I just read that SIL and BIL left for their eight day vacation to go to the wedding of a close friend. They left the kids at my in-laws house. I knew this was happening, but reading her snippy post on FB about leaving left the same sort of sucker punched feeling in my gut as it did when I heard this trip it a few weeks ago. And I can't really get to the core of what bothers me.
Partially, it annoys me that this girl, who never posts anything (including about her kids), always posts when she is leaving town alone.
They have left the kids a lot before. They get away on little weekends and a week in a tropical location. Their kids are very young, just like mine.
This girl had her mother or my MIL live with her for most of the three years she had a newborn or was pregnant and had a newborn again. Her mom cooked, cleaned, babysat, and provided full time care for her kids. My MIL lived with them for a month and then stays with them most of the time they are in town (which is fine, I don't want them here). She complained a lot about how much work being a "working mom" was and chastised my husband for not understanding how hard life is for her.
She is lazy and, from what I hear, does little of the child care-taking (including meals, and such), has seemed emotionally distant and harsh with her kids when I'm around (ironically she and BIL have implied I'm "too hard" or "too strict" on my kids. In fact, the in-laws all appear to feel that I'm a bit too hard. But to keep this in perspective, one stories I've heard from one of my FIL's friend's wives was that he once took a friend to MILs house as a form of birth control. I've heard TONS of stories (many of which the in-laws tell themselves) of kids jumping off furniture, around the guests, home littered with toys, kids shooting cops with beebee guns and knocking the neighbor lady off her bike. Which MIL suggest neighbor lady deserved because she was mean to her kids. I personally witnessed my two younger BILs growing up, and believe me, "discipline" of any kind was in short supply. Usually, MIL called in DH to deal with them.) Anyway, back to SIL. She is always into some new project or venture ("climbing the corporate lady", throwing a million baby showers, training for a triathlon-she hadn't been running or swimming up to this point) and had to have the extra help. Two months after her first kid, she was throwing the company wide holiday party, while on maternity leave, not because it was her job, but because she VOLUNTEERED, and had her MIL and mom come to help the kids.
MIL describes her as lazy and that her son is the poor pitiful husband who does ALL of the work. She has described their parenting as poor. She has said they are scattered (ironic, huh?). But she drops everything to care for the kids. In fact, almost demands it.
It bothers me they seem to have this parasitic relationship, each stroking each others back. But I wonder if it is good for the kids.
It bothers me that she is scattered and I've personally witnessed the kids be less than taken care of in her care (and of course, we all have moments, kids get hurt, but she seems to have more than her fair share and much of what I've seen could've been prevented.) She's scattered and unfocused. SIL even says so.
It bothers me that, probably, these kids get MORE emotional care with MIL than with SIL. So, in some way, they are benefitting.
It bothers me that, somewhere there is the implication, that my kids should be staying with her too. SIL seems to imply it (or somehow seems to invalidate her "understanding" of my feelings about MIL, when she is constantly leaving her kids with her. For the record, I've learned to not share my feelings with either of them anymore.) MIL often brings the topic up, when I'm not around, to DH. She only mentioned babysitting to me once, long before I was pregnant. I know that she feels she can work leverage on DH if I'm not around. She has never once asked me, but certainly seems to know how I feel about her babysitting my kids. I have this fear, that as my kids get bigger, the pressure will continue.
It bothers me that SIL seems so "happy" (her word on FB) to ditch her kids. She told me last year that it was the best thing for her. She "gets away" every month or so. She hires babysitters in between. She has her mom or MIL come down once a month or so (and when MIL comes down, we have to see her too.)
