Wow, over react much?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is all so stupid. My partner, Div, and his mother, “Jen”, aren’t speaking over a photo of a chicken shed on Facebook.

I posted the photo of the half finished shed recently, and last week Div’s cousin “Tanya” commented on it, joking that it was a retirement home for Jen. Jen immediately sent me two messages, demanding I delete the comment or answer it “sarcastically”, reminding me that her brother died in August and she’s still consumed with grief, and that she’d just had a dizzy fit that she hoped wasn’t a stroke. I replied and said I thought we should respond jokingly rather than delete the comment and suggested a couple of responses. She selected two of them and told me to go ahead and post them, and I did. Then Div joked that she could live in the chicken shed but if she didn’t lay four eggs a week we’d have to wring her neck and have her for Sunday roast. She responded with a couple of cracks about his weight. Div was embarrassed. It’s not the first time she’s paid out on him about his weight on Facebook, and it upsets him. He hasn’t been keen to speak to her since.

She wanted to come visit us tomorrow so I pushed him to write her an email telling her how he felt. I had visions of being left to explain to her tomorrow why he wasn’t speaking to her and I didn’t want to be put in the middle like that. His email contrasted their two comments, pointed out that one was a silly joke and the other was a personal attack, said he found it hurtful to have his weight commented on in public like that and mentioned it wasn’t the first time.

She sent him one email and me two. She’s announced that she’s done with him. She reminded me that her brother died not long ago and that she hasn’t been feeling well recently, and said Div is probably just waiting for her to die so he can spend her money, and said she should make her will soon. She attacked him for laughing at a birthday greeting his cousin Tanya sent him because Tanya and her parents had failed to send a sympathy card to her brother’s widow. She implied that he didn’t care about his uncle “now that he’s gone”. She uninvited Div to Christmas and said she hoped his recently deceased uncle couldn’t hear “all this”, and finished up telling him to go “f… himself” and to have a nice life. Oh, and kids and I are still welcome, of course. She bought them a couple of presents on Friday and had planned to give them to us tomorrow but she no longer wants to visit us.

So… That’s a whole lot of crazy to have unloaded all at once. Problem is she’s so likely to fly off the handle at any perceived criticism that no one dares to be truthful with her and as a result she’s developed this warped view of the world. No one wants to provoke her wrath so they just nod and leave her to think they agree.

What I’d like to say to her is something along the lines of “Stop digging up your brother’s corpse whenever you want your own way.” The natural sympathy I felt for her loss is being eroded by her constant use of it as a cheap manipulative tool. The rest of it… I don’t even know how to approach the rest of it. She’s not loaded, and we’ve never given a thought to where she’ll leave what she has got so the accusation that Div probably can’t wait to get his hands on his inheritance is completely out of left field. She can leave it to the local cemetery trust for the perpetual maintenance of her brother’s grave for all we care. She can leave it to a school to teach cats to tapdance. She can take it with her, Egyptian-style. It’s not money we’ve ever thought of as potentially ours. As for giving Tanya the cold shoulder because she and her parents didn’t send a sympathy card to the mutual aunt - that’s nothing at all to do with us, and I can’t believe she even suggested it.

Anyway, of all things to act as a catalyst to stop Div and his Mum talking, the chicken shed seemed so unlikely, but here we are.

Crazy mum/MIL stories, anyone? Misery loves company :slight_smile:

2

Ain’t families great?

So much drama and when it all boils down - amounts to bugger all; square root of sweet tweet.

Can’t say I have an answer for you, just to say it is common for this type of goings on.

Some folks just have a whole lot of too much time and too little to do and so blow everything out of whack. Seems to amuse them and keeps them occupied for a while.

You… smile a lot, take it with a large pinch of salt and then move on. You are never gonna win in this type of situation. I’d be inclined to have a huge vat of hootch situated somewhere in the vicinity of said chicken shed and avail myself of it frequently.

3

I just posted a picture of my newly constructed green house on FB. I haven’t upset anyone though. I told them it was a missile silo.

4

Apparently, she has zero sense of humor over getting older. Equally apparently, Div has no sense of humor about being overweight. If you want her to brush off flip comments about her advanced age, then you should expect Div to brush off flip comments about his advanced weight. OR, better yet, respect both of them enough to not bring up their achilles’ heels, even jokingly, and especially in such a public setting.

