Family (Friends) Drama Llama Week of 12/9 - 12/15

expandcontract

I was going to post my drama in the "Who's driving you crazy" thread or whatever it was called,  but I realized it got buried.  So just making a new weekly one.  I think as we get closer to our due dates,  the drama is going to pick up.  So post away, ladies!

expandcontract

Carrying this over from the symptoms thread.... @eatinwatermelonseeds Im mad at my MIL because she told her family in Pakistan about my pregnancy. I know that when I first got pregnant I told her she can't tell anyone until 3 months.  But that was before all of the complications I started to have.  Basically,  she was on the phone with her daughter this morning and her daughter wanted to talk to me.  So I got on the phone and she says "congratulations is it a boy or a girl?" 
I tried asking her who told you,  but the line got disconnected.  Then I asked my husband when did they tell their side of the family and why wasn't I made aware of this.  My MIL starts screaming "well you're the one who said I could tell after 3 months,  so I waited and now you're having a problem with that,  too!? 
Maybe if MIL hadnt started screaming right off the bat,  I would have been more calm.  But her tone just pissed me off when I was already upset.
Yes, I did say they have to wait until 3 months but she knows there have been so many complications and that I've been very nervous.  I would have appreciated a heads up when they were going to tell people. MIL also started complaining that I told my whole family.  I didn't. They only found out during Thanksgiving and that was because of the size of my belly.  And I still didn't announce to people.  I only confirmed if they asked.  
At this point we're screaming back at each other and she's just pissing me off more.  When I try to say something she screams over me (she's freaking loud AF even when not screaming). 
I told her I don't appreciate people asking me what the sex of the baby is when all im concerned about is if I'll have a healthy baby or not.  And she goes "nobody asked you that." She's been asking my husband every day behind my back.  She thinks I can't hear her when she does but now she's straight up lying!!
I just don't get people. I understand she's happy and excited about another baby but between her and my mom,  is there anyone I can share my news with on my own when I want?!! She even tried to bring my mom into it and was like "your mom is the one who keeps asking the sex." 
Ya, my mom has bipolar and she's not taking her meds and i've gotten mad at her,  too. This is the exact reason why i haven't let my mom come over for about a month,  now. Maybe I should do that to MIL, too, and see how she feels then..

eatinwatermelonseeds

@expandcontract wow, that's crazy! She should have respected you and at least run it by you. A quick "hey, is it okay to tell people?" Would've made a huge difference. My general rule of thumb is if I haven't announced on social media yet, you can't tell anyone. 

expandcontract

Thanks @eatinwatermelonseeds . Now that I've calmed down,  I feel bad for yelling at her but im not going to apologize because she'll take that as she's right and I'm wrong.  We're still not talking.  

mrskoz428

We told my MIL that we will not be traveling on Christmas after this year. Christmas Day will be reserved for DH, I, and LO. If people want to come over, they can do long as they are cool with Christmas jammies and don’t expect a meal! It went over like a ton of bricks. She assumed it was our way of saying we aren’t doing Christmas with them at all. Um, no, I said we aren’t traveling ON Christmas. Two different things. She got so pissy and defensive. She then said she refuses to give up Christmas with her and her two kids but asked for my family to not work around my sister’s custody schedule to have Christmas with my family. Um, excuse me?? So, you want to make sure DH and his brother celebrate together but your fine with me not being able to celebrate with my sister. Fuck you. I held it together, and DH was very impressed by that, but i am just so pissed she had the nerve to say that!

knarlytaurus

What the fuck is in the air this weekend? It's so crazy what @expandcontract and @mrskoz428 had happen! And there is no full moon out, either. 

