[pinkmartyr]

my future mother in law tried to borrow money from our joint account behind my back. she thought i'd never know, but thankfully, my fiance and i have a solid relationship and tell each other things. he told her no, that it was our policy not to lend money from our joint account. she's not having an emergency- she just didn't plan ahead, financially. he also told her that it was disrespectful to try to borrow our money without both of us knowing.
some background: she volunteered to pay for something wedding related. after paying for it ourselves and waiting two months for her check, her check bounced. she brought cash over on christmas day. two days later, she called and asked for it back. that was the money she wanted to borrow.
when she found out that her son told me all about it, she called and left me this voice mail where she was crying and saying she was sorry but she thought i'd never have to know.
after not talking to her for several days because i was so angry, i've just written her a polite, but to the point email about her dishonesty.

[anna k]

This:

She got married when she was 18, had her first kid at 20, spent most of her life in some form of depression

was my grandma's life. She received electroshock therapy when she was in her forties (in the 1970s), and had a lot of issues, which I never asked her about. She divorced my grandpa, and remarried later, being married until her second husband died from cancer. Since then she had a longtime boyfriend, but behind her sweet demeanor is a prickly determination.

[wombat]

I'm of mixed opinion about this. In one sense, I think they should make sure that certain items and money are passed down through the family. certainly.

But I also think that my older relatives have a right to be happy and have some love and even sex in their lives. Many of them have spent a whole life working and sacrificing.

[erinjane]

My grandma did a similar thing when my grandpa died in 1982 (before my time). I never felt weird about knowing it though. She got married when she was 18, had her first kid at 20, spent most of her life in some form of depression, and had an affair in her 40's. They pulled through I always knew she loved my grandpa but I think she loved the other guy more. So when he died she got together again with the guy she'd had the affair with 20 years earlier.

[deschatsrouge]

My Grandpa pulled the same stunt, my Grandma was barly dead six months. he went around good timing and shacked up with this German sex pot. My Grandpa gave her all my Grandma's valuable jewelry, china and silver. He later had a commitment ceremony with her. I now call her the defiler of my grandmother memory, every one else calls her Irene.

[kelkello]

My dad's wife of 23 years died. Three weeks later he has a girlfriend. Am I the only one who thinks that is fucked up?

[deschatsrouge]

Pink, I'm not polite, I would have asked them to help clean up and then told them to get the f%^& out.

[bsmoothec]

I feel so bad for you.... that was very disrespectful for them to stay late!!!! Hope your New years is better!!

wish i could have you all over for a break from the undesirable situations. i am home alone for a few hours since my boyfriend is at work, and all the family has gone home.

we did brunch at our place. totally alcohol free, in fact, i hid all the alcohol at his sister's suggestion. that topic went very well. my food was also very good, as was my non-denominational pre-meal prayer, if i do say so. my bf and i were great hosts.

other things did not go well- everyone was late (his sister's 15 minutes was understandable, his mom's hour was not), no one was ready to leave at the agreed time (matt and i said we needed to break the party up around 2 so that we could stop by to see my parents before his work time at 5, but the in laws didn't show signs of leaving til 2:45, then his mom "lost" her keys so we were delayed til 3:30 and only got to spend an hour at my parent's house). later in the day his mom started nagging me about wedding stuff, and it really set me off. i tried hard to be polite and not a doormat and did well. tonight the mister and i are splitting dishes because NO ONE OFFERED TO HELP CLEAN UP. i'm serious. we provided all the food, bought all the groceries, and did all the work. it would have been nice to hear, "let me wash this pan for you," or "let me take our plates to the kitchen."

that was his family. with my family, there is sister-in-law drama and my mom is drunk, so i am screening my phone calls. i think will go un-hide the hendricks gin and have a drink!

[pinkmartyr]

wish i could have you all over for a break from the undesirable situations. i am home alone for a few hours since my boyfriend is at work, and all the family has gone home.

we did brunch at our place. totally alcohol free, in fact, i hid all the alcohol at his sister's suggestion. that topic went very well. my food was also very good, as was my non-denominational pre-meal prayer, if i do say so. my bf and i were great hosts.

other things did not go well- everyone was late (his sister's 15 minutes was understandable, his mom's hour was not), no one was ready to leave at the agreed time (matt and i said we needed to break the party up around 2 so that we could stop by to see my parents before his work time at 5, but the in laws didn't show signs of leaving til 2:45, then his mom "lost" her keys so we were delayed til 3:30 and only got to spend an hour at my parent's house). later in the day his mom started nagging me about wedding stuff, and it really set me off. i tried hard to be polite and not a doormat and did well. tonight the mister and i are splitting dishes because NO ONE OFFERED TO HELP CLEAN UP. i'm serious. we provided all the food, bought all the groceries, and did all the work. it would have been nice to hear, "let me wash this pan for you," or "let me take our plates to the kitchen."

that was his family. with my family, there is sister-in-law drama and my mom is drunk, so i am screening my phone calls. i think will go un-hide the hendricks gin and have a drink!

