Aw Fuck! The First Guilt Trip of the Holidays

The BBQ Pit
1

Thanksgiving is the gateway to insanity for many families, ours is no different. My parents had the Divorce-from-Hell. This time of year brings back memories of loud fights and painful words.

Mother_Maven wants to have a gathering sometime this holiday weekend. Mouse_Bro is a chef, so we couldn’t meet on Thursday. The plan was to celebrate Thanksgiving and Bro’s birthday on Sunday, his usual day off.

Once this plan had been made, Mouse_Spouse and I made other plans: Thursday, dinner at a friend’s house. Friday, the in-laws come over to the Mouse_Pad for supper. Saturday, I go do unspeakable Pagan things.

Mother_Maven called today.

“Co-Chef is in jail. Mouse_Bro has to work Sunday.”

“Oh. Ok. What time does he have to be a work?”

“Two in the afternoon.”

“Give him a call. See if he’s willing to eat lunch before he has to go to work. We’ll drive down instead of him driving up.” [It’s about two hours each way]

“I can’t do that. I have an obligation at church. What are you’re plans for the rest of the weekend?”

*Oh shit. * :eek: “Thursday, Spouse and I are going to a friend’s. Friday, Spouse’s parents are coming over for dinner here. Saturday, I have plans.”

“I really wanted to have a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and stuffing. sniff It’s not a day to have a TV dinner. choke We’ve had so many holidays apart. . .”

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck!!! Please don’t cry. Pleeeease don’t cry!

She starts crying. Great.

“Give Bro a call. See if he has time Saturday night.” I am such a sucker.

“I . . . don’t . . . see sniff the point.”

“Well. Give him a call. See what he has to say.”

Ha! I’ll pass the buck here. The ball is in your fucking court, Bro.

Spouse is on my case about accommodating Mother_Maven. I know I deserve it.

I hate hearing my mother cry. Its a weakness. The rational part of me knows that she’s manipulating me. The emotional part of me thinks, “Aw, poor Mother. I need to do something to make her feel better.”

December 26th can’t get here soon enough!

2

Want to trade?

My mother-in-law told my husband and I she and her husband (my SO’s step-father - his parents also had the Divorce-From-Hell) were going out of town for the weekend to spend Thanksgiving near my SO’s brother and new baby. We had other things going on this weekend (apart from meal plans on Thursday) and couldn’t be away all weekend as would be required to join them. Hence, my SO and I made alternate plans to go to his Aunt’s (dad’s sister) house and have dinner with her and her kids. Since she’s a single mom with four kids, I volunteered to do the big cooking - turkey, potatos, stuffing, etc, and she was going to handle the appetizers and something that her youngest can eat (since her youngest is vegetarian). I was really looking forward to it - my first cooking-Thanksgiving-dinner as a married woman. Yay!

Then we went out for dinner last weekend with my SO’s mom, and I casually mentioned something about having to buy a turkey when we hit the store for groceries after dinner. This caused her to flip out.

She proceeded to throw a royal fit in the restaurant about how ungrateful and bad my SO and I were, and how dare we not come to her house for Thanksgiving. Apparently we were not coming to Thanksgiving just to spite her.

“But, M-I-L, you guys were going upstate! We can’t come with you, so we made other plans!”

Cut no ice with her, let me tell you.

So, I got to listen to her rant and yell in a public restaurant (one we used to patronize often - not anymore though!), then I got to call my SO’s aunt and cancel plans with her. That was fun. Fortunately, his aunt just rolled her eyes and said “Ya, thought something like that might happen”. She knows my SO’s mom. And I don’t get to make the dinner I was so looking forward to.

However, his mother expects me to bring pie. She actually told my SO, “I expect your wife to bring pie”. Didn’t name me. Oh, and she’s planning to hit us up for money. Even though my husband’s been out of work for a year.

Whoo-fucking-hoo. She’ll be damn lucky she doesn’t get that pie in the face.