It bothers me they all act like one, big happy freaking family. And that the more I stand up, the more I can see them polarizing away from me. If I thought I was the scape goat and the black sheep before, I clearly feel that way now. I'm labeled with MIL's SIL's name, a woman MIL has LONG discussed with me. MIL tells the story about how this woman, married to her husband's brother, wouldn't allow the brother's mother to see the kids. How she pushed this MIL( DH"s grandmother) out of family functions, never went to visit, never included the grandmother. MIL flat told me, early in my relationship with DH, that her biggest fear was having a DIL take her sons away. Seriously. And she now always says "I don't want to be that MIL" as she passive-aggressively manipulates people into doing her dirty work for her. She swears she was going to all she could to make sure her DILs liked her, but I see that as meaning she would control all she could so her DILs didn't fuck with her and her sons. All her sons know the story and would tell me about it. The horrid aunt. The wrecker of the family. The distant aunt who took the brother away. I KNOW I am that aunt. And as I stand up more and more I see that they have done all the can to cast me in that role. And not handing my kids over just plays into their script: the poor, neglected grandmother.
It bothers me that I am somehow seen as the bad person because I DON'T just hand over my kids. That I'm the bitch or the weird DIL. I know it shouldn't bother me, but it does.
It just bothers me. But despite all the things I've mentioned, I can't help but feeling there is more. Why does it bother me so damn much? What does it matter to me if they do that? It really has little to do with me, yet it somehow makes my gut hurt. WTF?
Showing posts with label grand kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grand kids. Show all posts
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Monday, April 1, 2013
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?
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?
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Phonies
After my last post, something Kara said got me thinking more about my anger towards my MIL. What exactly it is that pisses me off.
I've said before how much I dislike phoniness in people. I spoke before of my BIL (her son and "mini-me", a term I hate, but actually feel is apt here) and how fake and superficial he is. How he is all surface and, in my opinion, has little depth.
MIL is a bunch of window dressing too. In all honesty, I really know very little about what MIL really likes or cares about. She projects being a devout Christian. She projects being very connected to her family. She loves when people envy her "close" family and point out how wonderful we all are. She likes the "best" of things. Not necessarily the most expensive or fanciest things. But she likes to be "in the know". She likes to be trendy and be the first one to know about things. She loves to recommend restaurants and wines and resorts. She is easily swayed by other's opinions. If someone she respects (or even someone she feels is knowledgeable says something, she believes it and adopts their opinion for herself. She rarely questions something. It doesn't matter if how she personally feels about something. If someone tells her a wine is awesome, she will say it is awesome too. I've seen her quickly take on my husband's opinions about all kinds of things. If he likes a wine or a beer, she likes it. If he is eating a food, she has to try it and proclaim how much she LOVES it (she is often overly extreme in her descriptions of things. Things are THE BEST. Or she LOVES something.) She wants to fit in. She does very little thinking for herself. DH and I have often joked that he could hand her a glass of rancid wine, and if he talked it up enough, she too would proclaim it to be wonderful. She has been spoon fed her beliefs on religion by her parents and never questions. In fact, I rarely see her question anything from certain people in her life. She is easily swayed by those she deems authorities. However, if someone (often me) expresses an alternative opinion, she has to prove I'm wrong. She does not have an ability to allow for multiple opinions to be "right". She is very, very black and white. I used to blame a lot of this on, what I believe to be ADHD. But it just kept being more than that. MIL is flighty. She flits from interest to interest (and is always, coincidentally involved in anything her kids are involved in: sports, travel, wine. Their interests are now her interests). I've never seen her stick with anything except church, and even then she has waffled in her "convictions" as her preacher son expressed doubts. She even has moved churches recently, with little explanation, despite being very devoted to her church several years back. She loves get rich quick schemes and is a dreamer. And talent of mine she notices, she instantly proclaims that I should do that for a profession. I know of not one single interest, hobby, or idea that she has come to in her own way. And consequently, nothing sticks. Nothing has been a constant in her life.