I know women who get really upset when people post un-approved photos of them on Facebook. I think that they’re ridiculous, but I respect their request. So, personally, I’d have gone ahead and deleted Tanya’s comment and emailed Tanya privately explaining why. Then the two of you could have had a good laugh about how ridiculous Div’s mom is.

The whole drama about cutting her son off is melodramatic and childish. I’d ignore her altogether. If she’s anything like other drama queens that I know, it’ll blow over soon. For his part, I hope that Div gets thicker skin because his mom sounds like a real pickle. And don’t forget that Div can lose weight if he really wants to, while his mom won’t ever get younger.

5

I know the mention of the word “retirement” is what has lead you to think this is about her age but it’s not. She’s outraged because her niece mentioned her. That’s it in it’s entirety. One of the elements in the rants she’s been emailing me is that Tanya posted a picture of a nerdy guy on Div’s Facebook page and said “Happy birthday nerd”. We laughed, Div “Liked” the post, and so Jen’s furious with both Tanya for posting it (because it’s “rude and insulting”) and Div for liking it (because he shouldn’t encourage her, especially as she, her mother and her step father didn’t even send a sympathy card).

6

My suggestion is that you ask her to not be put in the middle over stuff like this, that she either talk to the person directly about her hurt feelings, or you don’t want to hear it at all. She’s happily using you and other people as go-betweens in her “I don’t talk to so-and-so but…” war.

And if you do happen to talk to her about her brother’s death, two things: First, rephrase it as something more sympathetic than “digging up your brother’s corpse” (I suggest something close to “I know you’re still deeply grieving Brother, but So-and-So wasn’t commenting on that, and neither was So-and-So; I think your deeply-felt pain is making you angry at the world and everyone around you”), and second, expect that she’s going to take it badly regardless of what you do say, and blame you.

I think everyone involved needs to change their FB settings to selectively block her out of seeing anything that might be somehow annoying to her. (If that means everything, so be it.) Either that or have it out with her and experience the bliss that can come from not speaking to a hostile in-law. I highly recommend it when possible; my husband and I didn’t talk to or deal with his dad for almost a year, and it was awesome. The problem was that no one else wanted to make waves, and so we didn’t see any of his siblings or his mom. Decisions, decisions.

7

You can semi-delete your (and Div’s) account/s, but bring it/them back online later. Maybe give it a few weeks for this spat to blow over then open up the account with any photos and messages that might involve these two deleted or hidden from everyone. Mention to them that you’ve deleted your account/s because you don’t want to be the cause of trouble and/or stuck between the two [overly-sensitive] family members. Kid gloves for childish adults.

8

Just wanna throw this in – I’m not saying anyone is right or wrong in this situation (Mom definitely shouldn’t have thrown in the crack about weight, not cool) …

When someone is grieving, you sortakinda gotta cut 'em some slack for a while. She may very well be using her brother’s death to manipulate people – or she may be genuinely grief stricken and not really thinking clearly. 2 months after a death is NOTHING to someone who is still reeling from losing someone they love. She’s just getting started in the grief process, really – the crying and stuff you see at funerals isn’t grief, just shock. She is probably also taking the harmless joke about the chicken shed as a personal attack, too. It’s not uncommon for people who are grieving to become REALLY hypersensitive to criticism for a while - whether it’s real criticism or perceived.

I’m not defending her actions. Just trying to shed some light on what her mental state might be these days. (And IANAD but if the dizzy spell thing did actually happen – that’s worrisome, too.)

9

Not exactly mum/mil but when my Grandmother finally passed on the family argument came to a head.

Backstory - My Uncle Bill, the middle brother divorced and remarried back in 1960. He had 2 kids by his first wife, David and Nancy. Very lovely people in the gentle hippy sort of way. He remarried a woman with 2 kids. He then had 2 more kids with her. When my Grandfather died, Aunt Bitch got pissed off because she did not get any money [the original will stated that each son would get some amount of money - Uncle Bill died before Grandfather did, but Grandfather did NOT change the terms of his will.] and the house and goods and residue of the estate waited until Grandmother died to be distributed. My Dad’s will is written just like that as well. Plus there are family entailments that do not get sold.

So Grandmother dies, and Dad, Uncle John and Aunt Bitch gather to sort out the house contents. They go around sorting out the goods. Aunt Bitch gets one third of the contents not covered by anything in the will.

What does she do with it? Pretty much everything went to her kids by her first husband, and her kids by my Uncle - though most of the good stuff goes to her kids by her first husband. Bills Kids by his first wife got nothing.

