*#!@ In-Laws!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Just got off the phone with my mother-in-law, and the stupid #%&@# had the nerve to suggest that I need to spend more time “working” with my son because he can’t read phonectically yet. The child just turned 4!

This is the same woman who has doubts that he really is her grandson because he has green eyes while me & my husband have brown. I also got pregnant to trap my husband. By some green-eyed guy, I suppose.

This is also the woman who used to stake out my house, wearing a disguise (wig and sunglasses) because I stopped answering her phone calls. I guess she didn’t think I’d recognise her car.

I could go on and on about the evil that is my husband’s mother, but I won’t. Instead, I’d like to hear your stories. Somebody has got to have it worse than me! Right?

2

Er, no, I think you win. Neither one of my mother-in-laws (ex and current) disguised themselves to spy on me.

What is your husband doing during all this? He should be telling Mom to piss off.

3

My ex mother in law was really great… till we split up… she never criticized my parenting but criticized her son’s lack of parenting. And she could be very vicious… Ex daddy in law tho… well that’s a whole other story… He is definitely one of the meanest, most vicious men I’ve ever met. I honestly cant say Ive ever heard him say anything nice about anyone. He has taken up garbage picking lately, going through my garbage every couple of days. Im trying to decide what kind of a goodie I can leave for him.

We are, each of us angels with only one wing;
and we can only fly by
embracing one another

4

Uh, well, I used to think that I had it bad, but then I read your message…

My in-laws are dead. Mother-in-law died soon after I started dating my now-wife; father-in-law died 3 months after the wedding. She was apparently a nice woman. He was a bastard and a half. He made my life miserable during the entire planning of the wedding. I am, I must say, not unhappy that he is dead.

I do have other in-laws. A couple of sisters-in-law who give me fits from time to time, and a grandmother-in-law (mother of the bastard and a half), who used to be a problem 'til we decided we were never talking to her again. Solved that one!

So what does your husband have to say about his mother stalking you and all?

5

Wow, talk about quick response!

Usually, he does, but he wasn’t home tonight. He’s been estranged from his family several times, but he always starts feeling guilty and gets back in touch with them. Luckily we’ve moved to another continent, but…there’s always the phone. I guess I’m going to have to start screening my calls again.

6

I think id be tempted to call the police and tell them there is a strnage car outside your house and you are concerned. She just might get the hint.

We are, each of us angels with only one wing;
and we can only fly by
embracing one another

7

I think my ex mother-in-law had a minor part in breaking me and my ex up. (The one whom I was with for over 5 years.) Anyway, everytime I would see her (she lived in Ohio, we lived in Texas) I would go out of my way to be nice to her. I would go up and say, “Good morning Mrs. McDowell, how are you today?” or “Good morning, Insert her first name, was your trip down here good?” The most I ever got out of her was a curt “fine.” “yes.” “no.” etc. I never got more than a single word sentance out of her. To make things worse, my ex and I would invariably take them out to eat somewhere. If there were an odd number of people she would make sure that I did not sit next to him. She even once had me pushed so far aside on his grad school graduation that I could not even see him. I know these are all minor things, relatively, but they were always that way. You would think that since she has another gay son that she would know better. Whenever he would be down at the same time as her he would make sure that I sat next to him, was included in discussions, and basically treated like I exist. I should probably send her some hatemail. On a side note, his father and I got along fabulously, when his wife was not around. Once she came into the picture, he was instantly whipped into submission. GODS I hated her. Oh, I only expressed to my ex that she frustrated me, I never told him how much I despised her.

Oh well.
HUGS!
Sqrl

Gasoline: As an accompaniement to cereal it made a refreshing change. Glen Baxter

8

Nope. As much as I don’t …well…it’s hard to define what I actually feel for my husbands parents, but compared to your inlaws, I LOVE MINE.(And they drive me nuts most of the time, but at least they mind their own business.)

You have it really bad and I am so very very very x 1000 sorry for you. You can pick your spouse, but you can’t pick your inlaws and that is one of life’s cruelest kick in the asses. (Feel free to quote me on that last sentance.)

How does your husband deal with this? It sounds as if you are getting crapped on on a regular basis with every conversation with her. Your self esteem in this area has to be squashed.

Good show on the avoiding her phone calls. Perhaps getting caller ID would help avoid her completely without those pesky “ARE you there and humping the paper boy?” messages from this wacko. If she stakes out your house again, call the cops stating there is this strange woman sitting outside your house everyday… that should remedy the situation.

I know you edited a ton of what you feel for this nutjob, but how do you live with it?