eatinwatermelonseeds

Think I might avoid talking to my mil for a bit, sounds like something is in the air 🤷

dfirstimer

Oh my! Something is definitely up this weekend with in laws! Mine wasn’t as bad but it did annoy me at the time. My MIL and FIL passed away a few years ago so my DH only has his brother and sister. DH was laid off from work a few weeks ago and he has been handling well and we talked about him looking for something in the new year. He told his brother and SIL on speaker that he was laid off but that he didn’t like his job anyway. So his brother starts advising him that maybe he shouldn’t work and just do what he enjoys (playing music/creative stuff), so I said DH and I had agreed he needed a job in the new year because I don’t want to risk any complications with my pregnancy and not having at least one steady job and health insurance. They kept insisting on him following his dreams and then moved to saying maybe he should be the stay at home parent and I could keep working.... it just annoyed the shit out of me as this is something for DH and I to figure out and maybe I want to spend time with my baby and not be traveling out of the country 2-3 weeks a month as sometimes my job requires and working 14-16 hour days. I know it was well intended, but it annoyed me anyway for a bit. Luckily we changed topics and left that as is and I reminded after my DH I won’t be the sole breadwinner 

beccaneu

I already discussed this a little in an earlier thread but my mom has been really shitty about my pregnancy so far.

She’s pissed that we waited until after the results of our genetic testing to tell her (same time we told MIL and FIIL btw) instead of telling her the second we found out I was pregnant.  I’ve had two losses so DH and I really weren’t comfortable announcing anything to anyone early.  This is not a good enough reason though according to my mom who has been throwing herself a non-stop pity party about it ever since we told her.

She’s also being really awful about that fact that we are having and boy and constantly makes little snide comments about how awful little boys are.  She’s under the delusional belief that it’s super easy to control with sex you conceive and sent me a ton of internet articles on the “right” sex positions, timing, etc in order to conceive a girl claiming these techniques worked for her.  So she’s basically taking us having a boy as us not following her advice and purposely giving her and grandson when she made it clear she wanted a granddaughter.  It’s a good thing I happened to be a girl because clearly my mom would not have handled having a boy well at all.

I was really hoping that once she got things out of her system, she’d get excited for her grandson, especially considering she won’t be getting any more grandchildren so this is her only chance to be a grandparent.  Unfortunately her attitude has not improved and it’s gotten to the point where I’ve stopped taking her calls because I know she’s going to make some horrible comment and then refuse to apologize or recognize how shitty she is being.  My husband is about to snap and is at a point where he basically doesn’t want her to have anything to do with our son.  We always go to visit my mom for Christmas and already have expensive non-refundable plane tickets to go see her, but we are both seriously considering not going if her attitude doesn’t change real quick. 

journey721

@beccaneu holy shit your mom is crazy. I’m so sorry! 

expandcontract

@knarlytaurus for me, it's the cultural difference.  As a first generation, I will always be stuck in a place where my identity is torn between being an American or Indian. I actually just talked to my therapist about this the other day how Im so sick of doing the work of making my family understand cultural differences.  Growing up it was my own parents and now it's my in-laws.
I just want to add one more thing,  after having dealt with my stubborn FIL (btw he just left back to his daughter's on Friday) I have no more patience to deal with this kind of drama. Im also feeling pretty resentful that people are not respecting my boundaries. 

@dfirstimer are your husband's siblings much younger than him? Their suggestion that your husband should follow his dreams at a time like this sounds very immature.  Im all about finding a career you love but obviously you also have to pay attention to the timing and your other responsibilities. That just sounds like the worst advice to give to someone who lost his job and is about to have a baby.  

