I am never moving to Germany. Never, no never. summer done scarred and scared me. All the r's. Not doing it.
Between summer and somebody I know locally I'm going to end up prejudiced against Germans. I'm just assuming at this point it's a whole country of people with absolutely NO boundaries and limited senses of humor.
Who subsist on the shattered dreams of children no less.
Post by dawnzersong on Sept 17, 2014 14:47:49 GMT -5
I have never in my life met someone so lacking in common sense as my MIL. Additionally, she has strong opinions about EVERYTHING, no matter how trivial, and is constitutionally incapable of keeping any of her thoughts to herself.
On a trip to Hawaii, I took a picture of the sun rising over a mountain. We made a large print of it and framed it, and it's now hanging in our living room. MIL was staring at the picture with this completely confused look on her face, and she finally turned to me and asked, "What's that star thing in the middle?" She is constantly bugging H and I with stupid questions that we couldn't possibly know the answer to. H has gently explained to her many times that there's this website called google where she could find the answer to many of her questions right on her cell phone. Every time she and FIL come to visit, they want to go shopping while H and I are at work. Despite both of them having iphones and a GPS in their car, it's not enough for H to tell them how to get to the mall- he always has to draw them a map. And every time we leave them alone in our house, they manage to lock themselves out or break something. The last time they were here, H had to leave work two days in a row to deal with some crisis they caused in our home.
MIL is completely bewildered that people cook food differently and eat differently from how she does. Whenever she comes to visit, it's a constant barrage of childlike questions about the "weird" things in our kitchen. "What's this? Vegetable broth? In a carton? I always get my broth in a can!" She wanted to cook dinner for us one night and she was getting flustered because she couldn't find the flour to thicken the gravy she was making, even though she had the cabinet open and was looking right at the flour container. She didn't recognize it because it was whole wheat flour, and she only uses white. She was gobsmacked when I told her the flour was right in front of her. She made her gravy but then commented throughout the entire meal about how weird it tasted. And then told literally EVERYONE she spoke to during the rest of her week-long visit--other family members, friends, cashiers at the mall- about how we use this weird kind of flour in our house and it makes the gravy taste wrong.
On top of this, FIL doesn't like to shower and they are both bigots in just about every way that a person can be a bigot. And they get really offended when we express disagreement with their gross opinions. I'm glad they live a 14-hour drive from us so we only see them once a year.
I vented in the randoms thread but I have just decided that I dont like my SIL. I tried, i really did, I kept thinking "well she's just different than me" or whatever. But no. I don't like her. she's self-absorbed, self-centered, and not really all that nice. She's not being supportive of my brother during this slightly major health crisis, and seems to want the benefits of being in the family without actively participating. Like, she'll take the nice bday presents my mom buys bc my mom is overly generous but won't call her to say thank you. I gave her some very nice bday gifts (I thought at any rate) and she never said a word about them (I wasnt there when she opened them).
That is the worst! I'm indignant on your behalf.
I need to complain about my H's cousin, too. She is really into herself. She doesn't have conversations; she talks about herself, and you get to listen and be fascinated and agree that she is amazing. In the 10 years I've known her, she has never once asked me anything about myself or my life beyond the requisite "How are you?" upon greeting.
She posts every single mundane detail of her life on FB, and even managed to make an MLK Day post all about her- she's a social worker with a serious White Savior complex. She used to post three or four selfies a day, and they all looked exactly the same- she was never doing anything interesting in them, they were all just close-ups of her face making the same expression and from the same angle. Then she got a dog, so now she posts a zillion pictures of him every day. What drives me craziest is that she uses no fewer than eight hashtags every time she posts. Sometimes her sentences include a hashtag before every word, even really generic ones like "dog" and "day". She wrote an op-ed that was published in her podunk hometown's newspaper a few years ago (which is great. Really!) but now she re-posts the link to it every year on the anniversary of the original publication, just in case someone somewhere has completely forgotten about it.
My MIL told me, and only me, that she is leaving FIL after the holidays. She already has a place.
Shit is about to get real.
Ohhhh, shit! Wow.
All I've got is that my MIL talked me out of having a big whole fam damily 1st birthday for shorti because she didn't think that was expected in their family (since they didn't do it for MH and peers), and I was kinda sad but went with it because we didn't really have room to host EVERYBODY anyway. Now MH's cousin is having her kid's 1st birthday party and everybody and their cousin is invited. DAMMIT WOMAN, I could have made a giant cake! But noooooooo.
My husband's sister is a straight up controlling bitch. I could write volumes.
This past Christmas we all went out to Nevada to celebrate with the (single) brother.She's pissed because she's not holding court at her house for the holidays. DH and I and SIL and her husband got a VRBO (against my better judgement) house close to brother for the holiday. The house was adorable--wonderfully decorated and landscaped, clean as a whistle, great neighborhood. But SIL can't stand not being in charge/making all decisions, so she hated EVERYTHING that holiday. She even complained about the VRBO, but really had to struggle to find something wrong--she complained about the headboard in her bedroom, and the fact that the kitchen didn't have a roasting pan ("What if we wanted to roast a turkey? We wouldn't be able to.") I laughed right in her face.
i do wish it wasn't my mother that was dead. she was an awesome grandparent.
sorrynotsorryintheleast
I have the same thoughts re: MIL. Despite her flaws, she would have been an amazing grandma. (she passed away when I was pg with AJ) Instead we're stuck with SMIL the alcoholic. I could rant about her all day, but all I will say is that hell will freeze over before AJ calls that woman grandma.
