Easter provided me with lots of opportunities to practice my new narc management skills. I hope to write some posts on how I've been able to manage my NSis and NM better. But for now, NMIL is stuck in my craw. So, again this post will be about her.
I've known for awhile that she will be coming around soon. I've actually had a nice, long break from all of them. I ran into BIL and SIL at an event for the kids. As usually, they were distant and spoke little (if at all...now that I think of it, they really didn't speak to me at all). But it was manageable I had been quite nervous, but I made it through.
Before dinner, my husband took my son to visit a friend. I had asked him to be home by 4 p.m to help me. When he wasn't home at that time, I was annoyed. But I used it at as a moment to practice some restraint and approach things from a place of expressing my feelings rather than unleashing my anger. As I waited the half hour for him to come home, I practiced and practiced how I could approach him in a less aggressive way. When he came in, I simple said "Hi, glad you are home. I had expected you home at 4." He then explained that he had run into the wife of the friend, just as he was leaving and had felt it rude to just take off. OK. I was glad I didn't jump on him the minute he walked in the door. I told him that I had been disappointed he hadn't been home on time (and even if he hadn't run into this woman, he still would've been late.) I told him that I had found it frustrating and that I expected he would come home when we had agreed upon, especially when he knew I really needed his help. He agreed.
It was wonderful. I felt accomplished. I felt like we had communicated and I had been able to get my point across and that it hadn't destroyed the whole tempo of the evening. So, we continued to talk and he remembered that he hadn't called his parents back. He said "Oh, MIL is coming down in a few weeks for FIL's birthday. They will be staying the weekend and want to take us all (meaning us and BIL and SIL and their family) out to dinner." So, this sent little twinges of annoyance through me, but I had expected it. MIL uses FIL's birthday every year, either to invite herself down her or to push us to invite them. No one else in the family has a "big family celebration" but she knows that we will all do it for FIL. Sounds nice, but in the end I know that MIL does this only because it meets her needs. There is an agenda to it: she gets to get the family together, but she can do it under the guise of FIL. It also annoys me that she just makes plans and then expects us to fall in line. She doesn't stay with us, but rather with BIL, so itt's actually a bit sticky. Because really, they have every right to make plans together and it's not at my house so I don't really have a say. But it just seems like this happens all the time. MIL and BIL arrange something and THEN call us to inform us of the plans. No one checks with me and DH to see what is going on with us. Sure, we can refuse to go. We can say we have other plans. But we know there is an implied demand that we comply. It annoys me that, over and over, we are informed of plans after the fact. We are never consulted. And if it didn't work out for us, they wouldn't adjust the plans to include us in the "family" get together.
But, I had expected this birthday bullshit from MIL, so I was better able to handle it. But then DH, more talking out loud than to me said "They are actually coming Tuesday too. They wanted us to meet up at the farm tour. I told (MIL) that we couldn't." So, here we were. Another surprise visit. A visit that it appeared BIL had been made privy too before us, as they had already made plans to go to the farm tour. BIL does talk to MIL almost every day, so it didn't surprise me -and as described above - they make plans and then tack us on all the time. But this time I was pissed and angry and frustrated. My stomach started hurting. I tensed up. I started shaking and getting antsy. What in the hell was going on? My physical reaction seemed so much more extreme than the situation called for, especially since we hadn't been expected to go. This is why MIL is tricky for me, she triggers this feeling all the time and I can't pin point where it comes from.
