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Mother-In-Law Mall
A place to find great gifts!
and products related to mothers-in-law and other family members.
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Mother-In-Law Stories
March 11, 2008
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FEBRUARY
2008
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My stories are doozies!!
Let's begin with our first meeting, shall we? The first time I
met his family was at a Christmas Eve gathering at MIL's house.
There were several pictures of his ex-GF and him together. They
were on the walls in those collage frames, on tables, and on the
mantle. I'd later learn that they were in her bedroom (weird, no?
LOL). DH was aware of the pictures, and actually had told her many
times not to have them around. He asked her to take them down before
I visited. She did not. While I was there, awkwardly meeting his
family for the first time, MIL asked him how EX-GF was doing. Has
he heard from her lately? What's she been up to? We had just moved
in together earlier that month. OBVIOUSLY, she did not have MY
number. So how would he hear from her? Then, I met his brother's
wives. OMG. I was like new prey or something. They stared, and
when they did say something, it was more or less how to handle MIL.
I didn't want to be in the middle of this, so I stayed quiet. One
SIL actually tore his entire family apart, and when I had no comment,
she leaned in and said (in a snarl), "If you tell anyone what
I said, I will deny it, and no one NO ONE is going to believe YOU
over ME. Not even DH, understand?" I laughed. It was comical.
It was like a Lifetime movie gone wrong. "Thankfully, I only
have to see these people once or twice a year," I thought.
Fast Forward Six Months. We got engaged. Woo Hoo. We were all
happy about it. MIL even took us to lunch. YAY. SILs (by marriage,
not his sisters) were all there for me. They wanted to help plan
the wedding. YAY, ME. Then, I found out that these same SILs were
telling other people that if I thought they were lifting one finger
to help this wedding happen, then I had another thing coming. One
even said that she will, in no way, shape, or form accept this wedding
or take any marriage between us seriously. She was only going and
pretending to care for the sake of my DH and her DH. I later found
out that her sister dated my DH for a year, long before we met.
Her sister was also in the middle of a divorce. Remember this,
it comes up again later. Even his friends' girlfriends got in on
this. They all seemed to like me when we were dating. They thought
that I was manipulating him when he moved in with me and got sober.
They thought it was perfectly acceptable to tell me, on more than
one occasion, that they really missed his ex-GF. A little background:
He had one serious GF for 4 years, a DF (who left him because of
his substance abuse) and the SIL's sister. This needs to be known
because they ALL come up at some point. Six months before our wedding,
DH needed surgery to repair a long ago sports injury that was causing
problems. He was in the hospital for 2 weeks and needed 4 operations.
After 10 days they transferred him to another hospital. I could
no longer visit due to the time it took to get there from work.
Visiting hours would be over and the nearest transportation was
located directly outside a state prison (not a place I wanted to
be). DH made it clear that he did not want me near that place after
dark. I realized, during his stay, that his family might not like
me very much. I had never had this thought before. I had the impression
that they liked me well enough. But, I guess people's true colors
come out in a crisis. From day one I was left out by his mom.
She told me what she thought I needed to know, and no more. There
were post op instructions, which were given to her and not me.
A doctor was giving his mother and brother some exercises that he
needed to do, and was showing MIL how to do them properly. I realized
that I was being left out when his brother asked why no one was
showing ME this, or why no one was giving ME his post op advice,
when it was ME he was going home with. MIL huffed and stormed off,
leaving the hospital staff looking at me like I was a problem.
By the way they looked at me, I wondered what she said when I wasn't
around. I never did get those instructions. During all this, he
was considerably well medicated for pain, and in no condition to
be filling out forms and whatnot. MIL put his place of address
as hers. She changed all his emergency information to reflect her
information, and even tried to tell the case workers what MY income
was. I was angry and actually spoke over her until everyone shut
up and looked at me. He was laying there pleading with me to DO
something, so I had to put my foot down. I told everyone there
that he is MY DF and he lives with ME at MY address. When I was
done, MIL actually said, "This is DH's girlfriend. He moved
in with her, but uses my address as his permanent one." They
looked from me to MIL, noted the ring on my finger, but did no more
paper work. They actually waited for his discharge and came to
my apartment to fill it out with him - to establish his address,
I suppose. Now, the two weeks he was gone, his SIL, sister and
mom called me a lot. DH asked them to do so, because he thought
I was alone. If only I had been left alone. SIL kept trying to
get me to say something negative about MIL. I refused. Then, she
tried with each family member, but could get no response from me,
other than that I liked them. Then, out of the blue, she called
and asked me if I really wanted DH to come stay with me when he
came home. It was so much work and responsibility. She had extra
room at her house, and her sister was staying with her for a few
months so she could help, too. As if I wanted my DH recovering
from surgery in the same house as an ex-GF. I had to bathe him,
clean him, and do all sorts of awkward and embarrassing intimate
things for him before he was ok. Did she really think I wanted
his ex-GF giving him a sponge bath? LMFAO. Then MIL called. First
it was a nice conversation. Soon it turned to talk of his sobriety.