Post by chedifuen on Sept 17, 2014 17:12:01 GMT -5
I love my in-laws but I will vent about my brother's wife. She is a SAHM and I constantly makes digs at me saying she "just thinks kids belong at home with their parents."
Can we kvetch about our own parents, too? Because my in-laws are easy breezy, but my mother is becoming unbearable. The curse of coming from the same hometown is that you can't really split holidays. People expect you to see everyone every time you visit. Which means no one is ever happy with the amount of time you spend with them, and you spend your whole visit schlepping back and forth in the car. And now my mom is asking that we drive 3 hours home and then 3 hours to the coast on Thanksgiving Day. NOPE. Not doing it. I asked DH if we could have a kid just to have a good excuse to stay home for holidays...
Our parents live 2.5 hours away from each other, but we live 4 and 6 hours away from them. So when we go home for holidays or long weekends, they both seem to think we should make time to see both. My parents are sort of on the way to my ILs, but like 30m out of the way. I've started refusing to travel to our home state for Thanksgiving because it's miserable to try and split those 4 days between the two families. We now go after Christmas and stay for longer and split that time. My MIL is super pissed about this and I don't even give a shit. We travel to other places for TG (my BIL's this year, the beach other years), but I refuse to go to our home state because of the demands and drama from both sides. Neither can grasp it's a PITA or see outside of what they want, so fuck 'em.
My MIL told me, and only me, that she is leaving FIL after the holidays. She already has a place.
Shit is about to get real.
Uhm, what the hell is she thinking putting this sort of secret on you?
I imagine it was because her MIL was there to "help" after her DD was born, she complained about FIL for the gazillion time, and Summer was like "you are always bitching, just leave him!" kinda telling Summer "You were right, peace out!"
Also, my MIL is a lunatic. Over the weekend, my husband and my FIL went to my BIL's house to work on some projects around the house they recently bought. The big project was fixing the deck because it had some rotted boards and the steps needed to be completely redone. My BIL and SIL have a 15m old, and my SIL is due next month with their 2nd. They also both work full time. When they got into the project, they found out almost all of the boards were rotted, so they decided to replace them all, instead of just the ones that were rotted. MH flew home Sunday night, but because my FIL drove and is retired, he stayed Mon/Tues too. Last night he called my MIL to tell her he was probably going to stay Wed night too and head home Thursday. Her response? "Name (BIL) and Name (SIL) don't want you to stay another night."
Right, I HATE WHEN PEOPLE COME TO MY HOUSE AND WORK FOR FREE ON GIANT PROJECTS I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR. THAT IS THE WORST!!!! She hadn't talked to anyone, no one implied this to her, this is just how stupid and insane and straight up MEAN she is. She's loathsome. In what world would you not want someone to stay and finish a project they were willing to stay and do FOR FREE? That you don't have time for? It's like she lives in an alternate reality and the worst part is she is ridiculously obstinate about her opinions and will never admit someone else is right or see the other side. What kills me is that her most rabid opinions are the ones that are so obviously wrong and weird. She drives me nuts.
I Don't have a vent, because FIL is almost never around. He rarely contacts h, much less me, and he's seen b less than a dozen times in two and a half years. He lives less than an hour away.
I just want to know how many more times I have to tell my aunt that we are going to be home in our house on Christmas morning before she stops asking me about being with the whole family on the 24/25.
WE WON'T BE THERE. Stop making me say it every damn year.
I could write a novel! Most recently though, she refused to help as one of our kids was hospitalized in March with celluitis and a staph infection. We needed help getting the kids off the bus one day, the day he was admitted. My husband didn't want to leave our son because the doctor wasn't sure if he needed surgery.
Next, she told me my oldest son's cancer was not convenient to her and we needed to schedule appointments, surgeries around times that would be easier for her and not the first appointment we could get. We were also told we didn't pray enough for his healing.m
This has been going on for 10 years. I tend to ignore her lately but somethings I can't ignore.
My ILs are dead, thankfully, so i just get to bitch about my mom.
DH always, always, always works on saturday. he gets off at 3. for the last 5 years, when my folks come to see the kids - not visit me, BTW, just play with the kids - they come on saturday, b/c sunday is their drunk all day day and my mom can't drive. so they get here in the morning (1 1/2 hour drive) but they have to leave in time to make saturday church (see sunday drunk thing) which starts at 4:15. so they leave by 2.
DH said that it hurts his feelings they dont wait to see him or come on sunday. so i told my mom DH wants to visit too. so the next time they came up, they waited until DH got home but left 30 minutes later. she has never again waited to visit with my whole family or considered another day to come up. i think DH secretly hates them.
