Yes, I’m about to complain about my In-Laws. My MIL is driving me up the wall right now and I am about two seconds from firing off an angry e-mail to her… so I’d like to think of this post as distraction.
Basically my husband’s parents were married for 17 years, and his freshman year of college–when he was 18 and his sister was 12-- they divorced. What proceeded is the nastiest, most brutal series of divorce proceedings I’ve ever seen – and my Mom was married four times, you’d think I’d be familiar with this stuff by now. Sufficed to say, over four years later, they are STILL–as in, this moment–fighting in court over my husband’s sister (who is now 16.)
To put it gently, my husband’s dad is a narcissistic dick. He is the “crown prince” of an extremely wealthy family and therefore is accustomed to doing and getting whatever he wants. He reeks of entitlement and is often emotionally neglectful and extremely controlling toward his daughter. I could go on, and you would hate him too… but this post isn’t about him, it’s about my crazy MIL.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I love her… she’s a far more loving and lovable person than FIL… I do consider her like my own parent in many ways, and she has offered me more parental love and concern than I’ve ever felt in my life. She has many, many good qualities, but at present the annoying things about her are suffocating me.
Ever since the divorce, MIL has insisted on playing the role of this dramatic and tortured victim of her ex-husband. If something in her house broke down, it was somehow his fault. If she had a health problem, it was somehow his fault. She overblows everything that he does to the point that he is made into the biggest cruelest person on the face of the planet and she the hapless victim… she still repeatedly refers to herself as his victim, even though she hasn’t been married to him for four years. She complains that he’s deliberately trying to financially ruin her and that he’s succeeded. She bitches about court costs even when it was her who took him to court in the first place.
Since the beginning she has repeatedly placed undue pressure on my husband (and now me) to fix all these problem for her. At the beginning of the divorce she actually mailed her son the court documents detailing his father’s many wrongdoings and asked for feedback and advice. She e-mails us about three times a day detailing what misery her and his sister’s life is (and I’m getting to the sister in a moment.) Everything she sends to her ex, she forwards to us. She tells us personal things about SIL and asks us desperately for advice because everything is so out of control and she can’t take it anymore. She calls late at night in a panic, tells us some crazy story about what FIL did to SIL, and then when we call and get ahold of SIL we find out the whole thing was way overblown. She has subpoenaed us both to testify in court against my FIL–though fortunately for her it was canceled at the last minute. For the record, this woman is in her 50’s… we’re 23 and 24, respectively… and she’s asking us for PARENTING and DIVORCE advice?
Mr. Olives has repeatedly, and I mean repeatedly, made it clear that it is extremely painful for him to be put in the middle of all this, and he doesn’t want to hear about it. He’s sat her down, he’s written her letters, he’s been sweet, he’s been mean, he’s been firm… she WILL NOT LISTEN. She immediately replies on the defensive: “I will NOT keep things from my children! I will not lie about the abuse I’ve endured!” blah blah blah and what usually follows is an even longer spiel detailing the injustice, as if we didn’t get it or something. Once she even had the gall to compare her divorce to my abuse as a child–to say, “I validated YOU when you were upset so you have to validate ME or else you’re just as bad as people who didn’t believe you when you disclosed.”
Ordinarily I would be able to drop this, to just ignore her and minimize the impact she has when she gets like this, but there is actually a 16-year-old’s life hanging in the balance. My sister is one of the most awesome people you will ever meet… but because of her mother’s attitude, and her mother’s victim ideology, and her mother’s narcissism, we are watching her life go right down the tubes.
My sister is utterly convinced, with the help of her mother, that her father is the worst person on the planet, and that her life is the most tragic in all of existence. She is required to see him once every other weekend, but has taken to drastic measures like hiding from him when he goes to pick her up. Confrontations with him almost always involve the police being called. She has made plans to “run away to a youth shelter” (I swear to Jesus, her mother actually called and asked us whether this was a feasible plan!) in the event that she’s forced to go see her father. She keeps saying, “I’m going to emancipate from him when I’m 17!” and her mother encourages this response. She has repeatedly broken the law (violated a court order to close down her MySpace account), she has been caught drinking and smoking (which MIL insists is “overblown” and her ex just trying to make her look like a bad parent), self-injuring (again, MIL says this is “overblown” to make her look bad), and this incredibly brilliant child totally blew off schoolwork and nearly failed all of her classes (she brought them back up in time–but MIL insists, “I can’t MAKE her study!”) WHY is she destroying her life, you ask? Because it’s so fundamentally unfair that she has to see her Dad and that her Dad controls her life and that her Dad has financially ruined her mother… in other words, her mother’s ideology has become hers.
Now… I have to admit, I find this more than a little offensive. I came from an egregiously abusive background, and I DID emancipate at 17… it KILLS me, it just KILLS me that this kid thinks her life is as bad as it gets. I’ve been through shit that would make her head spin… and yet, I also know people who have been through shit that would make MY head spin. I’m not saying I never indulged in self-pity over my bad circumstances… but I AM saying I ALWAYS took responsibility for myself. Instead of saying, “Oohh my life sucks therefore I shouldn’t have to have any responsibility” I said, “Okay, I guess I have to work harder.” I put MYSELF through college for Chrissake, with no parents holding my hand along the way… and my sister’s going to lie down and die and piss her future down the drain because her Daddy’s mean to her? My MIL’s bitching about “living in poverty” and she just bought a new car… I’ve paid for my gasoline in nickels before, two and three dollars at a time. I’m supposed to weep because SIL has to read with her bedroom door open? You’re telling this to a woman whose mother punched holes in her bedroom wall and threatened to kill her with her stepfather’s shotgun.
Forget it. It’s so stupid. I’m so angry. My sister has such a bright future ahead of her, and I see both of her parents as ruining it all. For a long time we emphasized being supportive of SIL’s pain… telling her we were on her side and she could talk to us whenever… she trusts and loves us, will tell us things she won’t tell them. But none of that “feeling validating” has changed her behavior… she’s just becoming more self-indulgent, more depressed, more rebellious. What she really needs is a good kick in the ass, a “suck it up!” so-to-speak. Her life will be completely her own in less than two years… and she has to take responsibility for its direction right now. God knows her parents aren’t going to do anything for her.
Anyways, thanks for listening.