She said he claimed it was all my doing, and that he hasn't had
a hard time with it. She said it was great, but she was disappointed
that he hadn't done this sooner, because his ex-DF loved him so
much and that was the reason she left. Everyone, including DH,
was devastated by her departure. She was still sorely missed by
everyone and would be welcomed back with open arms if she ever chose
to now that he's sober. She also let me know there were no two
people better suited than those two were. I didn't know how to
respond. I just said, "Well, I am not going anywhere, and
will never break his heart." What else could I say? I didn't
want to start a problem, and I didn't have him there with me to
support and hear anything I did say. To this day, whenever he says
he loves me or gives me a kiss, she huffs. His niece (who's 22
and lives with MIL) even once said, "Ew, I am gonna be sick,"
and left when he put his arm around me and kissed my cheek. OK,
veered off. MIL was going on about his discharge and assuming the
caretaker role. Without his input, I didn't know what to do. Everyone
was pressuring me to let him go home with MIL, but he begged me
not to let that happen. I didn't know what to do. So, once his
"fog" lifted, I asked him, point blank in front of everyone,
what the plan for his discharge was. Was he going to MIL's, SIL's,
or home with me. Everyone but ME huffed out of the room at his
answer. I, still trying to be the nice one, told him that his mom
feels bad and all. H said that she needs to understand that he
is marrying me and is not going to go running to her all the time.
His home is where I am, not where she is. WHEW. Right? Not so
fast. During his first week home, everyone was calling. They told
him that it might be better to stay with MIL instead of me. She's
taken care of him before, knows how, etc. Then they started with
the, "You are really hurting Mom's feelings by doing this to
her." When that didn't work, they had his niece call, crying
about how unfair it was. She wanted to know who was I that suddenly
he didn't care about hurting anyone's feelings and he was siding
with ME over his own family, who love him so much." Ugh.
I had not spoken to a single member of his family in all the time
that he was home by this point. I felt like enough already, he's
with me. He lives with me, he WANTS to be here with me, just leave
me alone now. Let's go forward in time now to his 2nd anniversary
of sobriety. MIL called incessantly, like every hour, regarding
who was invited to the very tiny party the rehab place was having.
She was asking, "Can X come? Can Y come?" "DH said,
"NO. There is no room." MIL asked, "But is your
DF going?" "Yes, she is," he answered. "Well,
that's not right then. We are your family and we love you. What
does she have to do with this? She should not go. It's your family's
place to be there," replied MIL. "DF IS my family, Mom."
I got there and she didn't want me to sit with him. He held a seat
open and she pulled me to the back of the room. When his brother
came she told him that DH was saving HIM a seat. Whatever - petty
- so I let it go until she told me that it wasn't the worst thing
in the world to get engaged but never marry. She said that canceling
our wedding was not the worst thing in the world because, to her,
we are already married, we didn't need some silly paper. We POSTPONED,
not canceled. I introduced her as my FMIL and she said, "I
am actually just DH's mom." DH and I almost broke up from
all this. We fought all the time. He refused to believe me. MIL
was so innocent. I just took it all the wrong way. She LOVES me.
LMAO. Yeah, sure she does. We DID cancel the wedding. I gave
back the ring. I wanted nothing more to do with any of this. We
made up and got married - eloped actually - and I haven't spoken
to MIL for about 4 months. No reason to. Sometimes, though, I
wonder if I made the right choice. I love DH so very much, but
I fear this was only the beginning and that it will only get worse.
Signed - Just Wanted
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