Miserable mom with eating disorder (again)

[Anonymous]

OP, thank you for the update. I know this sounds weird, but I’ve been thinking about you. I’ve been rooting for you, and I am so proud of you, too!

I am under similar scrutiny and commentary from my MIL, and it took me years before I finally told her to can it and made it clear that if she couldn’t keep her food/portion/body size opinions to herself in front of me and my daughters, she could no longer be around me and my daughters. I can see her physically biting her tongue sometimes, but she knows that I mean it (I’ve left events and ended vacations early), and she minds her Ps and Qs around me.

[Anonymous]

Ha! My Dad is EXACTLY like this. He is visiting and immediately starts in:
- searching through pantry and fridge scolding me for having canned/boxed or frozen food and any bit of refined sugar
- Looks at us and assesses our bodies to see if we have been following his raw foods book
- sneaks to eat food because he is SO hungry after eating spinach and fish all day
-very irritated about everything, and so defensive
-Is soooo wispy and thin
-Says hunger is food for the soul.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, this is clearly not someone that you should be going to restaurants with, sharing meals with, etc. My MIL is much the same way and for the most part, we have my husband visit her alone. I definitely don't want my teen daughters subject to the 'food policing' and the ridiculous talk about who was good and who was bad today, because they ate a cookie. My MIL wants to be praised for being so tiny and so petite and so delicate, and wants us all to spend our time begging and cajoling her to eat. I have to admit that in my earlier days I would purposely do things like show up with a bucket of chicken just to show her that I didn't care what she did. But now I simply am too old to participate in these "food games". When she starts up, we usually just say something like "talking about food is really boring. Who's read a good book or seen a good movie lately?" I spent a few years at the beginning of our relationship doing the 'granola bars in the bedroom' thing, and then said enough of that. Her house, her food, her issues. Not my issues!

Do we have the same MIL? Conversation is exhausting because of her neediness to work the conversation around to her body. Now that she's in her 70s she forgets that she uses the same tactics every visit. We must talk about how she shops in the girls clothing department and how much money she saves doing that. We must talk about how she left the hospital after having DH the same weight as before she was pregnant. We must talk about how she will not eat dinner the week after our visit to make up for all the crazy eating she's doing with us around. She watches who goes into the kitchen and what they do in there. She calls out, "Son, what are you having in there?" We have to talk about how tiny she is, and we are given many set ups to comment on it. If we don't take the bait, she pouts and eventually just states it. I think she has gotten a lot of self-worth from being underweight over the years and needs that praise. It's unpleasant and exhausting and repetitive though. Also, she just can't believe that my 17yo (thin) daughter wants to have a bigger butt, and that being underweight and scrawny is not attractive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like what my own mother will be like soon.

When I was breastfeeding my first (maybe 5 days old?) she was here to “help” and I said how hungry I was. She gave me 1/4 of a sandwich and when I asked if there was more, she said I didn’t need it because I had to lose the weight.

Awful. When I was pregnant and bfing I had to sneak out for food when we were visiting the ILs. We said we were going to the drugstore when in fact we went to get food.