are parenting underneath grandparents. A daughter-in-law needs to be able to become part of a family without being expected to become a younger version of her mother-in-law.

This is where the phrase “You're part of our family now” can become complicated. Does it mean, “We want to know you, make room for you and allow our family to change because you are now part of it”? Or does it mean, “You are welcome here as long as you learn how we already do everything”?

Those are completely different experiences.

So maybe the deeper question isn't whether married Albanian sons should or shouldn't live with their parents. That is too simplistic. The more important question is what the family believes living together represents.

If a son chooses to live separately, does the family experience that as normal adulthood or rejection? Does his mother believe his wife took him away? Does his father believe he has failed in his responsibility as a son? Do relatives start talking? Does the son feel guilty every time his parents mention being alone? If so, then we aren't really discussing where somebody lives. We are discussing separation, loyalty, identity and fear.

And those are much deeper family issues.

Maria's Challenge

For this first part of the series, I want families to stop defending the tradition long enough to examine it.

If you are a parent who expects your married son to remain in your home, ask yourself why. Not the easy answer—“because we're Albanian,” “because this is what families do,” or “because it makes financial sense.” Go underneath those answers. What would it mean to you emotionally if your son said, “I love you, but when I get married I want my wife and me to have our own home”? Would you feel abandoned? Rejected? Afraid? Would you believe his wife influenced him? Would you worry about who will care for you later? Would you wonder what other people will say?

Then I want you to challenge yourself even further. If you lived with your own in-laws, remember the experience as it actually was, not as you explain it decades later. Did you have privacy? Did you feel that the home was truly yours? Could you disagree without consequences? Could you make decisions with your husband without someone else's opinion entering the marriage? Were there moments when you desperately wanted your own space?

If there were, ask yourself why your son's wife should have to repeat them.

If you are the son, ask yourself whether living with your parents is genuinely a decision you and your wife are making together or whether this decision was already made for you long before you ever met her. If saying you want your own home fills you with guilt before you have even said the words, pay attention to that. Guilt can tell us a great deal about the rules operating inside a family.

And if you are the woman preparing to marry into this family, don't only ask whether his parents are nice to you. They may be wonderful people. Ask yourself whether there will actually be room for you and your marriage to grow. Can you disagree? Can you have privacy? Can you and your husband make a decision his parents don't like and still be treated with respect?

We do not have to reject Albanian culture to challenge an Albanian family pattern. We can keep our closeness, loyalty, responsibility toward our parents and deep connection to family while also deciding that some things should look different for the next generation.

Sometimes breaking a cycle isn't saying, “What my parents did was wrong.”

Sometimes it is simply having the courage to say, “I understand why they did it. I also understand what it cost them. And I don't have to repeat it.”

Coming next in Part 2: “My Father Did It, So I Do It”: When an Albanian Son Becomes the Husband He Watched Growing Up

— Maria Shkreli, LMHC

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