@beccaneu Im so sorry! Your mom seriously makes my blood boil. Boundaries and limits are very crucial for all of us,  right now. 

brie_and_almonds

Ugh, I need to bitch about MIL for a minute..  so we went over to her house yesterday to celebrate DD1's birthday. MIL and SFIL just got back from vacation, and when we sat down to lunch, the first thing she said was "Well, we decided that we won't be looking for homes in the Miami beach area..." and then proceeded to say "we don't speak Cuban or Puerto Rican or whatever" ... to which I, not trying to encourage this conversation, just said "Spanish." Then she continued by saying "It's pretty bad when you're in America and you feel like you're the minority" which I couldn't just leave alone, so I said "I'm sure there are millions of people in America who are in the minority every day," which made SFIL smile this weird smile down at his plate which made me wonder if he was quietly agreeing with me, or what. Anyway, MIL continued by saying she and SFIL had a hard time communicating at restaurants and ending by imitating someone speaking another language. It was awful. I wish I had been more assertive and told her I was uncomfortable with her saying things like that, especially in front of my kids, but I just left it as it was... now I feel annoyed and regretful about the whole thing.

expandcontract

@mrskoz428 Did your husband have anything to say about all this?  I always laugh when people claim this country is "theirs"  and illegal aliens are taking it over. We tend to forget that we stole this country from the Native Americans and really we all should be speaking that language.  

jusgigi

Despite being told to keep her yap closed, my MIL has told everyone about me being pregnant. I had specifically told her not tonsay a word to anyone as if was pretty iffy in the begining. Then as i got farther along i wanted to tell everyone myself. After 5 years of hardships and losses i deserved to be able to do it in my own way. None of that meant anything to her. She tried denying she told anyone but two people have let it slip that they know and she was the one who told. She then got mad when she found out i didnt send anyone on her side of the family the annoucement cards i had made. I told her there was no point as you already told everyone and if they get upset they have you to blame. and shes mad because i refuse to update her on anything else before others. She now gets to find out everything when everyone else does

mrskoz428

expandcontract said:

@mrskoz428 Did your husband have anything to say about all this?  I always laugh when people claim this country is "theirs"  and illegal aliens are taking it over. We tend to forget that we stole this country from the Native Americans and really we all should be speaking that language.  

@brie_and_almonds this was meant for you! :-)

expandcontract

@mrskoz428 Thank you and so sorry about that! Lol. 

As I was leaving this morning,  I said bye to everyone and even specifically said bye to MIL when I didn't have to.  She ignored me.  Im so so tired of the pressure to respect our elders.  Im at my wits end,  right now.  

dfirstimer

@beccaneu sorry to hear about your mom’s attitude and having to deal with this. I am sure she will melt away when the LO arrives but it is too bad she isn’t supportive

@expandcontract, my brother and sister in law are both retired and over 50 yrs old. Their only son is finishing University this year and is easy for them to say living in the UK where health insurance is covered 100% and education including university is mostly free. I thought it was the worst advice as well for my DH who is in his 30’s and about to have a child. It also felt they were getting too much into our dynamics, why should they assume I should be the one working, that is non of their business. 
It is interesting you brought up the cultural differences. We will be dealing with a lot of that. I am South American and came to US for university and stayed working here for a few years and now again  after working in europe. my husband is  British and he came to US when we got married (we met when I worked in England). My parents still live back at home, my in-laws in England so this LO will be first generation born in US and we already have many cultural differences and this LO will grow up in a very different context that either my DH or I grew up in. Hopefully we don’t make our LO crazy 

kvh22

Ugh I'm sorry for all the MIL and mother drama! My exposure to MIL is limited to a few times a year and DH is great about it but he has the worst guilt. Basically, MIL is horrible at playing the victim, even when she was the person doing the offending to begin with. She'll cry, give the silent treatment, and basically just act like a 5 year old. This is trivial compared to everyone else's above but we haven't even gone to visit our families yet and this is already starting with guilting DH. When I can explain to him that he's falling into her trap, he gets it, but sometimes he does stuff without telling me - like make a trip to Costco yesterday after we were there on Saturday but they didn't have the stroller MIL wanted us to pick up for her to get DD. Meanwhile, when we talked about it Saturday, I said let's discuss in the morning since DD had been fussy (she just came down with a cold and might be teething, too). So he goes to the gym Sunday morning and I have a tantruming toddler at home and am counting down the minutes to him getting back from his class and he went to Costco after without checking with me - to which I would have said it's horrible timing let's go next week **like we discussed yesterday**!!!

