Christmas at McDonald's
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| I think OP is making all of this up. |
Anonymous
For inviting people over she can't feed? Your reading comprehension is lacking. Is English your first language? Or are you just looking for a fight? Like the Mil? 
|
Anonymous
Signed, MIL in denial |
Anonymous
|
OP here. Something just occurred to me, in reading other threads. Maybe Mil does not like Christmas. I know she is depressed, and maybe Christmas is that much harder for her. Maybe she just never liked it. Maybe this is her way of saying how much she hates it. I know her own DH never gave her a gift. They could certainly afford it. She might feel slighted by that.
Am I wrong for wanting to understand this behavior? There is a part of me that wants to understand it. But maybe there is nothing to understand. Maybe she just has control problems and needs a scapegoat. |
Anonymous
I feel like trolls don't usually come back so often, they start it, stir it up a little and leave. I'm guessing it's real, a bizarre as it is. Op--the answer is super simple. Eat before you go and bring dessert. Or bring a giant lasagna and be the hero of the family. End of story. |
Anonymous
| Sounds like my ex in-laws. MIL would insist we come over for dinner, we'd come in (on time) and there's no table set, everyone is watching TV in seperate rooms and have already eaten. Buffet style would have been a step up from this, we were instructed to heat up food in the microwave. No conversation, just eat and go. It was disappointing and weird to me, but that's just how they are. |
Anonymous
OP here. I am curious what their origin was. Maybe it is cultural? |
Anonymous
| If she doesn't feed you anyway, stop somewhere and eat first. Then when there is no food when you get there, you'll be full and won't care. Plus you get to enjoy your meal without her. |
Anonymous
+1 It sounds made up. Or, OP is always late but does not think she is... |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
Hi OP, I am this PP and am glad I can be helpful Feel sad that we dysfunctional people seem to be in the minority here, but that is a good thing overall. When I worked at a university my coworkers and I would have a "most dysfunctional Christmas contest" and one year I beat my gay coworker with the fundy Baptist family 
I was more like your husband, but was motivated to pursue career options and move away from my family--and was shunned by my extended family because of it. I think because I physically moved away from them it was easier to see how they reacted and the depth of the dysfunction. I had therapy in my 20s to help me "separate" from my parents, and the therapist said: "you know your family is not normal, right?" Looks like you are really seeing that in your DH's family. In middle age I have developed a really bad anxiety problem, which also runs in my family, and had to seek therapy again to deal with the anxiety. I was looking for someone who deals with depression and anxiety, so there are lots of therapists out there. I really didn't realize the problem was still rooted in my family dynamics until I went to therapy for awhile--I thought I was still the problem and needed to change myself to please them. Before I would assume I did not have a choice and had to do what my family wanted me to do at holidays (or any other time). But even before therapy I would try to laugh at the situations afterwards, like with my coworkers. Now I think about what I really want. If I want to participate I outline a strategy for myself of what I will and will not do. Like, I go earlier than MIL said, stop being "obedient" and polite, just to see what happens and figure out just what is going on. I really do believe your story: I am from a family where people have always had buffets, mainly because no one originally had a house or tables or enough chairs to fit everyone. And, even though they might now, it's just tradition. Now, my family doesn't run out of food, but there is always an undercurrent of resentment against whoever is on the "outs" with everyone this year or for many years running. People might be told to get there early or late, based on the drama. I feel you OP. Basically, good luck and try searching the list of therapists at Psychology Today and see what you can find. I know a good person in MoCo, but she is not concentrating on my family as much as she is concentrating on me. It sounds like your husband may need someone like that. I now know I can't change my family and can't will them to be loving, so I look for strategies (like the one I outlined) to keep me sane and just throw a common sense wrench into their carefully laid drama-filled dysfunctional plans. |
Anonymous
| PS: you can also just choose not to go, make a traditional of making or buying premade your own meal and eating before you go, and (as others suggest) minimize your time there. |
Anonymous
| OK--one more thing, if you bring a giant lasagne (or a ham or other food) you will not be a "hero" as the other poster has suggested, but you will probably be the person who is "destroying tradition." I would bring the food anyhow, because it is the common-sense thing for you to do, but do it so you can eat, not to "be a hero." No one there will care, since you are being told to get there after they eat anyhow. |
Anonymous
Maybe it's a huge cultural misunderstanding. OP isn't late for dinner, but she is late for making dinner. Maybe the DILS and daughters are coming over and cooking with MIL. The guys are in the other room talking. Once everyone has finished up preparations, they eat. The time that MIL is giving her is the approximate time that they are going to eat, once everything is prepared. OP and her family are late because they're not showing up for the preparation the way the daughters and the DILs do. |
Anonymous
HAHAHAHA - OP here. That is funny! To think that SILs help out. No. No, they don't.
|