Reading Rumena Bužarovska’s short story collection “Osmica,” I pondered how much I enjoy reading something rooted in our culture, yet at the same time, my stomach churns from familiar behavior patterns, from the needs the main characters swallow. Rumena brilliantly tackles various complex and important issues. Each of these stories could be psychoanalyzed, which would be very interesting and useful. From the perspective of family systemic psychotherapy, the story “Meat for Lunch” was particularly interesting to me, so I decided to use it as an example of poorly defined boundaries in the family.
In this story, a couple comes to live with the husband’s mother due to financial difficulties. As I read this story, I imagined it like a stage in a theater. Lunch was prepared by the mother-in-law, and the daughter-in-law does not eat the meat that was cooked. In that one scene, we can see so much about the relationships in this family. In the relationship between husband and wife, about his relationship with his mother. The mother-in-law notices that the daughter-in-law does not eat meat and asks her why, and if they did not eat meat in her family. She says she never liked to eat a lot of meat. The mother-in-law pressures her to eat anyway, and the husband silently supports his mother in that. The protagonist struggles to chew the meat, and very symbolically, she is expected to swallow her own needs (for a better understanding of the text, I invite you to read this story in full).
When we look at customs in our culture, and in many others, we see that this is also a gender story, where women are usually expected to embrace the husband’s identity and his family’s. She changes her last name, takes his, comes to live with his parents, and in a way, she is expected to adapt and give up the way she has lived so far. In the above-mentioned scene, we can see various processes, such as how the new family member is accepted, how rules are determined and who determines them, how identity is preserved, and how other roles are taken over. Interestingly, in this story, the husband does not support his wife in her struggle for autonomy in relation to the mother-in-law, but somehow expects her to give up her needs and, if necessary, accept things as they are. It can be challenging for couples living in shared households to establish clear boundaries with older generations with whom they live, such as establishing their own life rules and having space for intimacy, conflict resolution, and child-rearing.
In this story, another actor is a cat, loved by its owner, the mother-in-law, who attacks the daughter-in-law. My interpretation of the symbolism of the cat is that it can actually represent the mother-in-law, who is passive-aggressive, while the cat is openly aggressive and scratches and attacks the protagonist, and everyone repeatedly ignores her needs, while she remains alone in her struggle with the cat and in her struggle for herself. In this story, we also see a power struggle between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law, where the husband withdraws until the situation finally escalates. We won’t spoil the end of this great story.
This reminded me of that photo that recently circulated on the internet, where the bride and groom hold hands, and he also holds his mother’s hand. Although comical, it tells us very clearly that he did not establish good boundaries with his family of origin, so it is questionable how he can form a new family when he has not actually separated from the family in which he grew up. One interesting piece of information is that a certain number of couples start couples counseling when they start organizing their wedding. Not only because that is the moment when the couple needs to agree on various details and when the expectations of both need to be aligned, but also because then their families start expressing what they expect, and it is often seen how boundaries the couple has toward their families of origin. This is one of the developmental tasks of couples, how they are now a new unit that functions together, together making decisions about how they will function, values, traditions, and rituals. This does not mean that they will emotionally distance themselves from their families of origin, but that their families will not make decisions about the functioning of the couple.
What predicts making good boundaries for couples with families of origin is what boundaries individuals have with their families of origin. Often if these boundaries are different, one individual has more permeable boundaries than the other, problems can arise, and if both have them, then it can be real chaos 🙂
Although a big challenge for couples, setting good boundaries with the family of origin can contribute to a better quality of the couple’s relationship. Since both the couple and their families must adapt to new boundaries, this is often a complex process that takes time and effort. If you want to start couples counseling, you can schedule your session on the contact page.