[doodlebug]

(((((big hugs for everyone who needs 'em)))))

busty...are ya still planning to visit the in-laws tonight?

[deschatsrouge]

Thanks for the commiseration Persimmon.

Maud help me I have weeks before I skedaddle.

Let us pray,
Dear Maud, may my dad grow some empathy, may my brother heal after his exgirlfriend ripped his heart out, may I have patience. May persimmon's cardio-vascular system stay intact over the holidays, may the ACLU ruin America, May persimmon and every one else survive the holidays with their family.

In Mauds name we ask, ommmmmmen.

[persimmon_grrrl]

hey dechatsrouge - commiseration galore-a-rama here.

i am only at the family house for a few days, but i am being rather antisocial, sitting upstairs. at this point, avoiding being around hypocritical company is the best plan to avoid hypertension and other cumulative and easily preventable cardio-pulmonary disease.
ah - and did i mention that they are homophobic, bush-supporting, ACLU-is-ruining-North-America types? yes, that, too.

oof.

i am happy to hear that you moved out of there, though, at least you have minutes (hours?) till you get to skedaddle.

i hope all the other busties are hanging in there, and hanging out, if possible. i am leaving tomorrow, and didn't know there'd be a time when i'd be so out of season. very soon, i am envisioning holidays that are much more enjoyable.

[deschatsrouge]

K I know this is ott and a teenager sounding rant, but I always regress when I'm with my parents.

I'm staying at my parents house right now. My Dad is being an uptight jerk. I realize why I left home and never looked back. The resentment in this house is palpable.

GAHHHH.

My Brother dumped his girlfriend for cheating on him after he caught her with another guy (during the holidays no less). So my brother is having a REALLY crappy holiday and my Dad is mad at him for it. Like he's not alowed to to feel like crap, like he has to keep it all inside and on the outside be all happy and smiley. I resent my dad for not giving my brother time to grieve and to have a bad attitude. (I, personally have no problem with letting my brothert be a grouch, I think he's entitled, I mean jeez, his girlfreind cheated on him and he had to dump her during the HOLIDAYS.) My Brother resents my Dad for being apathetic and my Dad resents my brother for being in a crappy mood.

My brother wants to go to Morocco next Christmas, and I'm thinking that's not a bad Idea.
*sings the resentment song*

You know what else, my dad puts food in the fridge and gets mad when people eat it. He doesn't tell any one he's saving it, so when they accidentally eat it, he gets mad and every resents every one else for EATING SOMTHING. (it's f@#$%^*# food, you CAN buy some more!). I have decided to assume all food in the fridge is off limits and will inform everyone else of this so we can cut down on resentment (ha ha ha).

I needed to get that off my chest b/c I have no therepist here.

la la la drama la

[bustygirl]

Hear, hear, doodle! Clear-headed as usual.

It certainly puts my problems with my MIL in perspective. Here it is 7 days before Xmas, and no calls or emails I have sent requesting their side of the family's schedule for the holidays have gone answered. I finally got tired of making my entire family wait to make plans, so I scheduled them for Xmas, and have left Xmas eve open for Eddie's fam. (which we are not close with, and for the most part don't even like.)

They did this shit on Thanksgiving, where they emailed me less than a week before the day to try to schedule a time for us to come by WHEN MY HUSBAND WAS AT WORK. When lo and behold, we couldn't accommodate them, she made some talk about all of us going out for chinese because she really wanted to see the baby. (who she hasn't seen since his birthday, in august.) I said that would be great. She then never got back to us.

My husband's boorish, mouthbreathing half-shaved ape of an uncle, wh works with him, came up and asked why we didn't see the family over thanksgiving. Eddie told him that we tried to get a hold of them, but they never called us back. He then made some joke about my MIL not wanting to babysit. (as if we are leeches for thinking she might want to see her granchild, whom she 'loves' so much.)

I am so sick of this family's bullshit. My guess is this: she's either mad that we didn't see her at Thanksgiving, mad that my mom and I planned the party for the baby's birthday without her(which I did because it was at my mother's house, and my MIL treated my mother like a servant at their co-planned baby shower, and I wasn't going to put my mother through that again.), or she's just plain mad because of something she made up in her head that we did wrong.

I hate passive aggression, and I hate abusive, sneaky people. They'll never cop to their bullshit around me, because they know I'll let them have it. So what will happen is this: we will stop by on Xmas eve, and if they're there, they'll act happy to see us. Then, at work, Eddie's uncle will come up to him and pass on whatever bitchiness his mom has to say about it, and because he's put on the spot and not a confrontational person, Eddie will demur. And so the cycle will go on and on again.

I know the day is coming when we just don't speak to that side of the family at all, and I can't wait. If I didn't believe that my son deserved all the people in his life who would treat him right, I would tell the lot of them to go fuck themselves and never look back.

[doodlebug]

*delurks*

I think having a "dry" holiday meal is a great idea, and you should absolutely put whatever parameters you want to around events that you host. It's your right. I don't allow smoking in my home, and I don't make allowances for even the closest of friends on the coldest of days....not even for my own mother! It's my home.

