March 28, 2024, 03:40:18 AM

News:

"Welcome to WiseWomenUnite.com -- When adult children marry and leave home, life can sometimes get more complex instead of simpler.  Being a mother-in-law or daughter-in-law can be tough.  How do we extend love and support to our mothers-in-law, adult children, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, and grandchildren without interfering?  What do we do when there are communication problems?  How can we ask for help when we need it without being a burden?  And how do our family members feel about these issues?  We invite you to join our free forum, read some posts... and when you're ready...share your challenges and wisdom."


long standing inlaw problems

Started by confusedbyinlaws, February 27, 2013, 07:21:26 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

herbalescapes

It seems like you've got a good handle on the situation.  Now all you have to do is decide how to deal with it.  Easy peasy.  If only.  A major trap you want to avoid is focusing on what you did wrong in the past.  In the past you and DH may not have met the problems head on and dealt with them, but that's over and you can't change it.  Focus on what you and DH can do now.  You might benefit talking with a counselor to come up with  a game plan.  With the whole food thing, face it, chances are your ILs won't stop. So do you simply stop inviting them?  Slam the door on them if they show up with food?  Take the food and throw it in the trash?  Grin and bear it?  Whatever you and DH are comfortable with and can realistically do, is the right way to handle it.  What you don't want to do is set yourself up for failure.  If you and/or DH can't slam the door in ILs faces if they show up with food in tow, don't make that your solution.  Make sure you give yourself lots of credit for what you do accomplish.  Reading your posts, it seems you're focused on how you haven't dealt with the situation.  You deserve a lot of credit for maintaining family relationships - with your DH and your ILs - for 28 years despite all that's been going on.  A lesser person would have kicked everyone to the curb long ago.  Good luck.

confusedbyinlaws

Thanks Herbalescapes,   It is easier said than done to change our family dynamic after all these years and I agree that it's better to focus on what we can do now, looking at the past to learn what not to do.   I have been talking to a counselor and we do have a game plan that I wrote about earlier in this thread.  The food thing won't be a problem when we visit them.  They now live across the country and unless they visit us, it won't be an issue.  While visiting them on his own in December, my husband told them that under the circumstance he thought it would be best that if I did decide to join him for future visits, we would not stay with them.  Then they asked about what if they came and visited us.  Without any prompting from me he told them that under the circumstances, he thought it was best if we were not all under the same roof at this time.
Part of their problem is that they don't like to acknowledge there is a problem. 
As far as the food, if they do visit, I don't know if I can bend on that. I feel like that has been a boundary that I have allowed to be stomped on for too many years.   Like I said before I will say upfront something like: "I am happy to let you provide food and serve me when I visit you.  Please show me the same consideration and allow me to provide the food and serve you when you are my guests.  PLEASE DON'T BRING FOOD."  If they bring food anyway, I will confront them.  "I asked you not to bring food and explained why I feel that way. It hurts that you did not respect my feelings about this."   
I have not spoken with them or seen them for 1 1/2 years since they moved away and they know I have just about had it, so unless they are pushier than I thought, I don't think they will push me on this. 
I may deserve a lot of credit for maintaining family relationships, but I am not so concerned about this now that they have moved and my children are grown.  And I am definately not interested in maintaining the status quo with them or maintaining a relationship with them as it was before.  It might have been great for them because I never rocked the boat, but it wasn't good for me.    I feel like I owe them another chance, but I won't be willing to tolerate what I have tolerated before. 

MollyM

Confused by in-laws:

My ex-MIL disapproved of me from the beginning because I was divorced with two children.  She nearly choked the first time she met me.  She's from blue-blood southern royalty (in her mind), college educated as were all of her kids.  And here I was - a former MILITARY woman, two kids, no career.  She - a college educated stay-at-home, society southern woman with no career.  Anyway - for 17 year she judged me, criticized me.  I have PTSD and an severe anxiety disorder from the Marines and I couldn't work for a long time.  When I was hospitalized once for my condition, she wrote me a note, telling me to "take myself off of the throne and put Jesus on it."

She criticized what I wore, every bite I ate.  When I finally started my own business it embarrassed her.  It was a publishing company - I published magazines - and in one of the magazine, I wrote editorials and signed my name to them.  From the first dinner she had with us ( my biscuits didn't rise and she mentioned it several times throughout dinner) to the way I wore my hair (long - not short), the way I dressed (I preferred pants), the way I decorated my house . . . whatever I did, it was wrong.  I put up with it for 17 years.  When my kids wanted to go to a college that she didn't approve of and my husband didn't stand up to her - that was it.  He had never stood up to her to defend me and this was just the last straw.  When I left him, I wrote her a SCATHING letter, letting her know exactly what I thought of her.  From the way she had treated me and treated my kids like they weren't worthy to the way she treated her gay brother and my husband.  (They named my husband - the oldest son - after some disabled boy they knew.  But they  named the next son after the father and supported the second son to go to college and law school while not encouraging my husband to go to medical school).

It felt SO GOOD.  Looking back, I should have stood up to her a long time ago.  I decided that her feelings and rights END where my feelings and rights begin.  I spent 17 year trying to stuff myself into a box that she would approve of and I was DONE WITH IT.  I told my ex that one of the many reasons I left him was because he let her (and my sister-in-law) treat me like I was white trash all the time we were together and never ONCE stood up to them or defended me.  They were both vapid women who went to college to get their MRS. then sat on their royal rear ends the rest of their lives, judging everyone else by their lofty standards. Junior League, housekeepers, nannies, rich husbands and they dared to judge me - who had to work to pay our bills because they had sent their son to radiology school instead of college!  And I supported him to go back to college and get his LAW DEGREE!

Anyway - you stand up for yourself.  Why should you protect her feelings when she has no regard for YOURS?

confusedbyinlaws

Thank you MollyM.  It sounds like your MIL was pretty judgemental.  I think that's a common gripe for many DILs and certainly one of mine. Sometimes I wish my MIL would have been more upfront about her feelings.   My MIL isn't such an evil person really, but she was disappointed in me and it she didn't like the way I wore my hair or what I was wearing, she would try to overcompensate by looking for something to compliment me on, but then it would turn into a backhanded compliment that revealed what she was really thinking.  Like, oh your hair looks so pretty... but I like it better when it has a little more curl.   Sounds like both of our MILs felt they had better taste than we did and wanted us to please their tastes.
It sounds like you couldn't have been more different from one another.  I think a common problem MILs make is expecting their sons to marry someone like them.  It is sad that they were actually part of your reason you left your husband.  My husband hasn't stood up to his parents either until very recently, but how can I judge him too harshly for that when I didn't stand up to them myself.  I am standing up for myself and I think everyone knows that things are not going to be as they were.  And my husband is backing me up.  I don't want to be in a war with them, but there are just a few things that aren't ok with me any more.  And I have to admit that I have been overly sensitive to my MIL.  There are many things my girlfriends can say to me that I would take offense to if my MIL said them. My MIL actually seems like she cares enough to try to make some changes in order to mend our relationship so we'll see.  I am not ready just yet but it could happen.  And if nothing else, I feel free from worrying about her opinion any more.  I feel like if she doesn't like me, she has the choice not associate with me.  I haven't found that I have missed her, so why wouldn't I be ok with that.  What if I just went and was myself and put no power in her opinions.  How could she hurt me then.  And who knows thing could go well.  Someone told me that you teach people how to treat you.  If I teach my MIL that I am who I am and her opinion doesn't matter to me near as much as my opinion of myself, maybe she will treat me differently.  Maybe she won't try so hard to impose her opinion on me.