sleepy33

Y'all are really reminding me once again that I'm so happy to be rid of my former MIL. She was legit certifiable (she is the one who got detained at the airport for trying to bring a loaded gun on an airplane, pretty sure I shared that here before). Anyway, new future MIL is like...we don't really have a lot in common? And I wouldn't want to hang out just her and I, for sure, but she's just so reasonable and normal compared to the last one that I'm just like soooo relieved. 

kvh22

@sleepy33 either way, sounds like an upgrade, but my MIL didn't show me her bad side too much until we started wedding planning. It started getting really bad after DH moved out to California (since I moved here, so my "fault") and she actually ended up going to therapy or getting medication (or both) - I never got the full details but she told my mom that she got treatment because she was in a bad place. She still has some issues but has gotten better.

sleepy33

@kvh22 I'm looking out for the warning signs for sure, but so far (knock on wood), she seems ok. Maybe part of it is that I'm already knocked up, and she's probably wanted nothing more in her adult life than for her son to have a child, so I think I'm kind of already miles ahead of his last serious gf who did not want kids, and also his first wife, who realized after they were married a year that she was a lesbian. Those are the only two of his SO's she's ever met, so I guess comparatively, I'm looking pretty good.  I can read her pretty well, and I can tell she kinda has instincts to overstep (as I think a lot of mothers do) but she reins it in pretty well. IE we're house hunting right now, and she's expressed some preference that we look for a place near them, but also seems ok if we pick another affordable area about 20 minutes away. FX she remains so reasonable. It helps that his sister lives very nearby to MIL and has 3 young kiddos, so she can satisfy a lot of her grandma cravings through them already. 

brie_and_almonds

@expandcontract DH didn't say anything until we were in the car on the way home. MIL is a narcissist and a pathological liar, and his coping mechanism is just to ignore all varieties of her crazy. I can't just ignore it, so I'm the only one who really challenges any of her bananas stories... shortly after her racist yammering she claimed that she speaks Spanish and French...

eatinwatermelonseeds

My mil has her faults, but most of the time she's decent. She's been super depressed since her dad died in the beginning of the year, and I could feel it on her when we went there at Thanksgiving. She just seemed to be in a terrible mood most of the time we were there. She refuses to get on meds (I'm not really the one to push her either), but she's really struggling. She can be super negative and judgmental on the regular, but she really loves me (and I love her) so typically she tries to stay on my good side (and I on hers). I wish I could do something to help her. I mentioned my cbd oil to her last time I was there, and she wasn't opposed. I'm thinking about maybe having her try some at Christmas. But anyway, yeah. She's H's step mom, and the only woman he considers a mother, but he admits she was a nightmare to live with and we are only around her in small doses because she grinds his gears. But despite that, he won't ever stand up to her, I usually do. It's just a different dynamic because I'm pretty sure she likes me more than she likes him sometimes, so she'll talk shit about him at times and I've had to, on several occasions, stick up for him. It's annoying. 

beccaneu

@brie_and_almonds  I have similar issues with my FIL.  He’s a grumpy old racist Trump fanboy that blames pretty much anyone different from him for all his problems in life.   I’ve tried standing up to him in the past but it only makes matters worse and causes him to use the most racist, sexist, homophobic language possible.  I’ve started just ignoring him, but once we have a kid I don’t know what I’m going to do because I don’t want my child around that.

@sleepy33. Yikes! Your previous MIL sounds like a nutcase.  I really hope you get on better with the new one 

@kvh22 I had a lot of issues with my MIL during wedding planning as well.  She’d play the victim over the tiniest little imagined slights and start crying to my husband, who of course ended up being manipulated into doing whatever she wanted.   Thankfully in my case, a few months or so after the wedding I ended up sitting down with her and having and honest conversation about how some of the stuff she pulled had upset me. To my surprise she apologized, admitted she was in a bad place at the time and said she would work on it because it was important to her that we had a good relationship.  She’s actually followed through with that and we’ve gotten along pretty well since then.  I’m a little nervous about what’s going to happen with her once the baby is born, but so far she’s been amazing.

