In laws Grrrrrrrrr

[The Mystery Machine]

I didn't realize it was controlling to say what I would or wouldn't do with my own hands... that's a first. Do you do whatever other people tell you to do? If so I suppose you and she would get along great, until she got ticked you don't fight back because that's her main gripe about my BIL. Whenever DH's sister and her family are here she grinds on their nerves and then says, "I wish he would just come back at me."

My MIL actually dislikes cheesecake, if I've heard the woman complain once about how awful they are if they are too cheesy (whatever that means) I've heard it a million times. She never had this cheesecake, in fact it was offered to her the day after Thanksgiving and she snubbed it. Trust me, she doesn't give a hoot about the cheesecake. What this woman DOES care about is getting people to ask "How high" when she says "Jump."

The cheesecake is a metaphor... we'll it's real life but it's not about the cheesecake.

Exactly. So when are you going to stop playing her game? You buy a cheesecake and then you are done. You learn to not waste your energy on something that is of no consequence. So she "wins". BIg whoop. What exactly is she winning again? Oh nothing.

Now I will say that I put my foot down with my own mother about the standing rib roast for C. Eve. But that was because I have had to listen to her talk about how broke they are for several months now.

So I do understand hitting your breaking point OP.

 

[roscoepc1]

A big fat out there to everyone who understands!

Heaven help me to NOT be like this with the people who marry my kids... if i am I hope someone will be around to give me a kick in the keister

I've always said she is the biggest and best lesson I could have ever had on how NOT to be a mil!

 

[Manhattan Princess]

I'm guessing your mil isn't a narcissistic control freak? Sometimes, when your mil is a pita, and you've literally spent YEARS trying to get along, the cheesecake hits the fan (pun intended), and a line in the sand has to be drawn. It's that simple.

Actually, mine is crazy and rearranges the furniture in our house each time we go anywhere. But, as the more mature one? Who cares? It will be moved back when they are gone. Playing control games back serves no one. Gosh, that is what I as an adult am able to do. Why draw any line in the sand? Who does it help? Will the MIL change? Will life be more comfortable? Do I want to try and make my husband choose among the people he loves? What a waste. Make a cheesecake, buy some peace. Forty minutes for happiness. Easy decision for me.

 

[castleview]

If it hasn't been asked already, WHY do you live next door to these people?

 

[roscoepc1]

Exactly. So when are you going to stop playing her game? You buy a cheesecake and then you are done. You learn to not waste your energy on something that is of no consequence. So she "wins". BIg whoop. What exactly is she winning again? Oh nothing.

Now I will say that I put my foot down with my own mother about the standing rib roast for C. Eve. But that was because I have had to listen to her talk about how broke they are for several months now.

So I do understand hitting your breaking point OP.

Nope. Not done. She'll get YEARS of cackling joy to everyone in three counties about how she played dil, and how all she has to do is "snap her fingers" to get her way....She'll bring it up "casually" at EVERY family gathering for the next 40 years....playing her game IS buying the stupid cheesecake.

I'm STILL paying for the first 5+ years I TRIED to get along with her....I fully expect there to be a list of her "winnings" to be included as a codicial to her will....going right up until the 5 minutes before she croaked!

If the OP sets her foot down, she at least gets the satisfaction and self-worth of knowing she didn't "lose" again....and that alone is worth millions.

 

[Manhattan Princess]

I didn't realize it was controlling to say what I would or wouldn't do with my own hands... that's a first. Do you do whatever other people tell you to do? If so I suppose you and she would get along great, until she got ticked you don't fight back because that's her main gripe about my BIL. Whenever DH's sister and her family are here she grinds on their nerves and then says, "I wish he would just come back at me."

My MIL actually dislikes cheesecake, if I've heard the woman complain once about how awful they are if they are too cheesy (whatever that means) I've heard it a million times. She never had this cheesecake, in fact it was offered to her the day after Thanksgiving and she snubbed it. Trust me, she doesn't give a hoot about the cheesecake. What this woman DOES care about is getting people to ask "How high" when she says "Jump."

The cheesecake is a metaphor... we'll it's real life but it's not about the cheesecake.

Your own words: "if there is a flippin cheese cake on that table I won't be." You honestly don't see that as controlling? You took out every possibility of buying, having her cook it or buy it or anything else others suggested. You pulled exactly what your MIL did. Do you really not see that?

 

[roscoepc1]

Actually, mine is crazy and rearranges the furniture in our house each time we go anywhere. But, as the more mature one? Who cares? It will be moved back when they are gone. Playing control games back serves no one. Gosh, that is what I as an adult am able to do. Why draw any line in the sand? Who does it help? Will the MIL change? Will life be more comfortable? Do I want to try and make my husband choose among the people he loves? What a waste. Make a cheesecake, buy some peace. Forty minutes for happiness. Easy decision for me.

It helps your sanity and self-worth. That simple. I WISH rearranging my furniture was all my mil did. She dang near destroyed my marriage by doing things to me when dh was away, then lying through her teeth to him when I was upset, she was prejudiced and small-spirited towards our special-needs son, and she's a nasty, manipulative cow.

 

[The Pink Cupcake]

All through dinner they are being generally nasty to me, but does DH see it... nope.

I say something to DH and he starts in how I'm imagining things.

I'm PO'd over their garbage and DH is still fixated on the stupid cake.

Good luck with DH.

 

[Manhattan Princess]

It helps your sanity and self-worth. That simple. I WISH rearranging my furniture was all my mil did. She dang near destroyed my marriage by doing things to me when dh was away, then lying through her teeth to him when I was upset, she was prejudiced and small-spirited towards our special-needs son, and she's a nasty, manipulative cow.