The problem with alcoholics is that if you get in the way of their addiction, whatever you do will never be the "right" thing in their eyes, so you have to go ahead and do what you want anyway. (Smokers are much more polite than drunks.) If the alcoholic gets warning that the event will be "dry," she will probably either arrive intoxicated, or will be carrying her own secret stash. Or both. But if you DON'T give her advance warning, she may be miserable and testy - probably feeling like she's been blindsided or sucker-punched - and could be just as disruptive to the event without the availability of her "fix." I think it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. I would tend to side with being upfront that it's a "dry" event, b/c then she is the person who has to deal with the choice....the choice being whether or not she wants to hide her addiction and drink in secret, or stay sober for the duration of the event. It's a boundary that you set, and the alcoholic has to decide how to deal with it.

The real issue is how far you can go to control another person's behaviour, which isn't very far at all, in the end. Both my parents are/were recovered alcoholics (my father is deceased, hence the "were"...my mother has 20 years of sobriety, and my father had 10 before he died). I think one of the most harmful things our family did was to ignore the problem so long, and to cover up for the alcoholics. And on top of that, the non-alcoholics would try to control the behaviour of the alcoholics. It's futile, and pointless too, since it just puts the addict on the defensive about their addictive substance.

On the other hand, it is very healthy for friends and family of alcoholics to set up firm boundaries about what we are willing to tolerate personally, and to stick to those boundaries, even in the face of "difficult behaviour" from the alcoholic. I don't believe in accomodating alcoholism, and I'm no longer shy about enforcing my boundaries...to the point of confrontation (not only of alcoholics, but also of those who "enable" alcoholics), and even cutting alcoholics out of my life, if need be. You have to do what's best for your own well-being, in the end.

Anyway. Good luck with the holidays, everyone!

*relurks*

[erinjane]

I think you should make a no alcohol rule. My SIL is an alcoholic (back in detox right now) and her family just gets drunk whenever they get together even though they know. We try to never drink around her because we know how hard it can be, but every time she gets together with her family she gets completely drunk and dragged back down. She'll be making some great progress, then BAM as soon as she's around her mom and sister, she reverts back to not caring anymore.

[gumby_cc]

pinkmartyr, it may be reasonable for normal people to not be around alchohol during a holiday, but for an alcoholic it would be too much to bear.....alcoholism runs rampant in my family, and once when we all attended a wedding that didn't serve alcohol, everyone got so worked up that half of them left early so they could booze it up at a nearby bar. your mother (and in law) may give you a lot of crap about it but it's your house and you should do what you want. having a brunch instead of dinner is a great idea...

I think I would mention it before the party so that they are prepared....like don't make it a big deal but you don't want them to realize it's alcohol-free when they first get there, cause that is a recipe for a huge conflict.

[mornington]

it sounds realistic to me - especially if you're working that evening. if you could talk to your future sil, it might make it easier.

[pinkmartyr]

christmas is at my house this year for me, my fiance, his mom, and his sister. as i've mentioned before, my own mom has an alcohol problem, and my future MIL has a problem with it, too. on thanksgiving when i came in at noon, she was already two glasses deep in a bottle of wine. it made me really uncomfortable, after having dealt with that stuff with my own mom. sometimes i feel like i don't have time in my life for another person like that. in addition, the future MIL lives an hour out of town, and will be driving to our place for the afternoon.
here's the thing- i want to make a no-alcohol rule.
it would be different if it were just me and my boyfriend, or even the two of us and his sister. however, its going to be difficult enough being with his mom in the first place, and i don't want my cluttery feelings about drinking moms to affect the day.
one thing that might help is that we will probably do a brunch instead of a dinner since my boyfriend will probably have to work that night. usually, at a brunch, i'd serve mimosas or bloody marys, but i will find something else festive and alcohol free.
am i being unreasonable? i need a vote of confidence. do i need to lay down the law that we aren't drinking, or can i simply just not serve alcohol and say no if someone offers to bring it?

[anna k]

I hung out with my sister and her friend yesterday, and my sister really gets on my nerves. She's whiny and obnoxious and bitchy and annoying as hell. She's still fat, and at dinner she drank beer and margaritas and filled up on chips with salsa. I wanted to tell her not to keep drinking because the sugar and carbs weren't doing any good. She curses a lot, still smokes, picks on me for not shopping for clothes often enough (I said to her that I could say plenty to her about her own faults, so don't talk about mine), and being around her is like lugging a heavy weight since she doesn't walk as fast as I do, so I feel slowed down by her. She acts really stupid, and I didn't feel bad for her when she stepped in a girl's way and the girl gave her a dirty look. My sister is big and unattractive, and if it was the other way around, my sister would be teasing a fat person behind their back. She still makes faces at me when someone seems weird or too "foreign," and I want to smack her for thinking she's better than them. She teases me for exercising all the time but she needs to do it more than I do, and I never see her be active unless she walks and moans about her feet hurting. She'll be 26 next year and still acts childish, despite all the "signs" she's received to grow up.