Do they like your DH? I hope that doesn't sound snotty as I do not intend it to be, but maybe that is why?
I could write a novel! Most recently though, she refused to help as one of our kids was hospitalized in March with celluitis and a staph infection. We needed help getting the kids off the bus one day, the day he was admitted. My husband didn't want to leave our son because the doctor wasn't sure if he needed surgery.
Next, she told me my oldest son's cancer was not convenient to her and we needed to schedule appointments, surgeries around times that would be easier for her and not the first appointment we could get. We were also told we didn't pray enough for his healing.m
This has been going on for 10 years. I tend to ignore her lately but somethings I can't ignore.
I'm sorry. Surely I misread that. I thought I saw your son's CANCER is inconvenient to her. That must have been an autocorrect from circus or something far, far more inconsequential.
This is my FIL. He can't even get off the fucking phone when we visit or get up from his nap. And my parents are just gaga over her. And you wonder who she likes more?
My FIL will pay some attention to them when he comes over, but his preferred activity is to sit and watch TV while he is here, which is what he does all day long at home. He never asks to come to their sports practices or matches, or school events, he rarely asks what they are learning in school, and only twice that I can recall has he invited the kids and me to do something with him during all the years and summers they weren't in school.
Like I said, I'm not mad at him, but it stands in such sharp contrast with my parents (and my deceased MIL), and I worry about my kids picking up on this some day and being sad that Grandpop really doesn't give a shit about them. Listening to H talk about his father being absent from so much of his childhood, I have realized that FIL probably never even wanted kids to begin with. It's kind of sad that he's going through life simply fulfilling obligations dictated by the Church.
He needs to sit and have a chat with his pastor because if he is blaming/sourcing it to that, boo. Was he similar before you mil passed? I swear once grandmothers pass, for many, it becomes like this (at least in my anecdote world of watching others).
I could write a novel! Most recently though, she refused to help as one of our kids was hospitalized in March with celluitis and a staph infection. We needed help getting the kids off the bus one day, the day he was admitted. My husband didn't want to leave our son because the doctor wasn't sure if he needed surgery.
Next, she told me my oldest son's cancer was not convenient to her and we needed to schedule appointments, surgeries around times that would be easier for her and not the first appointment we could get. We were also told we didn't pray enough for his healing.m
This has been going on for 10 years. I tend to ignore her lately but somethings I can't ignore.
I'm sorry. Surely I misread that. I thought I saw your son's CANCER is inconvenient to her. That must have been an autocorrect from circus or something far, far more inconsequential.
Sent from my EVO
Nope! No autocorrect. I went into bitch mode with her on that one. Super fun to deal,with that while trying to,process my son's health issues. She told me this the day after we got the dx. My 16 year old was diagnosed with saliva gland cancer on July 15th. He had surgery to remove the tumor on August 22nd.
I'm sorry. Surely I misread that. I thought I saw your son's CANCER is inconvenient to her. That must have been an autocorrect from circus or something far, far more inconsequential.
Sent from my EVO
Nope! No autocorrect. I went into bitch mode with her on that one. Super fun to deal,with that while trying to,process my son's health issues. She told me this the day after we got the dx. My 16 year old was diagnosed with saliva gland cancer on July 15th. He had surgery to remove the tumor on August 22nd.
I'm really lucky to have pretty great ILs. The biggest issue is there is some favoritism with the 3 sons, and since DH is the middle child he does sometimes seem to be forgotten even though he's often the most helpful. The oldest brother/wife seemed to be the golden couple , married 1st (even though DH and I dated first), 1st grandchild, just couldn't do any wrong; the younger SIL and I just shrugged and rolled with it. But now oldest SIL has filed for divorce and suddenly MIL is just a tad more chummy and charming. And it's a bit uncomfortable when MIL starts to badmouth the oldest SIL a bit.
MIL also can be a bit flighty. She once called our house, DH picked up and she answered 'I have to call you right back' and hung up. DH and I cracked up over that sillyness. But mostly DH and I really are on the samr page and DH has no problems shutting his parents down. That may change if we end up getting the house across the street from them if things work out the way we hope....it could become Everyone Loves Raymond Irish-style.
Post by iammalcolmx on Sept 17, 2014 19:25:51 GMT -5
Ok I got one. My inlaws are going to Croatia but flying into Rome. I said I would have requests from Rome. My FIL was like "We won't be there long and aren't carrying much" uhhh be-cuse me??? A 19 year old Malcolm spent her Spring break in Paris and brought you Non-Negros some nice French Wine back!!! I always get them shit and pay for their fucking Phones. I know those folks BET get me some shit.
Nope! No autocorrect. I went into bitch mode with her on that one. Super fun to deal,with that while trying to,process my son's health issues. She told me this the day after we got the dx. My 16 year old was diagnosed with saliva gland cancer on July 15th. He had surgery to remove the tumor on August 22nd.
If you need her cut, call me.
I hope your son is doing well.
Sent from my EVO
Thank you! Cancer free! Pet scan showed it didn't spread and it was low grade. He doesn't need chemo. It was on the soft palate and it opened up so he has a hole in his mouth now. Could be worse...