A little background to the farm tours. The farm is down the street from my house. I discovered this farm tour several years back and began inviting BIL/SIL and their kids to it (along with a mutual family friend). SIl had overheard me talking to another friend on Saturday about the farm tours (they wouldn't have known otherwise). I believe they went with us once. But as is typical with BIL and SIL, they soon quite going with us and started going, either by themselves or with other family members/friends. Of course, they have the right to go whenever they want to. But this isn't the first time this has happened. It isn't the first time they've taken ideas from me and then went with someone else. It isn't the first time they have not invited us to do things with the kids together. In fact, a latest bone of contention is that they NEVER invite us to get together so our kids (cousins of close age) can play. DH has let go of making plans to try and get the kids together and has been surprised to see that they never call us. Ever. After years of making a big deal about "family" and "close cousins" (by BIL and MIL, both), DH can see that, if we don't do the planning, the kids don't get together. So, it sticks in my craw a little that they then choose to do the things, things we've invited them to, with other people. And that's what happened here. BIL decided to have a "family activity" and didn't include us again. It's BIL and SIL and MIL and FIL. We are not family apparently And this has happened over and over and over (in fact, several times the whole family has gotten together- three of the brothers, their wives, and my parents-in-law - without us. MIL even went on and on one night about how my chef BIL was cooking a big meal for them all. They've somehow decided it's OK to exclude us. Whether it's because they believe I wouldn't go because of all the dogs...a legitimate concern for me, but still my decision to make...or because SIL refuses to invite me to her home unless it's perfect and she can maintain her image of perfect wife and mother. She likes to blame me for being "judgmental" about her home but it's really her insecurities, not me being a bitch. Consequently, I haven't been to her home, five minutes away, in three years.)
I was stressed when DH told me this, trying to get a big Easter feast on the table. But hearing about the farm just shut me down. I had to tell him. I had to tell him my feelings. I needed to get it out and I needed his support. But I knew better. I knew he wouldn't understand. I tried to explain how I felt they were somehow taking something over, how it felt wrong somehow, how something was just nagging me. But it sounded stupid. Why couldn't they go to the tour? They HAD invited us after all (well, MIL had invited us technically. Another habit she has. She invites us to do things that I have a feeling BIL or SIL didn't want us invited to, or they would have invited us themselves.) DH looked at me, kind of rolled his eyes, and said "OK" like I was a crazy lunatic. And that's what I'm sure I sounded like. This was EXACTLY why she gets to me in the first place. She creates these weird, naggy, anxiety-ridden feelings in me and I look like a lunatic when I try to explain why.
I thought and thought about it. I consumed a glass of wine. And then it occurred to me what was going on and I tried to explain it again to DH:
MIL is like an elephant. A huge, cartoonish elephant that is running at me full force. You know the kind, like from old Disney cartoons or Looney Tune cartoons. The round elephant with the wild eyes running on two legs with a HUGE grin on her face. And she's running at me with a flag in her hand. Constantly. This woman, sees something that I am doing or have or have created and she is so damned excited about it that she is rushing at me to plant her flag right on top of mine. She just barrels right over the top of me. It's like I'm this little mouse, who has created this beautiful sand castle. She sees it from far off and LOVES it so much that she has to claim it for herself. So, she rushes in, sand flying everywhere, pushing me aside to plant her flag right over the top of mine. She cares not that she is pushing me out of the way. She cares not that she has destroyed what I have created. For her, what belongs to one family member belongs to the others. AND WHY WOULD YOU NOT WANT TO SHARE WITH FAMILY!! the elephant shouts at me. (MIL has actually made a point of claiming, by passive-aggressively "correcting" my son, that family should share. That family does share. There are no boundaries). She doesn't approach me and speak to me about my sand castle and ask if she can play too. She doesn't even fucking acknowledge I'm there. She is a huge, elephant, a wildly excited elephant or just demolishes anything I try to create and takes it for herself. She horns in and pushes and plops down right in the middle of everything. It's clear to me that she hasn't thought about any body else except herself. How she can look like a good grandmother, how she can "create" a family memory (or stamp her name over a family memory that I've created). She'll take credit, she'll brag to her friends about doing it with the kids, she'll speak about this event in the future as when SHE took all of the kids to the farm. It'll be an annual "family thing". And she does this to me over and over and over and over.