3

Aangelica–

Don’t give in to this woman. Anyone who terrorizes you and your spouse, and makes you cancel plans and leave others in the lurch is just plain selfish and evil. DON’T LET HER GET AWAY WITH THIS, PLEASE. You’ll only make her worse, then the rest of humanity will have to put up with her. God, I hate people like that. Don’t let her get away with it. She’ll be much easier to deal with once she realizes her tactics don’t work with you. Don’t play her game.

(Man, am I glad I have a great MIL.)

4

I second dahfisheroo’s comment! What the hell is your husband thinking! She is trying to control your life and he needs to put his foot down. Now you have cancelled plans you were really looking forward to, and she gets her way?

I would have walked out once the screaming started. I have an irrational crazy *mother *and this is the best way. I calmly tell her how it’s going to be. If she’s going to scream, she doesn’t get my company. Period end of discussion!

5

Aangelica, if I didn’t know better, I’d say your MIL was my mother. Making a scene in a public place is one of Mother_Maven’s favorite tactics. :rolleyes: I cast my lot with dahfisheroo and Anaamika: don’t let this bitch get away with her selfish behavior!

Just for fun. Some things from holidays past:

Mouse_Bro, Da Nephew, Mother Maven and I were supposed to meet for Christmas. I cancelled because I was sick and had to work the next day. (Its a 2 hour drive to where Mouse_Bro lives. Mother_Maven wanted to be there on X-mas Eve, so I was driving myself.) Mother shows up on my door step that night! She yells at me about ruining Christmas. I’m sick, I’m tired, I had to go to work in morning. “Come back and scream at me later,” I said. “People are trying to rest and I don’t have the energy for this.” Then I closed the door. Mother went down the hall to the building manager’s apartment! She woke him up and insisted that he let her into my place. She told him that I was crazy and could be institutionalized! :eek: He said that he couldn’t let her in. The next morning, I apologized to the manager. The said the Greatest Thing Ever,“You can’t be that nuts. You always pay your rent on time.” :smiley:

Thanksgiving has always been loading with our family because our parents had joint custody for many years. Monday thru Wednesday were with Mother. Friday thru Sunday were with Father. Thursdays were split. Yep. Lots and lots of fun on Turkey Day. :mad:

6

Ladies, I will leave you one word of wisdom.

NO ONE CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOU WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION

(Actually, that’s 10 words.)

Under NO circumstances should you have changed your plans. You were told they were unavailable, and you made plans accordingly. It is grossly unfair of them to expect you to drop things (especially on Thanksgiving Eve) to accomodate them.

You have a backbone. Use it. Sweetly, of course, but still use it.

7

Bring the pie, but by no means give her money. The nerve of some people!!

8

Bring Trojan Pie !

9

Some of this stuff is truly horrifying to me. I seriously don’t want to believe that people can behave that badly.

I shall be forevermore grateful that the biggest problem my family ever has on holidays is trying to get my brother-in-law’s mom to remember not to say “fuck” in front of the kids.

10

This woman could be my MIL. Sadly, for my marriage, for my kids etc-my husband has NEVER stood up to her. I have drawn many a line with her and now she knows she cannot pull her BS on me. Unfortunately, me not wanting to put the kids in the middle has ended up with them having to suffer this woman because my husband can’t find his spine and keeps caving to her demands. She never wanted us to marry-and she may well get her wish.

I realize there are people on the planet to whom this is so alien as to be hyperbole, but believe me, these narcissistic, manipulative asshole people are alive and well-nay, they thrive…

I hate missing my kids on holidays, but sometimes I am glad I have to work some of them. And easy out, I know, and I don’t like her influence, but my hands are tied.

11

People, they’ll all be dead eventually.
…I’m not wishing death on others; its just a sad fact of life.
(Not that any of you should be trying to speed it along either. I don’t care if you did see ‘The Cooking Secrets of the CIA’ on PBS, just don’t do it.)

12

It’s more in the nature of a value analysis actually.