When I first met her, she was very self assured in her way being the right way. She badgered me. She pushed me. In my opinion, she bullied me. Subtly. She has a keen ability to undercut people's character or appearance in an extremely subtle way. She bossed me around relentlessly. DH used to say it's because she was the mom of four boys and just was used to being in charge. So, she just took charge of me too. She expected me to just do what she wanted. I was desperate to please her and tried hard to be respectful. She didn't raise children but directed them on paths she found to be right. She had an opinion about everything I did and did not allow for much dissent. She wanted me to be married in the same month as she, she pushed for the god-awful veil that she wanted me to wear and then criticized the one I wanted. She pushed relentlessly for grand children. Despite me continued attempts to explain why I wasn't ready, she pushed. Once, she even told me that she wanted grand children because all her friends had grand children. Oh, well then, I'll get right on that. Because there is no better reason to have kids than for their grandmother to "fit in" with her friends. And she told me I was expected to have the first grandchild and told SIL she had to wait for me and DH to have that child before they could have one. I never understood why, except that that was the way MIL wanted it to be. Or God told her that was the way it should be. Such crap. She decided who was ready and who wasn't to have kids. She pushed me to create a home and life for my kids that was the same as the one she had created for DH. It was like she wanted to recreate DH's childhood through me and DH. She bought all DH's work wardrobe when he graduated college. She called him to regulate his brothers. She put family decisions on DH's shoulders, so to avoid blame herself should it back fire. She manipulated in whispers behind my back and DH's back. She tried to create a hierarchy with DH in charge of the family, something that caused extreme resentment from my SIL.
It would've been easier at this time to stand up to her. I wish, desperately at times, that I could go back and stand up to her. Put my foot down. But any sort of dissent on my part got her angry. And I didn't want to get her angry. I wanted her to like me. I felt at the time such a strong tearing inside of me. I was trying so hard to be myself, but I knew the more I tried to be myself, the more upset she got. Anything I said that she didn't like was met with a snarky laugh that came off like she was teasing me, but was meant to express her anger at me. But in a way no one could call her on. She huffed a lot. And most of that was lost on DH. He didn't see then (and still struggles to see) her subtle expressions of disdain or anger. How her huffs and eye rolls and quiet, sneaky secret whispers just out of ear shot got to me. He told me to just let it go and ignore it like he did. But I couldn't.
After awhile, she realized she couldn't control me. I also believe she felt DH's loyalty starting to shift. So, she seemed to adopt the policy of becoming like me. Because, after all, if DH thought so highly of me, there must be something to that. So, she started adopting my tastes, my hobbies, my talents for herself. And that's where the phoniness came in. She started complimenting me all the damn time. But the thing is, the compliments where never really about me, but rather something she coveted in me. I've never heard the woman say "Jessie, you are a really good..." All her compliments, to everyone, begin with "I think you are good at." Every, single one begins with the "I think" statement. It is all in relation to her opinions on things. Even when she's told me she is bragging to someone else about me, she says "MY DIL, is so good at...". It drives me crazy. She's attempting to control me by winning me over now. She thinks that by telling me she likes my toe nail polish or the color I picked for my walls or some other trivial piece of crap, I'll think she is a nice person. This is also how she tries to get to my kids. She tells them "grammy thinks you are so smart. Grammy thinks you are so athletic." She's trying to make them think she is being complimentary to them and make them like her more. But she's still setting them up to cater to her opinions of things. If "grammy" likes something you do, then you get a compliment. She compliments my shoes or my earrings, while at the same time proclaiming she's going to get some for herself. Instead of trying to make me her, she is trying to be me. I guess, she assumes that I'll then like her more? It seems so stupid to me. But I'm not a narc.
But the part that makes me angry is that she has be in a bind. She never insults me directly. She's never been out and out rude (although I think she's been rude a million times, it's just easy for other's to explain away. "She didn't mean it like that") or called me names or spoke negatively about me without couching it in "I'm concerned" terms. She compliments me. And, although I know these compliments are fake and phony, and an attempt to control my feelings towards her, how the hell do you call someone on that? How do you say, when you told me my toe nail polish was nice, you were being an ass? I would sound like a loon. And she knows that.
