Twinkle: Sigh. I'm Going to Have to Push Back Again.

Last night my husband and kids went with the inlaws to Shabbat in the Park while I was volunteering at the horse racing booth at a certain church picnic. I got the better part of that deal for sure. My husband said it went well, and my MIL did, as predicted, bring a big picnic spread for everyone even though he told her we had it covered. Whatever. I don't care. 

He also said his dad is obsessed with Burger Week. He described his dad going to all these burger places, getting his burger card stamped (or whatever; I don't know how it works). He's in the top 1% of Burger Week participants and he's really excited about it. I think this is cute. It's the coolest thing I've heard about his dad in awhile. It's actually semi-interesting and fun. I would way rather have a conversation about someone's Burger Week experiences—where he got the best burger, the toppings, the different burger styles—than anything to do with the restrictive plant-based diet I usually have to hear about from these people. After many years of dabbling in veganism, I'm sure my FIL could use the iron. 

Forgetting who I was talking about for a minute, I said, "Oh—that's fun. I guess your mom is having fun with it, too?"

Husband: "No, she hates it." 

Of course she does. For a second I forgot that she can't have fun with anything. I forgot how judgy and mean she is. I forgot how she's unable to let anyone derive any joy from anything. Of course she's going to disapprove of Burger Week and of course she's going to roll her eyes at any happiness my FIL gets from it. My bad.

Today Youngest had a birthday party at Top Golf. She started talking about needing new shoes, and indeed she does need new shoes for the start of the schoolyear. 

She said, "[MIL] wants to take me shoe shopping. She told me to ask you when is a good time."

No. 

No, no no. 

That's how this all started. It is not on my kids to "tell Mommy." It will never happen if they are supposed to "tell Mommy," because it's not as if I'm going to text my MIL and say, "Hey—I heard you want to buy stuff for my kids. When do you want to do that?" Reach out. Send me a text. Say, "When is a good time for me to take the kids shoe shopping?" How hard is it? It feels like they're just defying my wishes and boundaries for fun now. I'm going to have to stand up again. I don't want to, but clearly they don't understand my very simple wishes about making plans with my kids. Loop me in. That's all I ask for. And, maybe be nice to me? Being nice may be too much to ask for, and if so, that's fine. They don't have to be nice to me but they do have to go through me to make plans with my kids. I will die on this hill. I'm going to have to stand up again, and I really don't want to. 

And when I do push back, it looks like I'm ungrateful for the generous gesture of a pair of new shoes. I am actually really grateful for that. And, in a normal world, I would be glad that they have a grandmother left to go shopping with. I think that's a really special experience. I want them to have that. I know MIL wants it. I don't want to stand in the way, and it's also helpful that she wants to buy shoes. It's a really nice thing for her to do. All I'm asking is that she go through me for the plans. I really don't understand how this is hard. 

I hate this dynamic so much. I've set a boundary: go through me when making plans with my kids. She has pushed back on the boundary. Now she wants to take my kids shopping, but she doesn't want to respect the boundary. If and when I tell her that she needs to respect the boundary, I look like the ungrateful bitch who isn't thankful for the gift of a pair of new shoes for my kids. I am grateful. But I would rather buy them myself than endure the disrespect. 

Twinkle: In a Normal Family...

MIL texted my husband and me. She wanted to know if we were going to Shabbat in the Park. Actually, no thanks, I think I'll skip this one. She asked my husband, "Do you want me to bring food for all of us?" I was actually going to just let her bring food for all of them—what do I care? But my husband knows I'm sick of letting her control everything, so he helpfully said, "No, Twinkle has food that we'll bring." And honestly, it isn't that big of a deal. I threw a quick little picnic together. I know he was trying to help and keep her from controlling every single thing. 

As I threw together a quick little picnic, I thought about the collaboration it would have been in a normal family. I could have said, "I'm sort of going in a Mediterranean direction. I'll bring the pesto pasta salad. Do you want to grab some hummus and whipped feta?  And she could have said, "Sure! I'll make a caprese salad and bring some fresh cherries." And I could have said, "Great—I'll send plates and cups." And it would have been so normal. 

I really think it's up to the MIL to set the tone when someone marries into a family. The tone she has set is one where she controls everything, so the dynamic isn't one where I could take the initiative like that. (And then recently she has blamed me for "never hosting" and generally not taking the initiative.) In our family dynamic, she doesn't let anyone help (and then complains that no one helps). She decides the menu and it's not a collaboration. She'll do the whole thing by herself. If I ever made a suggestion about the direction a meal should go in, it would be way out of line. It would never happen. This is the tone she has set. If I ever took the initiative (that she blames me for not taking), she would completely dismiss that initiative. She has hosted every Friday night ever since the beginning of our marriage, and we're expected to be there and never invited to contribute...but in her mind I'm the bitch because "I never invite them over on a Friday night." I have never been treated like an equal, and I don't know the rules or expectations here. I didn't know I was allowed to invite them over on a Friday night. I thought it was her thing, especially since she never lets me help or participate. It is just staggering, the way she has treated me, and then she blames me for trying to work within the parameters she has set. 