But here is the hard part. Others only see a very, happy (if not somewhat comical) elephant. They say "but she can't help she is an elephant!" "She's just excited" they'll exclaim. They won't understand why I'm being so "stingy" with this tour. Why I am being selfish and claiming it as "my own". They won't see how MIL has taken something that I used to invite everyone to, and they declined and now made it something that SHE invites everyone too and we are expected to go. They'll say, why do you need credit? But the thing is, I don't need the credit. But, it's clear to me, that SHE NEEDS THE CREDIT. She has to be in charge and directing it all. No one else sees a brute that is so concerned about her own excitement that she tramples on everyone around her. Or that, even is she notices that she has trampled on my sand castle, it's a small sacrifice so that she can have what she wants. No one sees that she has buried me in the ground. They just see a loving, excited grandma. I see an elephant who is going to beat me down again.
A big, giant, wild-eyed, pay to attention elephant with a flag to plant. That is what she is to me. Recognizing this has helped. I actually was able to communicate this to DH. He actually understood what I was saying and agreed that she is like that.
But what do I do now? How do I stop a charging elephant? How do I deal with these feelings that are pretty legit actually when you look at the "threat" baring down on me?
Okay, when I have had feelings like that of anxiety, it isn't so much just about the bitch in my life. People act like sometimes MNs and bitchez are so powerful, but they don't have the power to mindcontrol other people. It's more that there is a bitch, but also around that, that there are people around you that might not believe you or who will say that your feelings are wrong. It isn't just the bitch but also the sense that you don't have support of people you care about or people making sense around you, you don't have control over your life.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to your MIL and also now apparently the BILs and SILs in the in-law family circus around her, it isn't just about them not inviting you or how you can communicate better. It feels like you can't communicate better with these people. Judging from how they've treated you and acted, they don't seem like nice people. None of them. So it's not about how you can communicate, it's do you want to communicate to someone like MIL?
Do you want to talk to a crazy person? Do you want to talk to someone who you have nothing in common with? Do you want to talk to someone who is mean?
They're not a family. Lots of people do not get caught up in some crazy high school community with their BILs and SILs and kids just because they're extended family. Lots of people are not close to their in-laws. You don't have to do it. Nowhere in the textbook does it say that.
:) Lisa
You are right the anxiety comes from the feelings of complete and utter loss of control when she's around. And it's not a feeling. When she is around, I do not have a say in ANYTHING. Or if I do say something, it is not received well. She is such a damn bulldozer that any attempt to manage my life or my home or my kids is just rolled right over.
DeleteAnd no, I don't want a damn relationship with her. If she could just leave me alone, that would be great. The thing is, she is the one that continues to push the relationship. She'll be damned if I don't like her, and fit into the pre-approved slot. She can't just let me sit on the other side of the room and just be. She has to stalk me around the room, talking phony b.s. at me, expecting me to buy whatever she is selling. And if I try to carve out a little space for myself, well, that's when the elephant drags out her old flag and plants it on my head.
I have to be around her because I love my husband. I need to figure out how to keep her at arm's length so I can manage.
But i do not want to be close to her (it's not a possibility to be close to a phony anyway). I am not concerned about being a family anymore. But I'm sick to death of being trampled by her over and over.
Jessie,
DeleteMy husband, whose family is not the neurotic bunch that I grew up with, will sometimes have quiet fun at their expense, by taking their need to appropriate everything and using it against them. Example: my cousin who can one-up anything you have ever done, known, read, etc. was getting on his nerves one time. They were talking about an area of law that my husband was then studying in school, and the cousin just knew EVERYTHING about it. So, my husband made up a supreme court case related to their discussion. It turned out that my cousin had totally read about the case (!!!) and had a number of fabulous opinions about it. And my husband just laughs on the inside.
The first time he told me about this I was literally unable to understand how he did this. When you are in the middle of the anxiety attack, it just seems totally foreign to even be able to think of something. I'm working on it still, but I find that I can get the distance it takes more and more.
I was thinking maybe with your MIL you could think up something that you are totally in to/made yourself/? whatever it is that attracts her and have fun watching her take over. Something that you would never do and that she will only be doing because she thinks you would. In a way, its like those eastern self defense tricks: you are using her own actions but redirecting them so they hurt her, not you.
In the process, you are testing your hypothesis that this is what is going on and you will be able to give yourself (and maybe DH) proof that it is exactly what is going on. The proof helps the anxiety too, because it makes it clear that you are not making this up.