DuchessOfCambridge

@brie_and_almonds MIL says things like that all the time and it's infuriating. I tread lightly only for H's sake. She lived in non-continental US for about 6-7 years and always complained how hard it was being a minority. As a minority myself I was always thinking "YOU DON'T SAY! Is it HARD for minorities to be minorities?! SHOCK." She was so happy to move back to the mainland and not be a minority anymore. And she still is terrible. It's really horrible and I'm going to have to say something some day because my kids are going to all be minorities! I don't have any advice, just solidarity. If only they'd use their brains.

brie_and_almonds

@DuchessOfCambridge you'd think there would be some kind of empathy reaction... but no... just self-centered concern at having temporarily lost her sense of cultural superiority. It's frankly disgusting, and I'm glad that DH didn't adopt those views while being raised by her.

It's difficult to navigate how I explain to my kids that what Grandma did/said is not okay, even though Grandma is someone they love and enjoy spending time with. I've tried to tread lightly but still let DD1 know that Grandma doesn't always tell the truth, and that some people are mean to others because of their skin color, and that that is not okay. What was already a weird dynamic becomes weirder now that I'm trying to find a way to explain it to my kids.

eatinwatermelonseeds

@DuchessOfCambridge that's ridiculous. I don't know what it's like to be a minority, but I lived in Germany for 2 years and could not speak the language. No one told me to "speak German," though I was laughed at any time I tried (my accent was terrible). It honestly changed my perspective on a lot of things and you will never hear me say people in America should speak English. Learning another language is freaking HARD and a little grace can go a long way. You'd think she'd come back with more understanding. My situation was obviously different, but it changed a lot in me and made me way more understanding and eager to learn other languages to help make others' lives easier. So many people knew English in Germany and I thought that was kind of annoying. I mean, helpful for me, obviously, but why aren't other languages available in school in the US earlier than high school? Once you turn 14, it is so much more difficult to learn new languages, but that's when it's offered. Sorry, my little rant. I'm sorry you have to deal with your mil's ignorance. 

DuchessOfCambridge

It's a struggle for sure. So hard to balance appropriate behavior around DS but not villainize his grandmother. I just never want him to feel uncomfortable in his relationship with her, certainly not because of me, but I also need to protect him from the nonsense she says. It's baffling too because she's always going on about how open and liberal and pro-Hillary she is. Like okay. Prove it.

eatinwatermelonseeds

My mother says a lot of ignorant, racist, and even sexist (toward women) things. She is very pro-trump, and some of the things that come out of her mouth are truly appalling. But she's never said anything around my son, and usually we don't talk about anything controversial. If we do, it almost always ends in a screaming match and me wondering how the hell I came from her. Our views are so insanely different, I just don't even know how we're related and I was raised by her. 

eatinwatermelonseeds

Omfg I am so mad at H right now. He just said the dumbest, most ungrateful shit and then went to the store for something. I seriously don't even want to look at him right now. 😡😡😡😡

kvh22

@beccaneu as difficult as MIL was with wedding planning, she's been great about DD. She's 16 months almost and we've really had no issues. They even came down from New England to Charleston for my cousin's wedding to watch her for us while we went out after the reception. She's the perfect doting grandmother who doesn't want to spoil so always checks with me/us on gifts. It's shockingly great, although she'd never be able to watch DD (or any other young child) for an extended time as she says she's too old to carry the baby in a car seat and I tend to agree (early/mid 70s). I could go on and on about her craziness towards me with wedding stuff. It was mostly around her disrespecting my time and my job and focusing on her losing her baby boy. She eloped with FIL, SIL got married in Germany and no one went, BIL got married in DC and no one went. The relationships are all good, SIL's husband was just in the military and it was a quick thing so they would move her over there and BIL's wife is mormon so they got married in a mormon church that you cannot go into if you aren't also mormon. I didn't know we were the first wedding she was going to be involved in EVER!!!!