And then she asks if she should bring all the food to feed my family. She's going to bring an entire separate picnic tonight, even though my husband said no—it will be enough for her and my FIL and my husband and all my kids. She'll do it even though my husband said I had it covered. 

And it's so petty. And so much extra work. It should be a collaboration among equals who want to help each other. Instead she makes everything a dictatorship, and when I try to go out on my own and feed my family, she'll invariably turn it all into a competition.

Twinkle: And Another Thing

My husband finally called me and was sympathetic, so that helped. Talking to him helped me realize something else.

It’s now 10:30. I wanted to get the kilts hemmed today. I need Eldest there, physically, to figure out the length of the hem. I have a few other errands to run. Middle and Yongest are both late sleepers. I think they’re fine staying home by themselves, but Middle doesn’t like it. I can’t leave and run my errands because if Middle woke up in a house without me, my husband, or Eldest, she would be upset. I know she’s 12 and she should be ok with it, but I’m not doing that to her until she’s comfortable with it.

Mr, Twinkle wants to explain all this to his father, how it throws off everything when I don’t know what’s going on. He thinks his father can handle it better than his mom did. CLEARLY neither of them can handle it. MIL has him brainwashed to think I’m a Megan Markle type who hates family. 

They don’t respect me as a mother, and they don’t respect my husband either. They think THEY are the parents and they can do whatever they want. When I said no and tried to draw a boundary, they acted like I was crazy, controlling, and domineering, and on some sort of power trip. 

If we did try to explain to them that it threw off the day, it would raise two questions in their minds: 1) why are the kids sleeping so late?; and 2) why doesn’t Twinkle think they can stay alone while she runs errands? “Gawd! She’s so controlling and she just HAS to be in charge of everything and baby them!” As I said, I do think they can stay alone. If I tried to explain all that to my in-laws, to get ahead of their criticism of me and my parenting for letting my kids sleep so late and not putting them in situations they’d find uncomfortable, my in-laws would 100% say, “Why was she so WORDY in her explanation? It didn’t need to be two paragraphs long! She could have said it in one sentence!” They criticize situations they know nothing about, and then call me crazy when I try to explain myself.

I cannot do anything right and they don’t respect me and they never will. They assume the worst of me on every single thing I do. And they clearly don’t want to respect my boundaries, and they don’t think my feelings or opinions matter. It’s a terrible feeling to know all this, and to have tried to speak up, and know that none of it mattered. I blew it all up and set a boundary for nothing.

Twinkle: Sigh. All that Drama Last Spring for Absolutely Nothing. Sigh.

The kids are finally home from camp. It's summertime, and the livin' is easy. I mean it's actually sort of hard because they all have friends and conflicting agendas and things they want to do, and I'm trying to squeeze in all the pool days and family movie nights, and then you throw in fall sports practices, necessary errands, back to school tasks like getting kilts hemmed and getting school supplies and ordering textbooks. It's actually a lot, but I'm so glad to have them back. By "the livin' is easy" I just meant I have relaxed my own standards of general household cleanliness and competency in order to enjoy it all with my kids before the start of school. 

So. The house is not that clean. There's an Amazon box by the front door. There's a pool bag on the chair. There's a wine glass from last night's viewing of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark on the table next to my spot on the sofa. And there aren't many rules about when to go to bed and when to wake up. And I'm forgiving myself for all of it. We're relaxing everything and just having fun before the regimented schedule kicks back in.

That's why I was unpleasantly surprised this morning at 8:30 a.m., when I was enjoying my morning coffee in a house full of sleeping teens and preteens, to hear a knock at my door, and to see my in-laws' car in the driveway. The dog was going wild, threatening to disturb the peace of the morning and wake everyone up. I was in my PJs, sitting in bed, not ready to answer the door. And I wasn't going to either. The knocking did not stop. They weren't going away.

Finally my eldest came to my door and informed me that she was going driving this morning. She forgot to tell me. My husband forgot to tell me. My in-laws forgot to tell me. Everyone forgot to tell me that this was happening.

This is exactly the type of situation that so set my MIL off last April when I sent her that fateful text that said, "Hey—can you please loop me in on the plans so I know what's going on with my kids?" And she got all mad about it and had a long list of grievances about how awful I am. And everything blew up. And now, here we are at the end of July, after all of it, and no one thought to tell me about the plans.

I just cannot deal with these people. I am filled with both blind rage and laughter, because I am still living in bizarro world with these absolute inconsiderate assholes who think they're right all the time. How hard is it to send a text, "Hey—[Eldest] and I are going driving in the morning. See you at 8:30." I would have at least washed my face and brushed my hair and moved the Amazon box by 8:30.

Sigh. Off to text my therapist.