I can't not be the bad DIL, because there is nothing to point to. What I can point to seems petty. My NM and NSis are obviously bitchy at times. I have clear evidence of them being assholes. MIL hides her asshole-ery amongst "love" and "concern" and fake bullshit compliments. She hides her controlling nature behind wanting to help. On the rare occasion that she still snarks, it comes so far out of left field that I don't see it coming (not too very long ago, my husband was talking to her and FIL about her babysitting my niece and how my BIL and SIL had become overly-dependent on grandparents to help them care for their kids. MIL snapped "well, I'd do babysit for you too, but you don't want me to." We all knew the comment was directed at me. It was accusatory and made her out to be a victim of sorts. She also knew that I couldn't get into a discussion about her babysitting without getting into a discussion about the deeper issues in our relationship. We were in her house, she had DH and FIL to (in her mind) back her up. She was looking for a fight, or at the least to put me in my place and express her anger at me in a way that I wasn't prepared to discuss. She was also looking to deflect any guilt she felt about being overly involved with my niece back on to me. These situations come up a lot. She turns any sort of "attack" that she feels back onto me being somehow wrong. It makes it extremely difficult to discuss anything. And for what it's worth, she had never once discussed being upset about not babysitting to me before this comment nor in the three years since -in which I still haven't let her babysit. She has never, once, confronted me directly about anything. It's either behind my back, in a snarky passive-aggressive way to my face, or she pretends that she is not upset.) She is always shucking and jiving, to borrow a phrase from some other bloggers. You can not pin her down on anything without her turning it back on me, stomping off and getting defensive, or ignoring it all together. I can't confront her, but she won't confront me either. And she also has an amazing ability to do these things when no one else is around to see it. It's hard to prove something that no one else sees.
What makes me angriest is to see her perpetuating this phoniness onto my kids. She has a certain enraptured smile, with half closed eyes as she rocks and hums and holds my kids (or my niece and nephew) that makes me want to slap her. I can clearly see it isn't because she is making a connection with the kids or feeling love, but rather because she is pulling off the narc supply they provide her. They make her feel love, they make her feel special. She is getting her physical attention needs met. It is not about providing loving, physical contact to the kids (hence, she often misses the cues that the kids are over it.) Although she isn't malignant or nasty to the kids, she does try to control the relationships. She has pushed for my son and my niece to be super close. She labels my son as "all boy" despite knowing little about who he is. She doesn't send him little cards or stickers in the mail the way the other grandmas do. In fact, when she is not with him (and often when she is) she pays him little to no attention. She can not have meaningful interactions with him. When he was a young baby, she literally held his fingers and pushed the buttons on a toy in order to "teach" him how it worked. She had no concern for him learning how to do it, or giving him an experience, or working within his abilities to experience something with him. Recently, she wanted to start up a conversation with him (about something she had heard about through FIL. DH rarely talks to MIL. And it was clear that she didn't know what the hell she was talking about because of the way she refrenced this thing.) I should give her credit for starting a conversation because, mostly, she talks at him or about him to us, never to him. So, we were all in the swimming pool, my son floats by and she tries to start this indepth conversation about this toy with him. He just said "yeah" (because all of her questions are yes/no and never open ended or asking about his opinions, shocker) and kept going. Luckily, I don't think she's doing any harm to him, because she is such a non-entity. My brilliant, with a remarkable memory, son often calls her the wrong name. He sees her most often and he has NO trouble with any other grandparents' names (even ones he rarely sees) but he frequently calls her another grandmother's name. But I'm keeping my eye out. I'm waiting. I'm sure it won't take long for her negativity to pop out and I'm waiting.
But the thing is, everyone else sees a loving grandmother. A grandmother who is being denied the "right" to babysit her grand kids. (For new readers, not only do I keep her from watching my kids because I don't think she will listen at ALL to the instructions I give her, but she struggles seriously with safety issues. She's very unfocused (ADD) and does not think ahead for risks. I've seen it time and again with my niece and nephew. She also has no ability to read emotional cues in my sensitive and subtle children. She also gets defensive if I suggest how to do something or "miss-hears" me. She struggles to listen to me in the first place and when I have asked her to do things in the past, she rarely does things the way I ask. I'm not a control freak, but I do have some ways of doing things that I would expect her to follow.). I believe I am seen as controlling, unwilling to let go of my kids, and bitter by others. It has created some serious frustration for me.