Anyway, that was my immediate thought reading your post, don't know if it is helpful.
Best,
R
Thanks R, you've had some good points.
DeleteFirst, your cousin, that is completely what I'm talking about. I studied psychology in school and worked for years as a diagnostic technician. My SIL has taken ONE course in psychology and is therefore the "family" expert on all things. My opinions (expertise) is met with disdain. Of course, I don't buy into their bullshit that they are "normal" and the rest of us mere mortals are the "crazy" ones.
For clarification on my anxiety attacks: I used to have them quite frequently and I've (almost completely) got them under control. This is something different. It hits my stomach hard and just makes me want to flee. It is so intense and just over takes me. And my in-laws are pretty much the only source of these feelings in my life.
DH does at least acknowledge that MIL is like this. We've often laughed that we could hand her a rotten bottle of wine, tell her it's FABULOUS and she'd exclaim for days. The problem with MIL, is she is sneaky in her covetous ways. She finds out about things in a back handed way (easier for her to lay claim to it that way). She's a tricky one! And after years and years of it, I have no doubt that is what is going on. It's just tricky to prove and it's NEVER something I can call her on (because she is so sneaky!) and my in-laws would never believe me anyway.
Thanks for reading. Glad to see you here!
"It hits my stomach hard and just makes me want to flee. It is so intense and just over takes me. And my in-laws are pretty much the only source of these feelings in my life." That is very much the same reaction I get with the amygdala hijack. It is people specific.
DeleteYes, Kara, I very much believe it is more an amygdala hijack than a true anxiety attack. It has a different feel to it. When you get your post on this done, I'd like to link here to it.
DeleteSure, I'll let you know when I finish it.
DeleteHi Jess,
ReplyDeleteThe elephant illustration is very apt. I think dealing with this is going to be a two way thing: 1) Building yourself up and finding a way to calm down the amygdala "drill" and 2) Finding a way to keep her at bay that turns the situation around so that you don't feel trampled over.
The 2nd one will be a bit more tricky. We need to find the "kryptonite" that will work for her, and that is always "Narc-specific" I'm afraid... but don't get me wrong, we will find it.
I completely get what you mean about the farm tour. Not sure that I would be able to explain it to someone else either. There is something in that way of doing things that feels wrong. It's like they're saying: " thanks for showing us this, now we don't need you anymore".
The elephant popped into my head all of a sudden and just fit. I've always seen her as bit of a bull dozer before. But the thing that fits with the elephant, is the goofy, cartoonish, wild-eyed nature of how I saw her. To others, so is just a harmless cartoon character. To me, she's a ton of destruction. I guess it's all in the beholder!
DeleteThanks for helping me out on this Kara. She is just so complex. And I sound like a complete mad woman trying to explain this stuff. It sounds petty and silly, but the pattern of it all is so destruction to me. I like the last sentence you wrote. It sums it up for me. It is like I'm being dismissed somehow. Like she is somehow "plagiarizing" me. Does that make sense? Like she's stealing things and claiming them as her own and somehow relegating me back to "second tier help". And if it didn't happen with almost constant frequency (and not just with my ideas, but my home, my hobbies, my way of dressing)it probably wouldn't annoy me so much.
Yes, it makes sense. Like they're copying your work. It's difficult to explain to others the feeling of asphyxia that goes with this.
DeleteShe is appropriating (as R. said) your ideas, ways of doing things, even your attempts to include her and her relatives when socializing.
ReplyDeleteYes to what everyone says about trying to find ways to distance from her, even in her presence. I saw some good explanations by googling "medium chill" of how to be disappointingly nonresponsive while still being courteous. --quartz
Your feelings are completely valid.
ReplyDeleteWe do see your elephant for what it is, an elephant. A very energetic one, trampling over anything you try to plant in your garden.
And I also understand how anxious you must feel when you sense that she is stealing your program ideas.
She steals it because it is a good thing. And because she has no self on her own, so she has to pick an identity - as always - to show to others. This is the mask of a very good grandma. She has found a new addition to that mask, and she is determined to take it from you.