expandcontract

@DuchessOfCambridge your story reminds me of the times I used to work in customer service in high school and college. So many times,  Spanish speaking customers would walk up to me and start talking in Spanish.  I'd tell them I don't speak Spanish and I kid you not,  most of them would start talking in almost perfect English and would scold me about how I should learn to speak Spanish.  Ummmmm are you kidding me?? 

DuchessOfCambridge

@expandcontract that's...random. Why though?

expandcontract

@DuchessOfCambridge One of them said that there are so many Spanish speaking people in this country so I should learn. Yes,  I understand that and it's good to know the language but come on,  going around scolding girls about it because it's inconvenient for you is absurd.  

MelissaMay82

My mother strikes again (see inappropriate thread for part 1 haha). I was talking to her on the phone the other day and she was like "when can I tell people?" So I inform again that we are not telling everyone (e.g. people around town, posting on social media, etc) at this point and may not until the very end because we don't feel comfortable with everyone knowing right now. She totally dismisses what I say and said "well this is my joy and I want to share it." Ummm....no, this is MY JOY (and DHs) and I (we) get to decide when and how people find out the news. Then a little later in the conversation, we start talking about c-sections (I had told her that I will probably have a C/S ) and she says "are you seriously just going to have a c-section?" So I tell her again, that yes, I will probably have a c-section and start listing the reasons why. So she starts giving me shit about that and eventually says "I barely even had an aspirin with you." My response was "well aren't you a f*cking hero..."

eatinwatermelonseeds

@MelissaMay82 my mom is opposite. All things "natural" she opposes. According to her, there's no reason to give birth vaginally if you could just have a csection. And why breast feed when there's formula? Like.... Why do you get to decide what I do with my body? Back tf up. 

And that "this is my joy" shit... REALLY?! Fuck no. GTFO with that bull. Ugh. I'm sorry you're dealing with her. 

bumbly_b

@MelissaMay82 I'm sorry you have to deal with that. I wish people could see that it's not about them and just be happy for the couple and new baby on the way. 

My H's family is on my nerves today. We dont see all of them often but his grandparents and aunt come into my work a couple times a month and grandpa wants me to kiss him (eewww no) and they all keep saying things like oh take care of MY granddaughter or MY niece and I'm so sick of it. She not YOURS! She will be related to you but shes not a fu king possession.

knarlytaurus

@MelissaMay82 I just don't get that. My MIL ending up telling everyone she came into contact with. Luckily she doesn't really know many people or go out of the house much, so it didn't get too far. My feeling on that attitude is like - This isn't YOUR news, or your baby. It's OURS and our news to tell. Now that you did that, we know we can't tell you anything. Wtf.

@bumbly_b I would be annoyed by that, too. It would be one thing if they were saying "our" as in being a part of our family, but saying "my" is so weird! It's like you're not the one growing this baby and I know you weren't there when she was made so simmer down. 

MelissaMay82

@eatinwatermelonseeds my mother is very anti-healthcare/anti-medication (like she hasn't had a physical or even any doctor's appointments in a very very long time), this causes many disagreements between us because she should really take her health more seriously. She also pisses me off a lot because she is "Dr. Google" and tries to tell me about medical things (diseases, medications, healthcare practices, etc) that she literally has no idea about, I'm usually like, oh wow you are so right, I know nothing, this RN (soon to be BSN) behind my name are just silly initials that are insignificant to healthcare.

knarlytaurus

@MelissaMay82 and you're an RN and she does that? Now my full pregnancy hormonal rage is kicking in on your behalf  

MelissaMay82

@knarlytaurus oh yes, all the time....it is very annoying. Oh, I could go on and on for days about her haha.