She's just slippery, I guess, and I'm frustrated. This is a woman who offers to help me clean up a party that I've cleaned up (while she sat and watched). A woman who apologizes to my husband when she's wronged me. A woman who loves to look like a loving grandmother, but it is all loving in one direction: towards her. Everything she does with the kids is to get them to love and care for her. She compliments me on phony things and when I credit someone else for the things the thing she complimented me on, she suddenly looses interest in washing me with her praise. She appears good and kind and thoughtful and helpful. I appear mean and bitchy and grudge-holding. I appear to be bitter and holding onto typical DIL bullshit. I appear to be denying her her grand kids, her son, and the close family. I am to blame for the turmoil in the family because I insist on being different (or difficult, depending on who you ask). I am the one choosing to not be in the family, rather than her pushing me out as punishment for not conforming.
Not seeing her is not an option. DH is not willing to lose his relationship with his father or extended family. Calling her out right on shit causes a scene. Although that's where I am at with her (and even then I think she senses this and has started "tiptoeing" around me like I am some ticking time bomb). Any suggestions? Any thoughts? How do you pin a snake down? How do you deal with such underhanded passive-aggressiveness? How do I maintain my sanity? How do I not deck her when she gets that smarmy, "serene", ah look my whole family is together look?
And as an after note: When I first met MIL, I thought she was a bit rude and mean. I thought she was thoughtless and flaky and unfocused. I chalked it up to her having ADHD. Clearly, she just misses social cues, I thought. She speaks before she thinks. She is unfocused and doesn't mean to be thoughtless. I bought DH's excuse that, as the mom of four boys, she just had a more "masculine" approach to things (despite being raised with four girls and the fact that my grandmother, who also raised four boys wasn't like this). The teasing and making fun of people and the family picking on people was "normal" with boys. That's just how they were. I bought the family excuse that she was just scattered and having to corral four wild (and ADHD) boys made her controlling and bossy. I kept assuming she didn't mean to hurt my feelings.
But things never fully added up. When she was told she hurt someone's feelings, she didn't apologize. She didn't change her ways (and thanks Kara for recently pointing this out on your blog). She just kept doing it. And so many, many things couldn't be explained away by ADHD and mothering boys.
When I found the 25 Characteristics of NMs, I was reading it in relation to my mother. What I found was that I kept saying, oh, that's MIL! Many of the criteria applied to her. So much so, that even DH couldn't deny it. He did say that my NM was more "obvious" and that his wasn't "that bad" (because he misses her subtle nature). I doubted myself for a long time about her being a narcissist. But I just can't find any other way to explain her than with this: she is an emotional child, self-centered, and self-absorbed who can't put anyone else above herself. She is a narcissist.
I've said before how much I dislike phoniness in people. I spoke before of my BIL (her son and "mini-me", a term I hate, but actually feel is apt here) and how fake and superficial he is. How he is all surface and, in my opinion, has little depth.
MIL is a bunch of window dressing too. In all honesty, I really know very little about what MIL really likes or cares about. She projects being a devout Christian. She projects being very connected to her family. She loves when people envy her "close" family and point out how wonderful we all are. She likes the "best" of things. Not necessarily the most expensive or fanciest things. But she likes to be "in the know". She likes to be trendy and be the first one to know about things. She loves to recommend restaurants and wines and resorts. She is easily swayed by other's opinions. If someone she respects (or even someone she feels is knowledgeable says something, she believes it and adopts their opinion for herself. She rarely questions something. It doesn't matter if how she personally feels about something. If someone tells her a wine is awesome, she will say it is awesome too. I've seen her quickly take on my husband's opinions about all kinds of things. If he likes a wine or a beer, she likes it. If he is eating a food, she has to try it and proclaim how much she LOVES it (she is often overly extreme in her descriptions of things. Things are THE BEST. Or she LOVES something.) She wants to fit in. She does very little thinking for herself. DH and I have often joked that he could hand her a glass of rancid wine, and if he talked it up enough, she too would proclaim it to be wonderful. She has been spoon fed her beliefs on religion by her parents and never questions. In fact, I rarely see her question anything from certain people in her life. She is easily swayed by those she deems authorities. However, if someone (often me) expresses an alternative opinion, she has to prove I'm wrong. She does not have an ability to allow for multiple opinions to be "right". She is very, very black and white. I used to blame a lot of this on, what I believe to be ADHD. But it just kept being more than that. MIL is flighty. She flits from interest to interest (and is always, coincidentally involved in anything her kids are involved in: sports, travel, wine. Their interests are now her interests). I've never seen her stick with anything except church, and even then she has waffled in her "convictions" as her preacher son expressed doubts. She even has moved churches recently, with little explanation, despite being very devoted to her church several years back. She loves get rich quick schemes and is a dreamer. And talent of mine she notices, she instantly proclaims that I should do that for a profession. I know of not one single interest, hobby, or idea that she has come to in her own way. And consequently, nothing sticks. Nothing has been a constant in her life.