Your feelings are valid. And you do not have to participate in any of this.
I understand how difficult it is, when all others see is a funny cartoonish elephant, and you are the only one who sees the harmful, real-life, huge elephant, running directly your way.
We see your elephant.
Thanks Scatha. I think you touched on something that is hard too, in order to steal my identity, she has to somehow erase it from me. She's not interested in sharing. She wants it all, all of the time. And so it's not enough to just rush in, she has to trample me to the ground and erase me at the same time.
Delete"We are never consulted. And if it didn't work out for us, they wouldn't adjust the plans to include us in the "family" get together."
ReplyDeleteI remember this happening whenever we got together with EFIL and L. And there was the one time when L said to me that we should change the plans of DD's birthday party for them because it didn't coincide with THEIR plans, and at the end of it, she tacked on a comment about how SHE'D do that for US (change their plans) if we needed her to. But the thing was that it was such a fucking lie. People like this care only about their own selfish agenda, and they often talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Narcissist or not, it's just plain selfish and rude.
Last year, before my son's birthday, DH mentioned the date to MIL. "Oh, not (the following weekend)? I'm glad you told me, we had other plans." I asked what "plans" MIL had. DH said just dinner or something. So, she basically was saying the weekend we picked out wasn't convenient for her (the following weekend was because she was going to be here anyway), we had inconvenienced her, and she really hoped we would change it. Oh, and that she was annoyed we hadn't told her earlier. It didn't matter that the following weekend was bad for us. Or that she knew damn well the party would be one of those two weekends. Or that she could pick up the phone and check the plans with us. If she wasn't trying to say all of those things, she would most likely have said "Oh, great. I'll have to switch some things around, but we'll be there!" She is so damn passive-aggressive and subtle that her little barbs just slip in there.
DeleteI would have told her that if she had other plans that she should keep them. But she doesn't consult with me.
And of course what's most obnoxious and hurtful about it all is that the reason why all these plans were being made was because you were having a party FOR YOUR CHILD. Oh, so sorry, NMIL, that you feel fucking inconvenienced because we chose to have a birthday party for our child (your grandchild) on a day that didn't suit you.
DeleteUck. Makes me sick.
You know, like that time when DH and I were probably going to have a baby at a time that was totally inconvenient for EFIL and L. We were so thoughtless and inconsiderate!
I swear these people don't even care that they sound like the rudest, most obnoxious, most selfish people on earth.
That's the thing. These kids are supposedly THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN MIL'S LIFE!!!! When it's convenient for her.
DeleteA memory floated back to me of the birth of my second son. After a c-section, I was transitioned into a room with three other women. I wasn't even in a part with a curtain. People were coming and going, I'm recovering from surgery (an hour earlier), I am trying to feed my newborn while people parade in front of me. My husband brings my older son in to meet his baby brother. It's chaos. And MIL calls. She wants to come NOW. I can hear my DH telling her that it's not a good time, that no, he doesn't know when they will be able to come in, that it's just hard, he'll call her back. He finally says, "MOM, she's in a room with three other women and there isn't even a place to stand. We'll call you later." (one of the moments where he has put his foot down). But I wondered last night, why the hell she had no compassion for us. Why it was all about the fact that she had driven in (when it was convenient to her, without consulting us) and she was bored and excited and wanted to come NOW. I wondered why she couldn't find something to do until we were able to see her.
I wonder about that too - in particular with the birth of DD (with DS, it wasn't as much an issue because she didn't even know I'd gone into labor since we'd decided not to tell her). NMIL must have asked DH ten times on the phone (while we were driving and I was in labor, and after we'd already told her what our plans were weeks in advance) whether she could come to the hospital right then, right that moment. They don't have any compassion and are completely selfish, and I think it's the image they want to project of being the "perfect" grammies or whatever. So they can say, they were the FIRST ones to see the baby, or they were in the room, or whatever. And they totally try to take control of what is supposed to be the most beautiful moment, a moment where we want peace and privacy to enjoy with our new little ones.
