The Elephant in the Room

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?

Christmas Card

I got a Christmas card from my MIL last night.  And I was annoyed.  Big time.  It seems so stupid.  So insignificant.  I'll bet I'm reading into the thing too much.  But something about it just pissed me off.

It was a gold card.   Very "old ladyish".  Very religious. The kind with some artistic rendition of The Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus.   I think it was one of those cards, that when purchased, some money goes to some charity.

Inside, she included two pictures.  One of the family, posed for a "family reunion picture" at a family funeral.  Taking the picture was a minefield of chaos.  Lots of chickens with their heads cut off.  MIL shouting "just take the picture!  Keep snapping."  No one was arranged.  The lighting was horrible.  Plus, it was a really difficult day.  As they organized the photo, I was pounding a Chardonnay at the bar.   MIL's sister, the photographer, says, "don't you want to be in the photo?".   I knew there was tons of time to make it out, as the chickens hadn't run around enough yet to settle into picture mode.  In most of the pictures, me and my family are squished in the back.  You can hardly see us.  But MIL is grinning wildly in the front.  In a blazing white dress, surrounded by "her family."  The second photo is a shot of her and FIL, cuddled up.

Not an unusual card.  If it came from anyone else, I wouldn't think twice.  But the thing is, I recieved this Christmas card as a follow up.  As in, she received my card, complete with a bunch of pictures of the kids (I sent them to all the grandparents.  Few of them take pictures of my kids.).  So, she got my card, dug some card out and sent me a card with her pictures in it (she referenced my pictures in her card, so I know she got ours first).  It just felt phony.  And, hell, I don't know what the right word would be.  I just felt wrong.  She sent the card purely because I sent her a card.  For no other reason. She added the photos because she has to mimic me.  She's done this to me before.  It feels so "tit for tat".  OH, Jessie did this, maybe if I do it too, she'll look favorably on me.  She'll have to like me!  She'll think I'm nice/kind/thoughtful.  It didn't feel genuine or authentic or something she wanted to do.  Most years she states "Thanks for your card, Jessie!  I didn't send out cards.  I was busy.  I just didn't have time."   Which, as I write it doesn't sound bad, but is so classic her.  She can't give me a compliment without somehow also negating it or justifying and excusing herself.  Can't she just say "thanks for the Christmas card." and leave it at that?  Why does she have to be in every conversation?  (That's rhetorical, I know the answer).

It irritates me too that she can't just let anything be mine.  It's almost like when she quit trying to "convert" me to her, she changed tactics and thought she'd pretend to be me.   This mirroring and mimicking she does of me, drives me nuts.  I can't just have anything be mine.  If I send pictures, she sends pictures.  If I say I don't like to bake,  she suddenly remarks how she no longer bakes, sort of kind of.  I get lots of praise for how pretty my Christmas packages look, so she somehow figures out how to wrap a gift so it doesn't look like a monkey did it (I know it's petty, it's not about the gifts, it's about her suddenly changing to be more like me.  It's creepy to me.).   She changes her hobbies, eating style, extracurricular activities to "fit in".  And it annoys me that she thinks I'm so stupid that I'll think better of her because she wraps a few gifts (still not well, I might add, just to be bitchy because I'm feeling that way) or sends me a photo of her snuggled up to her husband in the picture perfect picture of "true love".

She wrote in the card how she "can't wait to see you!".  A visit she finagled (she can't manage to get us gifts during the TWO other times-sometimes three-that she sees us during the holidays.  She has to have a 'special time' to drop them off.)  She shows up tomorrow.  I'm trying to not be annoyed.  I wish I could change my attitude.  I wish I could be more gracious.  I wish I wasn't already dreading her.  But I am.  Fuck.