When I first met her, she was very self assured in her way being the right way. She badgered me. She pushed me. In my opinion, she bullied me. Subtly. She has a keen ability to undercut people's character or appearance in an extremely subtle way. She bossed me around relentlessly. DH used to say it's because she was the mom of four boys and just was used to being in charge. So, she just took charge of me too. She expected me to just do what she wanted. I was desperate to please her and tried hard to be respectful. She didn't raise children but directed them on paths she found to be right. She had an opinion about everything I did and did not allow for much dissent. She wanted me to be married in the same month as she, she pushed for the god-awful veil that she wanted me to wear and then criticized the one I wanted. She pushed relentlessly for grand children. Despite me continued attempts to explain why I wasn't ready, she pushed. Once, she even told me that she wanted grand children because all her friends had grand children. Oh, well then, I'll get right on that. Because there is no better reason to have kids than for their grandmother to "fit in" with her friends. And she told me I was expected to have the first grandchild and told SIL she had to wait for me and DH to have that child before they could have one. I never understood why, except that that was the way MIL wanted it to be. Or God told her that was the way it should be. Such crap. She decided who was ready and who wasn't to have kids. She pushed me to create a home and life for my kids that was the same as the one she had created for DH. It was like she wanted to recreate DH's childhood through me and DH. She bought all DH's work wardrobe when he graduated college. She called him to regulate his brothers. She put family decisions on DH's shoulders, so to avoid blame herself should it back fire. She manipulated in whispers behind my back and DH's back. She tried to create a hierarchy with DH in charge of the family, something that caused extreme resentment from my SIL.
It would've been easier at this time to stand up to her. I wish, desperately at times, that I could go back and stand up to her. Put my foot down. But any sort of dissent on my part got her angry. And I didn't want to get her angry. I wanted her to like me. I felt at the time such a strong tearing inside of me. I was trying so hard to be myself, but I knew the more I tried to be myself, the more upset she got. Anything I said that she didn't like was met with a snarky laugh that came off like she was teasing me, but was meant to express her anger at me. But in a way no one could call her on. She huffed a lot. And most of that was lost on DH. He didn't see then (and still struggles to see) her subtle expressions of disdain or anger. How her huffs and eye rolls and quiet, sneaky secret whispers just out of ear shot got to me. He told me to just let it go and ignore it like he did. But I couldn't.
After awhile, she realized she couldn't control me. I also believe she felt DH's loyalty starting to shift. So, she seemed to adopt the policy of becoming like me. Because, after all, if DH thought so highly of me, there must be something to that. So, she started adopting my tastes, my hobbies, my talents for herself. And that's where the phoniness came in. She started complimenting me all the damn time. But the thing is, the compliments where never really about me, but rather something she coveted in me. I've never heard the woman say "Jessie, you are a really good..." All her compliments, to everyone, begin with "I think you are good at." Every, single one begins with the "I think" statement. It is all in relation to her opinions on things. Even when she's told me she is bragging to someone else about me, she says "MY DIL, is so good at...". It drives me crazy. She's attempting to control me by winning me over now. She thinks that by telling me she likes my toe nail polish or the color I picked for my walls or some other trivial piece of crap, I'll think she is a nice person. This is also how she tries to get to my kids. She tells them "grammy thinks you are so smart. Grammy thinks you are so athletic." She's trying to make them think she is being complimentary to them and make them like her more. But she's still setting them up to cater to her opinions of things. If "grammy" likes something you do, then you get a compliment. She compliments my shoes or my earrings, while at the same time proclaiming she's going to get some for herself. Instead of trying to make me her, she is trying to be me. I guess, she assumes that I'll then like her more? It seems so stupid to me. But I'm not a narc.