She’s an emotionally abusive, passive-aggressive, manipulative drama queen. These are among her more charming characteristics - she’s also a screaming bigot and holds, nay, cherishes a grudge with tender loving affection. I know this. My husband knows this. All of God’s children know this. Frankly, everyone who’s ever had to deal with her knows this. She’s still his mother, though.

She loooooooooves to mess with my husband and I because, alone among her family, we are doing just fine, thanks. Granted, he’s been out of work for a year - but we’re financially stable. Not getting ahead, but not falling behind and making minor progress paying off debt. Our marriage is solid. Our lives are generally happy and content. This irritates her on a fundamental level. We’re the only household in the family not ass deep in chaos and sinking (for example, her other son’s a major drug user with a newborn, a wife who keeps leaving him to live with her family because of his drug use, cycles through jobs with amazing regularity, is constantly broke and/or in trouble with the law and her daughter’s in the middle of a revolving-door semi-divorce from a guy who stalks her). Hence, she feels compelled to jerk us around whenever she can.

This isn’t often. We have caller ID on our phone specifically for her. We live juuuuust far enough away so that she’s got no real excuse to drop in without calling first - and we damn well don’t pick up the phone if it’s her unless we’re either a) about to leave the house or b) have a valid excuse prepared as to why we can’t chat for more than 5 minutes. I have a damn egg timer to time it.

Our options were a) grit our teeth and tough it out through two hours of dinner and dodge attempts to hit us up for money or b) hear about why we didn’t suck it up and spend the holiday there for the rest of our lives. She still gives members of the family who skipped a major holiday greif over it twelve years later.

Sadly, even though she’s a freaking nightmare, she’s still my husband’s mother. He knows she’s mental - hell, he warned me about her when we started dating seriously. We deal with her mostly by not dealing with her, unless forced.

I think I’ll mysteriously “forget” my checkbook and engage my ninja-style conversational skills to keep her off of touchy subjects. Maybe we’ll talk about the weather or something. I’m getting damn good at it actually.

Thankfully, we’re going to my mom’s for Christmas - conveniently located 2,500 miles away in Arizona where we will eat snacks, play golf and have some oranges off the tree.

13

Yeah, but you know what? That’s not enough. Just because she’s his mother doesn’t mean he should put up with destructive behaviour. Think of all the energy you guys have spent “dealing” with her. Now think how liberating it would be NOT to deal with her anymore.

There’s comes a point where you have to cut your losses, and face the fact that petting that alligator in your lap will never ever make it purr. I haven’t spoken to my mother in nearly 14 years, and I have never regretted it.

Life’s too short to keep poisonous people in your life.

14

Miss Manners advises not being specific with pushy people about what your plans are. That invites discussion about whether what you’ve planned is really so important, whether you’re just being selfish by sticking with your previous engagement instead of sacrificing it to spend time with family, etc. etc. Just keep saying things like “Oh dear, we’re booked solid then, we already promised the in-laws, unfortunately I’ve made a commitment”, etc. etc. Don’t give in.

You could also try pre-empting a bit of the emotional distress yourself. “Mouse_Bro can’t come on Sunday!?! What do you mean??? OMG that’s AWFUL! I’ve been so looking forward to us all getting together! And now the rest of the weekend is booked up too!! oh boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo.” It’s actually quite difficult for one person in a conversation to throw a tearful hissy fit about the same problem that the other person is already throwing a tearful hissy fit about. And it shows your mom that you empathize and you’re not just treating her concern as a big fat unnecessary nuisance, even though it may be, of course.

Then dry your eyes and stick to your guns about not disrupting your other plans just because Mouse_Bro had to disrupt your Sunday plans. Offering Saturday night sounds like a reasonable emergency compromise, though, unless it really annoys Mouse_Spouse.

If your mom learns that the family does try very hard to honor its “family time” commitments but can’t be blackmailed into additional concessions with tears and whining, she may eventually be willing to be happy with what she’s got instead of crying for the moon. Long shot, but try it.

