Neutral phrases
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Anonymous
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My husband, FIL, BIL and BIL's husband (same sex marriage) do NOT reply to MIL. They all just stare at their phones, play with the kids, pretend they don't hear. It took me almost 20 years to realize that I do NOT have to be the one to fill the silence. So I stopped responding too. I do the same as them. It was hard at first, because she will pose a rude question and gets no response. Recent example:
"Why does (fourth baby) already watch TV when you were so strict and irrational with (first baby)'s screentime?!?!" My husband looked at his phone. FIL yawned and shut his eyes. BIL stared into space. BIL spouse got up and left the room. I busied myself with baby. My 11 year old looked around, waited a while, realized no one was going to respond to his grandma and said "they like him better than they like me." Perfect. |
Anonymous
| THANK YOU FOR THIS THREAD OMFG |
Anonymous
| "Oh, you know how it is..." |
Anonymous
| Really? |
Anonymous
Ha, ha - I LOVE this! |
Anonymous
The ones who don't notice are the best. You'll find out quickly which people DO notice and press and press despite your neutral responses. Then you need to remove yourself - oh, the baby needs a diaper change, dog needs to be walked, I think I heard (whoever's not in the room) calling me. |
Anonymous
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Just think of classic popular media:
Fascinating (I always though Spock on Star Trek was being sarcastic) I've never seen/heard anything like it! (a Gilligan's Island character reacting to a bad painting) Marvelous (Rimmer from Red Dwarf) Wicked! (Twins from Harry Potter) |
Anonymous
That's amazing! |
Anonymous
| Whisper "oh darn I'm supposed to be in the kitchen helping" with a sad face and walk away (bonus if you walk towards the kitchen but you don't have to) |
Anonymous
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Well isn't that something
* said in response to my MIL telling us on great detail her 2 mile commute to work, including every stop sign, light, length of the light, area landmarks (spoiler alert: it was the post office) and the 2 places she parked depending on the weather (she does not tolerate leaves falling on her car) |
Anonymous
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In my head, I like to do a voiceover like a British anthropologist.
"The matriarch seems threatened by the behavior of the newest member of the clan. Let's see how this unfolds." Out loud it is, "That's an idea." |
Anonymous
lol |
Anonymous
Dammit! Way to ruin Thanksgiving for me. |
Anonymous
Tell me more about exactly where she parks. She avoids leaves, but what about excessive sun? Snow? |
Anonymous
PP here, it's fascinating isn't it? So she parks on the street far enough away from the stop sign to avoid getting a ticket, yet not too close to a maple tree if it's still shedding its leaves. If she gets hung up at the light on West and Elm, Susan from accounting parks there (can you believe she got a new Malibu? Her old one was only 3 years old, I bet it's a lease.) Otherwise she parks on the other side of Elm but the building has 3 steps at that entrance and she likes to avoid those (remember when Phyllis broke her ankle going up those steps? She sued but they said her weight was a contributing factor so she didn't get as much as she hoped **note, no one except her knows who Phyllis is). She got a sun shield for her car but heard that thieves target cars with those so she uses it to get more sun on her tomato plants now. Oh and she eats a banana every morning and cuts it into 3 equal pieces, 1 2 3 (demonstrating with her hands like she's conducting an orchestra) That's about all I can remember from that painful painful conversation. |