But the part that makes me angry is that she has be in a bind. She never insults me directly. She's never been out and out rude (although I think she's been rude a million times, it's just easy for other's to explain away. "She didn't mean it like that") or called me names or spoke negatively about me without couching it in "I'm concerned" terms. She compliments me. And, although I know these compliments are fake and phony, and an attempt to control my feelings towards her, how the hell do you call someone on that? How do you say, when you told me my toe nail polish was nice, you were being an ass? I would sound like a loon. And she knows that.
I can't not be the bad DIL, because there is nothing to point to. What I can point to seems petty. My NM and NSis are obviously bitchy at times. I have clear evidence of them being assholes. MIL hides her asshole-ery amongst "love" and "concern" and fake bullshit compliments. She hides her controlling nature behind wanting to help. On the rare occasion that she still snarks, it comes so far out of left field that I don't see it coming (not too very long ago, my husband was talking to her and FIL about her babysitting my niece and how my BIL and SIL had become overly-dependent on grandparents to help them care for their kids. MIL snapped "well, I'd do babysit for you too, but you don't want me to." We all knew the comment was directed at me. It was accusatory and made her out to be a victim of sorts. She also knew that I couldn't get into a discussion about her babysitting without getting into a discussion about the deeper issues in our relationship. We were in her house, she had DH and FIL to (in her mind) back her up. She was looking for a fight, or at the least to put me in my place and express her anger at me in a way that I wasn't prepared to discuss. She was also looking to deflect any guilt she felt about being overly involved with my niece back on to me. These situations come up a lot. She turns any sort of "attack" that she feels back onto me being somehow wrong. It makes it extremely difficult to discuss anything. And for what it's worth, she had never once discussed being upset about not babysitting to me before this comment nor in the three years since -in which I still haven't let her babysit. She has never, once, confronted me directly about anything. It's either behind my back, in a snarky passive-aggressive way to my face, or she pretends that she is not upset.) She is always shucking and jiving, to borrow a phrase from some other bloggers. You can not pin her down on anything without her turning it back on me, stomping off and getting defensive, or ignoring it all together. I can't confront her, but she won't confront me either. And she also has an amazing ability to do these things when no one else is around to see it. It's hard to prove something that no one else sees.
What makes me angriest is to see her perpetuating this phoniness onto my kids. She has a certain enraptured smile, with half closed eyes as she rocks and hums and holds my kids (or my niece and nephew) that makes me want to slap her. I can clearly see it isn't because she is making a connection with the kids or feeling love, but rather because she is pulling off the narc supply they provide her. They make her feel love, they make her feel special. She is getting her physical attention needs met. It is not about providing loving, physical contact to the kids (hence, she often misses the cues that the kids are over it.) Although she isn't malignant or nasty to the kids, she does try to control the relationships. She has pushed for my son and my niece to be super close. She labels my son as "all boy" despite knowing little about who he is. She doesn't send him little cards or stickers in the mail the way the other grandmas do. In fact, when she is not with him (and often when she is) she pays him little to no attention. She can not have meaningful interactions with him. When he was a young baby, she literally held his fingers and pushed the buttons on a toy in order to "teach" him how it worked. She had no concern for him learning how to do it, or giving him an experience, or working within his abilities to experience something with him. Recently, she wanted to start up a conversation with him (about something she had heard about through FIL. DH rarely talks to MIL. And it was clear that she didn't know what the hell she was talking about because of the way she refrenced this thing.) I should give her credit for starting a conversation because, mostly, she talks at him or about him to us, never to him. So, we were all in the swimming pool, my son floats by and she tries to start this indepth conversation about this toy with him. He just said "yeah" (because all of her questions are yes/no and never open ended or asking about his opinions, shocker) and kept going. Luckily, I don't think she's doing any harm to him, because she is such a non-entity. My brilliant, with a remarkable memory, son often calls her the wrong name. He sees her most often and he has NO trouble with any other grandparents' names (even ones he rarely sees) but he frequently calls her another grandmother's name. But I'm keeping my eye out. I'm waiting. I'm sure it won't take long for her negativity to pop out and I'm waiting.
