Dear AnnieB,
You gave me such helpful advice on my thread. Thank you. I have looked at yours. The efforts you are making with your DIL reveal the love in your heart.
Based on the way you were raised, DIL not wanting to talk to you about this argument feels like punishment to you, being denied due process and the right to defend yourself. That's understandable. However, I don't think you have any idea what you are defending yourself against. And the kicker is: I don't think your DIL knows either!!
Would you feel better if I told you her silence on this matter doesn't seem to be about you at all?
Your original story, from the link you provided, says this:
I commented the things I'd been thinking and said I had wondered if she was unhappy, and had thought about talking to her. He said, no don't, I will.... he immediately talked to her. He doesn't yell. But evidently he mixed his own thoughts with mine. She's been furious at me since.
"He mixed his own thoughts with mine." Translation: Your son lied to his wife about you. He lied about what you said and what you thought. You haven't described any mental or processing defects in your son. So let's face it. "Mixed" = Lied.
Husbands telling big fat lies make problems with their wives. Never fails. And of course, anyone telling big fat lies about
you, to someone
you want an authentic and trusting relationship with, is going to make problems for you. They are going to damage that relationship for you with those lies. You are caught up in their problems - and yet you don't even know what half of them are.
You are aware of
some the lies he told her about you. What she told you that he said you said to him, about the flat tire, and assigning to you specific derogatory terms about her that you'd simply never used. Lies are like termites, when you spot one, it is just a sign there are more crawling around you can't see. Underneath everything. Rotting away the foundation.
Your son may have continued to tell more lies to cover up or assuage the lies he told that night. You will never know. But he is not the man you sleep next to at night. He is not the man you have to raise a child with.
All DIL knows is what her husband "mixed" and told her to be true about you. And then whatever he told her afterwards. And the fights.
Perhaps your son has lied to his wife before, about other things. He may "not yell" like she does, but he gets his anger out in his own more subtle ways, doesn't he. Even his assigning to you his feelings and words, was like one more betrayal. "See, even my mother thinks you're self-centered and immature" Double betrayal. Your concern for her, just became your harsh maligning judgment with a bow on top. Packaged and Delivered courtesy of sonny-boy express.
This one night at the funeral was not their first time at the rodeo. Perhaps this lying is the source of her anger towards him. The anger that concerned you so much you brought her anger to your son's attention. Anger, like she felt about the flat tire. You like this woman, right? You want to be close to her because you like or love her. She must have values and good qualities, the things you want to be close to someone for. If she were not decent, in your eyes, I am assuming you would not crave such a "deep" bond with her.
Now - why would a decent woman get so mad about a flat tire, something that a rational and decent person simply knows couldn't be helped. Maybe because the "shopping trip" that never happened, just became
one more lie to her. Perhaps she had time to calculate there was probably never time for her shopping trip. Just one more lie. The anger borne of being married to a husband who "mixes" other people's words with his own thoughts, could also explain her other "random" (to you) insults to him for the last 18 months.
You don't know why she doesn't want to talk about it.
You will never know what else your son told her that night. You will never know what else he told her abut you, before or since. And
none of us never, ever know what goes on in someone else's marriage behind closed doors. You
do know they had huge rows about this. have you considered the reason she doesn't want to discuss "it" anymore is because she doesn't want more rows with her husband about this.
You researched Turkish MILs.
Did you research Turkish men? I don't believe your son is Turkish? But your DIL's father was, and all the men in her family she knows, and many of the people she grew up with. Did you know: Turkish men are widely thought to be hands down the most UNFAITHFUL men in the world. Even a international condom company reported this as a "#1" status in a published worldwide study. Can we conclude that unfaithful Turkish men lie to women? Just to illustrate DIL's context.
You think its all about you. I think its about a woman raised not to blindly trust men, especially men who lie. And she'll welcome you into her home because she DOES care for you. I'd take her statements at face value, Annie. Instead of reading a rejection of you "into" her needs. She made clear - doesn't care to discuss how her "unhappiness with her husband is showing," or to have you discuss her glaring unhappiness with her husband or herself, or to rehash that night's row yet again, then sleep next to your son.
Arguing with a MIL isn't all bad. Arguing with your husband about last week's stinky fish sure is.
Just my two cents. I hope this can give you some perspective you can use.
Topic: Grrrrr and OUCHHHH (Read 8851 times)