15

I have to chuckle at this. The goalposts keep moving-and not in the direction you so nicely hope for. My MIL will never be happy with what she’s got. She’s pissed that she has to step up and help my FIL with his CA. People exist to help her, not the other way around, bless the dear dry drunks shrunken cash register of a heart…

But you’re absolutely right about Miss Manners-and I did use that on her for years and she got the message. I stopped going over there for holidays 2 years ago (I didn’t get ready when the family did to go over to Easter dinner. I just told my husband that I wasn’t going. You would think I was advocating anarchy. He got over it. I called my inlaws and said I wasn’t coming and gave no excuse at all. Since then, she has not pushed as much. Except for the Guilt Story I just got regarding the purchasing of a Wii for #1 son. I won’t go into here, but suffice to say, she hasn’t changed a jot. I’ve just gotten better at deflecting her. I do so hope she dies soon. Really. Not a classy thing to say, but an honest one.)

16

Messy divorce? Ha! I say, Ha! Predivorce memory: awakened by this sound: “Slap!” [sob sob sob] “Slap!” [sob sob sob]–etc. Wander bleary-eyed into my sisters’s room, and the four of us creep out into the den, where my dad is standing over my mother and slapping her. Then he takes her by the hair and stands her up, drags her backwards to the door, says “we have to go the hospital, your mom tried to kill herself.” Leaves the four of us (oldest: 9) alone for the rest of the night. One of many such memories. Good times!

I cut my losses a few years ago, but I still hear stories like the ones in the rest of this thread from my sister, who chooses to put up with them. At some point, people, your “value analysis” has to include your own future sanity.

17

Sounds a lot like my childhood - before and after the divorce. (Mother and Father’s taste in partners did not change.) Its sad that this sort of thing is so common.

I wish the holidays were more spread out, but then that would make it more like a marathon rather than a sprint. Hummmm.

18

Fuck. These stories set my teeth on edge. My ex-in-laws were great for the most part. I appreciate them now and did at the time.

My dad and step-mom can be insanely manipulative and controlling. I haven’t put up with it since I was a teen. Just say NO. It comes with a cost for sure but it is so worth it. The “kids” are all in our 40’s now and my sister and step-sisters whine and complain to this day and wonder why I don’t get all of the crap from them that they do.

Step-mom has admitted to me that while she hates that I can’t be swayed, she can’t help but respect it.

19

We’ve been politely but firmly distancing ourselves from her (and his father actually, although that’s much easier) over the last two years. She has good points - although I’ll be damned if I can think of them just at the moment. As it currently stands, we’re down to biweekly phone calls and in-person visits on approximately a quarterly basis. Not bad considering she lives half an hour away.

We tried talking about it with her and being rational and all that and it just triggered a rant. She doesn’t hear anyone else once she gets started. She’s got the most amazing selective hearing. So we’re limiting the amount she gets to be part of our lives. Limiting it pretty harshly too. And making it clear why we’re doing it.

That’s what’s behind a lot of her flip out this time - she can see my husband distancing himself and it makes her worse. She’s not the center of his world (hasn’t been for the past decade or so, but it’s a lot more noticeable since we got married) and it’s driving her nuts. In my less-irritated moments, I’m viewing it as a win for our side.

Mostly I’m currently irked because the latest dealings were worse than usual - and recent. Not to mention I’m sulking because I wanted to bake me a turkey.

She does make me appreciate my own parents a whole lot more though.

20

And to think, people think it’s so sad at the holidays that my husband and I live a couple thousand miles from our relatives. I tell you, it was no accident. We both came from highly dysfunctional families with plenty o’ angst & abuse all around. Both of us bailed on the family thing decades ago (including choosing a new last name when we got married since neither of us wanted to keep our own, let alone take the other’s).

Just because you got born into the family by accident doesn’t mean you have to put up with all the awfulness. The only hard thing is that I am still close to my sister and she shoulders way too much of the family burden, not being a person who can say no very easily. Holidays got much easier when my last grandparent, all of whom I loved dearly, died and I no longer felt any obligation to put up wiht my parents and other sibs. Now we lock the doors, turn off the phones, and have our holiday debauches all to ourselves.