BTW, four year olds usually do not read phonetically.It’s usually between K-1 that it clicks. With some kids, later. What is she expecting, Einstein? Pushing a child before they are ready usually will cause the exact reverse of what is wanted. What does your Father in law say in this matter?

Talk to us. We, the SDMB, are listening and want to impart lots of marital advice (and lots of other kinds of counsel) absolutely free, no strings attached, you can use it or flush it down the toilet if you so chose. We won’t be offended.
Really. We are here for you. :slight_smile:

9

My mother in law is a scary woman. First off, she’s a raging alcoholic. She had a liver transplant about 10 years ago and she STILL DRINKS. This is on top of the fistfulls of medication she has to take.

Shortly before UndeadDude and I married, we drove up to Michigan to visit her and her husband. She was mostly nice until she got drunk. I remember standing in the kitchen, l istening as she ranted about me upstairs to UDD. She said some truly nasty things, and we ended up leaving early. A few letters were exchanged, and she said she was sorry, and things were ok again…

Until she came down to visit us a few years later. We borrowed a matress from my old bed at my mom’s house to put in our second bedroom, which was an office/library/sewing/art room and not a bedroom at all… but we figured that was better than having her sleep on the couch. She came during my husband’s finals, which meant that he had to spend a lot of time studying and at school, leaving her alone with me. Now we were also very poor at the time…

So she is very nice for the first day or two. She took us out to eat and even came to the club I worked at to see me dance. She gave my husband $25 to get table dances from me and to tip me on stage. Yes this was very strange, but hey. She had a good time and thought the place was fun.

The next night she got really drunk. I had made a big dinner but she was too drunk to eat it. She staggered around, fell into the glass top coffee table, almost breaking it an knocking the glass off. She then started to rant to my husband. I literally hid behind the bed in our bedroom, in the dark, listening… I was too afraid to go out into the living room.

She called me all sorts of foul names, and told UndeadDude that he would “never be a man” until he got rid of me… that he wasn’t her son until he got rid of me, etc. We actually got this on audiotape, and sent it to her later. Anyway, she told him to call her a cab and she left in a huff. She actually waited outside for the cab.

About a half an hour later, the police knocked on the door… by this time we’d gathered various things she’d forgotten … like her airplane tickets, her wallet, and her 1.5 litre bottle of vodka, that was almost half finished (in 3 days)… well it turns out that she’d remembered she didn’t have her money, but couldn’t remember where our house was…so the cab driver called the police. The cab was just down the street.

We gave the cops the stuff she’d left, and the bottle of vodka, and said sorry, she was very drunk. The cop looked at the bottle and said that she had told him she’d had “a little wine”… but that now things made a little more sense. [We had no wine at the house, so that was a total lie].

After the letter my husband sent with the audio tape (so she could hear, sober, what she’d said drunk… because in the past she always denied it) we ceased contact with her. It’s been over 5 years since we talked with her. UndeadDude does have a sister, so she’s seen photos of Nicky and stuff… maybe someday we’ll write to her again… but I don’t want her to see Nicky in person–well actually I dont’ want Nicky to see her.

–
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

10

by the way, Nicky is 4 and he’s still only about 50/50 with the letters in the alphabet, let alone reading.

–
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

11

I forgot to mention, she also complained that I was a lousy hostess, that we hadn’t taken her out to eat (we couldn’t afford to) and that we just “stuck her in a room on a mattress” (what, should we have moved to a bigger house for her visit?)…
by the way, Nicky is 4 and he’s still only about 50/50 with the letters in the alphabet, let alone reading.

–
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

12

Thanks for the support guys. Things have gotten a ton better since we moved overseas. She can only afford to call us about once a week now. Luckily, my husband is usually home and I just hand the phone to him if and go take a very long shower so there is no way that I have to talk to her. (Funny story, she called us up last week to tell us that she canceled her internet service because she couldn’t afford it anymore, then stayed on the phone for about an hour. WTF!)

I can’t let her be around my son because she gets very upset, I mean she actually cries, if he doesn’t want to hug her or kiss her. I think she thinks that he is an ungrateful little brat, after all she lets him in her home even though he isn’t really her grandson. I just hope he isn’t confused by all this when he gets older and can understand what’s going on.

As for father-in-law he is an alcoholic and a racist, but since he is almost always passed out, I don’t have many problems with him. I don’t like him around my son because he is constantly using the “n” word (when he isn’t calling them porch monkeys or coons!)

I used to feel like I was doing something wrong, but after talking to her family I realize that she has always been like this and it isn’t about me. Actually, we have to keep it a secret that I correspond with her sister and mother because she would rip into them for it (when they came to visit us after our son was born she accused them of interfering in our lives. No, I don’t know what that means)

Opalcat, I’m sorry to hear about your husband’s mother. Isn’t it strange how such f*cked up people can have such wonderful children? And my son is a Nicky, too. Actually, now that he is a big man of 4, we have to call him Nicholas Spencer Tate Long.