DeleteYou know, if your MIL was that insistant about coming, she should have just showed up. The fact that she ASKED ten times meant what she really wanted was for your DH to cry and say "oh, yes, mommy, please come!"
DeleteWhen my first son was almost due, I wrote out the exact directions to the hospital because I knew she would be calling my DH over and over bothering him with how to get there. I didn't want him to have to be distracted by her (and away from me). She laughed at me and told me she and her husband basically thought I was a neurotic nut job for doing it. Well, what do you know, when the time came she had me on the phone forever as she asked directions, missed the turns, and somehow couldn't even follow directions while on the phone with me (in a city she is actually pretty familiar with). Luckily, I had already had the baby (and circumvented dealing with her during labor) but it pissed me off that even when I'd planned for her bullshit, she somehow managed to still make it about her.
"So, it sticks in my craw a little that they then choose to do the things, things we've invited them to, with other people. And that's what happened here. BIL decided to have a "family activity" and didn't include us again."
ReplyDeleteGee. Fucking passive-aggressive much? These people are absolutely insane, and what sucks is that you're still expected to have a relationship with them. If these people weren't "family," it would be so much easier to cut those ties and just say, "To hell with them." If I didn't know anything else about SIL and BIL but just a few of the things you've mentioned here in this post, I'd still say they don't like you very much, if at all. And who wants to have to do things with people who don't like you, don't respect you, don't see you as a human being with rights and feelings and needs? These people are NOT friends, and they take advantage of their relationship with you to suit THEIR needs whenever they fucking feel like it. It's insulting. It's aggravating. It's hurtful. And for what? Because SIL is a nutcase about the state of her home? Because they don't "like" you? Because they're too rude and inconsiderate to be polite or thoughtful? It's bullshit. Bullshit that they all too often get away with.
They don't like me very much. BIL has never been particularily friendly with me. Up until recently, he's not been overly rude, but he's never expressed interest in me or made attempts to know me. We had a bunch of flair ups when DH and I first met (he trampled my boundaries a lot and felt he was had equal rights in my relationship with DH. I disagreed.) I thought we had worked through a lot. But then, when he moved her, it became clear that I just was his brother's wife. He didn't not like me, but he didn't like me either. He really gave little thought to me at all. SIL has had a campaign to 'win me over' as one of her fans. When that failed, she turned cold and distant. (And for the record, many of my friends have told me she is outright bitchy to them. I suspect because they are "my" friends, they can't be "her" friends too, and so she treats them poorly)
DeleteI'm not interested in friendship with them. But, I have to deal with them.
"We are not family apparently" - You're only "family" when it suits them.
ReplyDeleteWe asked my BIL to help us move. We have helped him a lot and had asked for a couple of hours in the evening for two nights (we were under a time crunch) and we had a moving company do the hard stuff. He gave us a little over one hour, of which he spent the majority on the phone, talking loudly. Even my NM remarked about how "unhelpful" he was. And then he bagged out of the second night (he blamed it on my SIL).
DeleteI was thinking today how BIL's idea of family flows one way. Down the hierarchy of his (and MIL's creating). DH and I are deemed the "fortunate" ones and so we are expected to flow all of our energy and money down the line. DH and I are expected to give and give for the sake of "family" and to suit other's needs. But we have rarely had offers of help in the other direction. Rarely is our health or financial well-being considered.
So my two (four, eight, ten!!) cents: I don't think you CAN stop the charging elephant. You can redirect her, you can run from her, you can stay out of her path. But you can't stop her. She's far too large a force, with far too many fucking people on her side helping her along to stop her. And she's not going to listen to you anyway, no matter how loud you get! She'll just bowl you over, ignorantly happy with her one-track mind that is so set on DESTROYING everyone else in order to ensure her own security.
ReplyDelete(Boy, I hope we're not giving elephants a bad rep!)
