“This is a very harsh statement, and it’s a gross generalization. I know plenty of frum people with non-frum family, and they get along quite well. My own in-laws, who are not frum, keep extra sets of kosher dishes in their basement cabinets for when we would visit. They never watched TV [publicly] when we stayed for Shabbat, nor did they travel anywhere or use the phone. *They* made the adjustments, and we managed quite well. “
Mameshtakeh, I don’t know how recently you joined the CR, but I have often posted about my in-laws int he past. They were AMAZING, wonderful people, with middos that the frummest of the frum would do well to emulate. BUT, when it came to certain inyanim, as I mentioned, i.e. the intermarriage of a close family member, whose wedding we would not attend, they would not accept our decision, and there was a terrible breach with several family members for a long time, until a close family member died. They wanted all the compromise to be on OUR part, but they wouldn’t respect OUR religious needs. That is very often the case when one side of the family is not frum. The frummies get called “religious fanatics” on a regular basis (we were, for not attending a JEWISH wedding in my husband’s family during the Nine Days (it was not my in-laws who called us that, but the mother of the bride had a few choice words for us).
My wonderful in-laws kept plastic goods (I would not have washed a dish in their sink) for us for whenever we came to visit. There was no question of being able to spend a Shabbos by them, though I am glad you were able to work that out with your in-laws. The system always works – until it doesn’t. For 15 years there was never a machlokess with us about anything, and then relative of my husband’s married a goy, and all the understanding flew out the window. These are real issues that need to be addressed and NOT dismissed as “harsh statements.” I have been there for 33 years and I know whereof I speak. And I am one of the LUCKY ones.
My in-laws were very supportive of my husband becoming frum,and were proud of him. But as I said, the frumkeit did not signify enough to my shver to be present at his grandson’s graduation when he was receiving a special choshuv Limudei Kodesh award, because his granddaughter was having a first birthday party, at which she was completely unaware that her grandfather was even there. My son, however, was acutely aware that his only living grandfather (my parents and mother-in-law had passed away before then) did not deem his Yeshivah graduation on par with a family birthday party. We got through those times, but I would not want my own children to face that type of situation, though I would not sof kol sof prevent them from marrying the children of B”T or even a B”T. I just know the pitfalls that are bound to arise (in spite of what you personally experienced, which is the rarity).