Canadian Sue, your father in law goes through your trash? What, exactly is he hoping to find? I don’t think my m-i-l would do that since she is so afraid of germs that she won’t share a soda with her own kids.

Keep those stories coming, it makes me feel better knowing that I’m not the only one.

13

I guess my mother-in-law isn’t as bad as all that, but she still bugs me. She’s 50 years old, and she can’t hold a job. She lives in a crappy apartment with 2 bassett hounds that she can’t take care of. They and the apartment reek because she doesn’t bathe them, and their hair is falling out leaving red, raw, crusty skin exposed. The vet once told her they have a yeast infection, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re allergic to fleas, too, but she doesn’t try to treat it.

She’s an angry person. All she does is gripe about her life, her neighbors, her co-workers (when she does have a job), and her health. she says she has fibromayalgia, but I really don’t know. She constantly belittles and puts down my husband to his face, but says she’s just teasing. I try to avoid inviting her to our house because she’s such an unpleasant person, but when she does come over, she always brings loads of laundry to do so she can borrow our machines.

Right now she’s in the process of moving, though she doesn’t know where she’s going yet. Saturday, my husband is going to help her pack some stuff and bring it to our house “for storage,” but I think she’s scheming to move in with us. She even told my husband that she’s moving in with us, but he insists it was a joke.

I think his father’s scheming to move in with us, too. He lives in California and is diabetic. He never tried to control his diabetes, and instead ate tons of candy, drank tons of booze, and did tons of drugs. As a result, he’s had a series of strokes that have left him partially paralyzed and completely dependant on assitants. Recently his sister wrote to tell us he’s getting worse and his current girlfriend/assistant can’t take care of him anymore. Then he started calling and asking about my husband’s mom, and saying he wants to marry her so she can take care of him (they’ve never been married, and he’s never had much of anything to do with my husband’s upbringing; no childsupport, no custody, infrequent visits). She says she’s considering it. I’m just sure they’re both going to try to move in with us. I’m going to fight it tooth and nail, and if they do anyway, I’m running away from home.

“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy

The Kat House
Join the FSH Webring

14

Tater… Im not really sure what he is looking for, im kind of curious myself. I find it all kind of amusing.

We are, each of us angels with only one wing;
and we can only fly by
embracing one another

15

I’m not even going to talk about my ex-mother-in-law, except to say that I now know exactly where my ex learned his manipulative, scheming ways.

My current mother-in-law is pretty nice, although we’re not real close. She keeps herself at a distance emotionally from everyone (including her own son), so we’re civil with each other, but it’s not like we’re friends.

Shadowfox
“Most people would succeed in small things, if they were not troubled with
great ambitions.”

  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
16

I only call Nicky “Dominic Galen _____” when I’m being silly-angry… it makes him laugh :slight_smile:

–
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

17

“_____”? Geez, and I thought my last name was hard to pronounce!

18

Sue, we could always get my mother in law to do a stake out and find out what he’s doing!

Gr8Kat, you poor thing! That’s my biggest nightmare, that my in-laws will get old and sick and have to move in with us. I’ve already begun saving up for a nursing home. I saw a great one on 60 Minutes the other night… :wink:

Since I’m getting this all out tonight, I thought I’d share a few more things. My MIL has accused my mother of marrying my dad to become a US citizen (she’s never met my mom). She burned all of my husband’s underwear when he was a kid as a punishment. She refused to tell any of the relatives where my son was born because it was the “black” women’s hospital. She calls my relatives to tell them that I hate her (a lot of them have her number blocked). And last of all, she physically threatened her husband’s mother because she had the nerve to walk across the lawn to get to her car after my MIL kicked her off of the porch (she wouldn’t let her inside the house).

Whew, I feel much better now. I hate to complain to my husband about his parents because it makes him feel guilty. He’s lucky, he’s got great in-laws. In fact, they treat him better than they treat me!

19

Um, can I say “Sweet Jesus” now?

Holy shit. My in-laws are Saints. Pain-in-the-Ass Saints, but Saints nonetheless. I’m writing to the Pope to see if I can get them officially canonized.

Big hugs from me to you all.

20

My ex-mother-in-law (but at the time not ex) tried to fix my husband up on a date with some bimbo at a wedding he was forced to attend. I couldn’t make it to the event so he went alone and she kept on about it, telling him, think what your kids would look like with her… and all this time when my ex would say he hated him mother, I was the one who said you should give her a chance.

I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!