Needless to say, my Dad and uncle are seriously pissed off, and they have words with Aunt Bitch. They decide to take some of their money and stuff and give it to my cousins by his first wife. Aunt Bitch is incensed, and tries to sue to get a third of what Dad and my uncle gave to David and Nancy :eek: Luckily the judge sees the nonsense in that whole mess and finds against her, and actually told her that she had the responsibility to see that Bills kids by his first wife got something as they were also family, and that she should not have given family heirlooms from our family to non family. She stormed off in a snit. My Dad and uncle both wrote her out of their wills … but left David and Nancy, and my cousins from her and Bill in the will. In trust so they couldn’t get anything until they were 30 years old <evil grin> Uncle John died before they turned 30, but Dad died well after they were out of her house so she couldn’t get her hands on anything.

Oddly enough, she never speaks to me, though we live in the same state [and oddly enough, I seem to be the only one that cleans up her husbands grave site, or puts flowers on it … :dubious:]

10

Step One - Create new Facebook account.
Step Two - Don’t let mom know about it EVER.
Step Three - Everyone uses new account regularly; use old account only when it’s something you actually WANT mom to see.
Step Four - Profit! (From mom not knowing about things that don’t particularly concern her, so she can’t give anyone DRAMA! over them.)

11

I hope she will be able, in time, to put The Chicken Shack Incident behind her. :smiley:

12

Or, alternatively, put mom on “restricted” status on Facebook and lock down your privacy settings if most of your posts are usually public. If you think it’ll start something, don’t make it public-- then mom won’t see it unless someone else gets involved and stirs the drama pot.

13

Honestly, when you “friend” high drama, toxic relatives who have a mutually contentious relationship with your SO, you are partially responsible for instigating this whole mess. Where the hell did you think this was going to wind up? What did your clueless SO think was going to be the response when he started in with the snarky chicken egg - neck wringing cracks to a bitchy old woman? He should be grateful she stopped at calling him a fatty.

This is your SO’s fault as much as it is hers. You should have just deleted the comment. When you have people who like to battle, you keep them separated. If you see comments that reference her delete them immediately.

14

I’d have deleted the comment.

Instead by choosing the repartée path, you started yet another Let’s-see-how-witty-we-can-all-be-on-Facebook! thread. These don’t always end well.

Yeah, I know hindsight and all -but it seems the higher priority would have been in keeping the family peace.

And with that, peace.

15

Locking down her access is tough. Long ago, Tanya decided she was done with her drama and blocked her. MIL now uses her other son’s account to keep tabs on Tanya. I could block him too, and her daughter and suddenly my primary use for Facebook - keeping in touch with family - is inhibited.

I chose not to delete the initial comment because I didn’t want to open a conversation about why it was gone with Tanya. Because it was all handled in emails and private messages, she had no clue Jen had even taken offense to it. My guess was that Tanya would find that funny, tell her family and then Jen would be descending on me all outraged that everyone was laughing about it being taken down. Sometimes you can’t win.

Anyway, I emailed Jen and pointed out that some of her comments were harsh and uncalled for, and she apologised today. I mean, it’s the ugliest apology you’ve ever seen… pages and pages of her grievances with past slights, miffs, insults and disputes but in amongst all the ghosts of arguments past she actually uses the words “I’m sorry” and “I apologize”. They said it couldn’t be done!

16

No, you can’t win with someone like that. All you can do is stop participating in all her drama. You and your partner must have a pretty good idea at this point what is going to set Mom off - just don’t go there. If she wants a post deleted, just delete it - as Dr. Phil says, do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?

17

Let’s get down to the really important questions – how much money does she have and whether it’s worth enough ass kissing to assure not getting written out of her will? :stuck_out_tongue:

18

Concur.

And regardless of the scenario, the whole thing about agreeing what each other will say before you post it seems really weird to.me.

19

Usually, overreacting has little to do with what is at hand, but points at the deeper nances of the relationship.

Quarreling over a bowl of soup with my mum was one of the determining factors why I decidd to haul ass and rent a small room for myself (not typical from where I come from).

20

Please, please, please let me give you some advice. This is his family, and his drama. It is not yours. Separate yourself from it, and deal with your family as you see fit, and let him deal with him as he sees fit. Do not get involved. And before anyone starts in with the “You marry them, you marry their family!”, crap, let me tell you, it took me 22 very long years of marriage to understand that this is the only way to go, for everyone’s sanity.