I'd say go with your family when it suits you and ignore their invites. Say no thank you. Don't offer up reasons as to why you don't want to go with them, or justify why you don't want to go with them when you seemed so "insistent" on inviting them before. I don't know that you can get much out of them, I don't think they are going to budge, or try to be fair, or see you as a human fucking being with needs/thoughts/desires/etc. I think they're all just going to keep bowling you over and saying "fuck you, Jessie!" because it suits them.
I think you should create your own tradition of going on the trip because you TRIED to do it with them, and you made multiple attempts to negotiate with them and they weren't fucking interested. There is no negotiating in their books. It's like you put down five dollars on the table and they're asking you to put down a million. There is no negotiating there, nothing fair about it. And they won't budge.
For the record, I love elephants! And also, so no one thinks I'm being petty, I didn't choose this analogy because MIL resembles an elephant physically. I also thought today how she is like a virus. She waits for others to create a warm, hospitable environment, and then she climbs inside and takes over.
DeleteAnyway, I know I can't change her. My hope now is to "redirect" her, as you said. And to figure out how to redirect her away from my kids. Other's keep trying to force her on me as my kid's grandmother and I need to keep boundaries around them.
I would happily go on with doing our own traditions (and I do do this). The problem is that she works on DH. Like in this instance, he didn't see all her manipulation and con-work. This is a blessing in some ways, that he doesn't pick up on her hints, because he actually says no a lot without realizing that it's the best choice. However, a lot of her covert whisperings do make it into his ear (and he rarely even realizes how they got planted there) and that's where the trouble comes in. He thinks it's just a trip to the farm. I see it as a straw in the proverbial stack of bullshit.
I've given up. I told DH that. I'll participate here and there, but I'm sick of doing all of the work, just to get trampled on. He's coming around and seeing more than ever. But every now and then, that damn elephant gets past the gate!
Ah - therein is probably the answer. DH. Never stop talking to him about it. I know, sometimes they need space and they certainly need time. But his FOO is an issue that will ALWAYS be there and so you have to keep working at it with him, pointing out when you know she's been working ON him. (And isn't that the difference right there? You work WITH him; she works ON him). I understand the battle. I'm there too, my dear friend.
DeleteThat is the difference. She is always working on him. Chipping away, molding, maneuvering things to her best advantage.
DeleteI'm not trying to convince my husband I'm right, I'm just trying to get him to see how he might be being manipulated.
It's easier to deal with my FOO. With my in-laws, DH is the wild card. The "extra" person in the equation. And I understand only to clearly the journey an ACoN has to go through to come out of the FOG. I get it, I appreciate it. I know he's working at it. But it's hard, for both of us. It's such a fine line to walk as the pull of his FOO's "training" is always right there, ingrained from infancy, trying to suck him back in.
I see that all the time too - that habitual though-process that seems to want to suck them back in, which is EXACTLY what they were set up to do. They were set up to "come back" to their narco-mommies. Programmed, if you will. I can only imagine how hard that must be to fight. It must get easier.
DeleteWow can I ever relate to this. Of course it sounds petty, that is exactly how you are supposed to look. I have told my DH of 20 years that if I knew then what I know now, I would have run far away from him. This to the man I love and with whom I havr brought children into the world. His mother also used to tell other family members to not invite us to things, because we were so busy and we would just feel bad. We were sitting at home bored and crushed not to be included. Because NMiL would call to let us know she was going to so-and-so's and when would we be there? Oh? Not invited, how awkward... The hijacking of events was also common. Best was scheduling something we had suggested for a date she knew we couldn't attend, then making sure everyone else thought we had poo-pooed her invitation. Not only no credit for family bonding attempts, but garnering sympathy as if we had rejected her.
ReplyDeleteThanks for contributing anon. Your mil sounds awful. No wonder you would run now!
DeleteMy mil knows I am very allergic to dogs but allows all the siblings to bring them to her house all of the time. Consequently, we wouldn't visit often or for long. Not only do I think my mil implies that I am exaggerating my illness but I know she implies to others that I am merely using it as an excuse. So, they make it difficult for me to visit but then act like I am a bad dil for not visiting more. I used to put my health at risk until I realized they made minimal efforts to ease my symptoms and placed the dogs above my health.