And there is our ultimate disagreement. How do control games and one-upsmanship help your sanity? I find sanity in rising above the games and taking them in stride. My self-worth is not based on my MIL's opinion -- nor should it be. Reducing myself to that level would be the most detrimental action I can imagine. The high road is always better.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Your own words: "if there is a flippin cheese cake on that table I won't be." You honestly don't see that as controlling? You took out every possibility of buying, having her cook it or buy it or anything else others suggested. You pulled exactly what your MIL did. Do you really not see that?

Yes, it is controlling what goes on in my house ,controlling of what I actually do myself AND it was said to my DH... not her. SO what, I'm not a puppet, to each their own but that's just not how I roll.

No, I did not do what she did because I did not demand she make me something she doesn't want and I don't like just to see if I can make her jump. When I cross THAT particular line I'll agree with you, until then you are totally off base.

Funny thing is even my DH agrees with me after thinking it through so I don't know why you are fighting so hard. what gives?

 

[Manhattan Princess]

Yes, it is controlling what goes on in my house ,controlling of what I actually do myself AND it was said to my DH... not her. SO what, I'm not a puppet, to each their own but that's just not how I roll.

No, I did not do what she did because I did not demand she make me something she doesn't want and I don't like just to see if I can make her jump. When I cross THAT particular line I'll agree with you, until then you are totally off base.

Funny thing is even my DH agrees with me after thinking it through so I don't know why you are fighting so hard. what gives?

Why does anything need to "give"? I think you were wrong, just as controlling, and put your husband in a bad position, and I would be fascinated to hear his conversation with his mother today. Not everyone has to agree with you, sorry!

 

[Wishing on a star]

OP, just like this situation with your MIL...
This conversation, trying to justify yourself to another poster...
Just don't go there.

IMHO, either this poster IS an innappropriate MIL, or she thinks it is her duty as a female woman and wife to her husband, to bend over and at her husband's mother's command.

Hey, if that's the kind of existence she wants and thinks is normal and healthy.. let her have it.

Personally, at this point, I wouldn't make that darned cheesecake either. If things can't be done out of love and respect... if somebody thinks that they can make demands of another person, which is demeaning another human being down to the level of some kind of slave-servant... (sickening really, not normal or healthy) .... no way would I give them that power.

I know you talked to your husband, and this fiasco is no longer 'critical'.
Unless your husband takes steps (like MOVING) and no longer throws you under the bus when it comes to his mother...
Which is exactly what he has done - no question - whether he is acting like he sees your side or not.
You still have some issues to iron out with your husband.
Otherwise, you can look for this kind of treatment and situation to continue to carry on in your life on a regular basis.
But, something tells me that you are going to continue to cook them Sunday Dinner almost every single week.
I know... I am there.... BTDT.

As far as what one or two posters may write...
Really, who cares... same difference... why give them that power to question and demean you....

Just

 

[Manhattan Princess]

OP, just like this situation with your MIL...
This conversation, trying to justify yourself to another poster...
Just don't go there.

IMHO, either this poster IS an innappropriate MIL, or she thinks it is her duty as a female woman and wife to her husband, to bend over and at her husband's mother's command.

Hey, if that's the kind of existence she wants and thinks is normal and healthy.. let her have it.

Personally, at this point, I wouldn't make that darned cheesecake either. If things can't be done out of love and respect... if somebody thinks that they can make demands of another person, which is demeaning them down to the level of some kind of slave-servant... no way would I self-demean myself by giving them that power.

As far as what one or two posters may write...
Really, who cares... same difference... why give them that power to question and demean you....

Just

Because preparing (or taking ten minutes to buy) a cheesecake that the in-laws like is demeaning? And makes me a slave-servant? Heck, I demean myself to my family every day by preparing their favorites. Darn me! And I have been wrong all of these years by trying NOT to put my husband in a position to choose sides. Over a cheesecake. Darn me again! LOL! I am just a big demeaned demeanor!

 

[LuvOrlando]

So now any woman who stands up for herself is FORCING her husband to choose sides... what decade is this?

 

[Wishing on a star]

 

[Manhattan Princess]

So now any woman who stands up for herself is FORCING her husband to choose sides... what decade is this?

If you think a woman standing up for herself is represented by saying that a cheesecake will never sit on your table because your in-laws like them? That is a bigger setback for the women's movement than anything else said here.

 

[LuvOrlando]

If you think a woman standing up for herself is represented by saying that a cheesecake will never sit on your table because your in-laws like them? That is a bigger setback for the women's movement than anything else said here.

Now me standing up for myself with my MIL is anti woman's rights too. Anti cheesecake is anti woman's lib? Come on, are you a plant? Did my MIL send you in here?

 

[Manhattan Princess]

Now me standing up for myself with my MIL is anti woman's rights too. Anti cheesecake is anti woman's lib? Come on, are you a plant? Did my MIL send you in here?

Nope. And I am not an MIL. I just hate to see controlling behavior justified by posters blowing smoke. This all could have been avoided within ten minutes. But you dug your feet in and made it an issue that it never needed to be. If only the plight of truly oppressed women could be solved so easily.

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

So now any woman who stands up for herself is FORCING her husband to choose sides... what decade is this?

As a husband, I would hope that my wife came to me with any problems that my family presented her, and I would work with her to resolve them. No way would I let anyone in my family walk over my wife, but I would be disappointed if she responded without me. We are a team. We deal with everyone else together.

 

[OceanAnnie]

Some people don't mind a shove.

Some people do.

...never the twain shall meet.

Luv, you had 2 shovers. That doubles the ante. Do they tag team you on other issues? That would drive me nuts!