“FOO” was a common abbreviation we were trained to use in marriage and family therapy. FOO stands for “family of origin.”
How does your FOO impact you?!
Consider how you and your spouse would answer these questions:
Should vacations focus on relaxation or activity?
Is the husband or wife responsible to lock up the house at night?
Who is expected to be the breadwinner in the marriage?
Should kids be allowed to eat in the family vehicle?
Are Saturdays a good day to do chores or relax or connect with people?
How many activities should our children participate in each season?
These are not moral questions! Each couple interviewed will likely come up with different responses and there is a range of healthy answers. It may be interesting to discuss these questions with your spouse, and I assume you will not agree 100% on each answer. Even if you have similar responses, they may be nuanced (such as “I find hiking to be relaxing, so I don’t consider it to be activity” vs. “I want to relax on vacation, meaning I want to read a book on the beach”).
To dig one level deeper, ask a follow up question: Why do you feel this way? Then the responder can share about their values, feelings, and thought processes that led to their conclusion. It is likely that some of their values originated in childhood, specifically within their family of origin.
I’ll give you an example: My mom kept a very clean home. When she and my dad were raising three kids, my mom set up expectations and posted notes reminding us to take our shoes off when we got home. My parents graciously hosted many friends in their house, and over time, friends learned this rule as well. Now that Mark and I have our own home, it feels equivalent to sinning to walk inside with shoes on! I realize this is silly and it is not sinful to wear shoes inside, but my FOO influenced my values which now play out in the ways I operate within our home.
Sometimes when we feel emotionally charged on a morally neutral topic, it is a helpful indicator we need to get curious.
Ask yourself or your spouse a few non-judgmental and clarifying questions: Can you share why that is important to you? How would you feel if that rule was not honored? What did this look like in your family growing up? (Remember, tone and non-verbals matter! If you are approaching this in a non-judgmental way, it is helpful to make sure your face, body, and voice reflect the same non-judgmental stance as your words do.)
We can consider more serious topics than house rules, too. FOO influences our spiritual life, our relationships as adults, and ways we approach life in general. As mentioned last week, a great place to begin understanding this impact on ourselves and our spouse is to seek to make the covert, overt! (See Foundational Questions to Promote Connection.)
Your family of origin, whether healthy, dysfunctional, or destructive, will affect you as an adult. Sometimes you are influenced by your FOO in ways you aren’t aware of.
Hysterical indicates historical.
When we have a larger reaction than a situation warrants, try to see it as a clue to understand this reaction further. It’s helpful to uncover messages or beliefs from our past that influenced our reaction. This is the opposite of shaming ourselves for experiencing large emotions; rather, we want to get curious about our strong reactions to see if we hold a false belief related to this topic. Then we can replace that false belief with truth and move forward in freedom, without condemnation!
“and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32 (ESV)
This is a long process, but in marriage, we are invited to know each other better every day until we live our final days together on this earth. The following process is simply designed to get you started understanding yourself and your spouse better and learn about your histories to better inform you two about ways to enjoy your present and future with each other more!
Before we get to these questions, I want you to know this is only recommended within safe marriages. Your marriage does not have to be perfect to process together on a deeper level, but it does need to be safe.
If you are in a destructive relationship (which is well beyond a disappointing relationship), please start by listening to Biblical Response to Emotionally Destructive Relationships with Leslie Vernick. It is a great starting place as you begin to heal and make forward progress.
At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We also want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
I also highly recommend Leslie Vernick’s book, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage.
For couples who are not in a destructive marriage and desire to understand each other better in this area, try choosing one of these questions for starters:
What do you appreciate most about your family of origin?
What do you wish you could change about the way you were raised?
What family memories stand out from your childhood (good or bad) and how do you feel about those?
How did your family handle finances, in-laws, or ____? (fill in the blank with other topics common in conflict)
What rules were communicated in your home growing up?
Were these rules clearly stated or inferred?
Did your parents teach you about friendship? If so, how? If not, what do you wish they would have taught you?
How was God viewed in your FOO?
What type of reputation did your FOO have?
Did your family act the same at home as they did in public? As a family, what were ways you were congruent or discongruent in this area?
Did your family depend on the Lord for help, growth, and joy?
Once you understand better where you both come from, then you can begin to move forward through answering these questions together:
What are a few words you want to describe our marriage and family?
What do we want to apply from our individual families of origin?
What do we want to leave behind from our individual families of origin?
Do you like how we are currently operating? Could you elaborate on why or why not?
What changes could enhance our marriage and family relationships?
Is there a better way we could handle problem-solving ______? (fill in the blank with finances, in-laws, holidays, intimacy, leisure time, etc . . .)
What are the rules we want to have in this home?
How are we communicating those rules? (Parenting expert Chad Hayengua gives excellent examples of how to communicate well with our children in Connection and Correction in Parenting)
What are some topics/traits/skills we want to train our children before they leave our home?
What topics/traits/skills do we hope to grow in ourselves?
How does our family view God?
What ways do we want to live out our faith in our home and outside our house?
What reputation do we have? (Leader and Pastor, Jeff Henderson, recommends asking others “What’s it like to be on the other side of me?” Check out his Intentional Life Tips and Recommended Questions in these amazing episodes!)
What is one area we can focus on today and bring before the Lord for help to grow in it?
The journey is the goal here and I pray joy arises through processing these questions with your spouse. I hope the clarity and insight gained is a catalyst to deeper levels of intimacy in your marriage.
For More Support:
If you want to process these questions with a trusted counselor, I highly recommend signing up for Faithful Counseling! When you sign up through this link, you will receive 10% off your first month of counseling. They are biblically informed and clinically trained. I believe they can help you better understand how your FOO affects you.
Once we are married, we also gain in-laws who may be very different from our family of origin. These new relationships require a lot of tender care, so for fabulous wisdom and biblical insight I recommend Annie Chapman’s episodes about the Mother-in-Law/Daughter-in-Law Relationship and Listener’s Questions Related to In-laws!
Finally, make sure you are subscribed to our free email list! These posts are only meant to benefit you, and by signing up you will gain access to our upcoming giveaways and bonus questions.
Thanks for prioritizing your marriage, sweet friend! It will not only bless you as a couple, but also a thousand generations who follow after you!
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9 (ESV)
“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.” Deuteronomy 7:9 (NIV)
Love to you,
Laura
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