But the thing is, everyone else sees a loving grandmother. A grandmother who is being denied the "right" to babysit her grand kids. (For new readers, not only do I keep her from watching my kids because I don't think she will listen at ALL to the instructions I give her, but she struggles seriously with safety issues. She's very unfocused (ADD) and does not think ahead for risks. I've seen it time and again with my niece and nephew. She also has no ability to read emotional cues in my sensitive and subtle children. She also gets defensive if I suggest how to do something or "miss-hears" me. She struggles to listen to me in the first place and when I have asked her to do things in the past, she rarely does things the way I ask. I'm not a control freak, but I do have some ways of doing things that I would expect her to follow.). I believe I am seen as controlling, unwilling to let go of my kids, and bitter by others. It has created some serious frustration for me.
She's just slippery, I guess, and I'm frustrated. This is a woman who offers to help me clean up a party that I've cleaned up (while she sat and watched). A woman who apologizes to my husband when she's wronged me. A woman who loves to look like a loving grandmother, but it is all loving in one direction: towards her. Everything she does with the kids is to get them to love and care for her. She compliments me on phony things and when I credit someone else for the things the thing she complimented me on, she suddenly looses interest in washing me with her praise. She appears good and kind and thoughtful and helpful. I appear mean and bitchy and grudge-holding. I appear to be bitter and holding onto typical DIL bullshit. I appear to be denying her her grand kids, her son, and the close family. I am to blame for the turmoil in the family because I insist on being different (or difficult, depending on who you ask). I am the one choosing to not be in the family, rather than her pushing me out as punishment for not conforming.
Not seeing her is not an option. DH is not willing to lose his relationship with his father or extended family. Calling her out right on shit causes a scene. Although that's where I am at with her (and even then I think she senses this and has started "tiptoeing" around me like I am some ticking time bomb). Any suggestions? Any thoughts? How do you pin a snake down? How do you deal with such underhanded passive-aggressiveness? How do I maintain my sanity? How do I not deck her when she gets that smarmy, "serene", ah look my whole family is together look?
And as an after note: When I first met MIL, I thought she was a bit rude and mean. I thought she was thoughtless and flaky and unfocused. I chalked it up to her having ADHD. Clearly, she just misses social cues, I thought. She speaks before she thinks. She is unfocused and doesn't mean to be thoughtless. I bought DH's excuse that, as the mom of four boys, she just had a more "masculine" approach to things (despite being raised with four girls and the fact that my grandmother, who also raised four boys wasn't like this). The teasing and making fun of people and the family picking on people was "normal" with boys. That's just how they were. I bought the family excuse that she was just scattered and having to corral four wild (and ADHD) boys made her controlling and bossy. I kept assuming she didn't mean to hurt my feelings.
But things never fully added up. When she was told she hurt someone's feelings, she didn't apologize. She didn't change her ways (and thanks Kara for recently pointing this out on your blog). She just kept doing it. And so many, many things couldn't be explained away by ADHD and mothering boys.
When I found the 25 Characteristics of NMs, I was reading it in relation to my mother. What I found was that I kept saying, oh, that's MIL! Many of the criteria applied to her. So much so, that even DH couldn't deny it. He did say that my NM was more "obvious" and that his wasn't "that bad" (because he misses her subtle nature). I doubted myself for a long time about her being a narcissist. But I just can't find any other way to explain her than with this: she is an emotional child, self-centered, and self-absorbed who can't put anyone else above herself. She is a narcissist.
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