Are we ready for the Thanksgiving Vent thread?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My mom always focuses on everyone’s body type and weight. She had already asked me how much three people weigh. I always say it’s rude but she doesn’t care. It is so annoying.

How on earth would you know how much someone else weighs? 😂

My MIL is this way, she comments incessantly on everyone's weight. It makes having even minor weight fluctuations stressful because I know she will clock it and then for the next three months be telling everyone she knows that I look like I recently lost or gained like 10 lbs. I feel bad for her because it's obviously because she also pays that kind of attention to her own weight and has her entire life, but also she is totally oblivious to how toxic it is and how it impacts others.

I have managed to get her to not comment on my DD's weight in front of her, but I have no control over what she says about DD when we aren't around -- I'm certain she's discussing DD's weight with everyone she knows. I hope this never gets back to DD but ugh, it might.

The weight comments! My MIL got banned after ranking DD’s entire Girl Scout troop by weight (NOT in front of them, thank god) after we all went to a Girl Scout event while she was visiting. And then refused to use their real names for the rest of the week and just called them by the nicknames she’d made up for them, because names like “Emma” were “so unusual”. So instead my DD would be telling an anecdote about Emma and MIL would say “who? Do you mean the Chubby One? Or do you mean Big Cheeks?”.

She is awful.

Wow. She is awful. I have a cousin who gives little digs to her DIL who is slightly overweight. People are strange (or mean, stupid, etc).

Ugh. My MIL finds a way to insult all of DD’s friends. One who dyes her hair pink has “weird hair.” Another is “fluffy.”

Pink hair IS weird hair, and a cry for attention, which she is now getting.

Grammy go back to your recliner and turn the tv sound up to 100 and watch your shows on Fox.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Spending time with my mom is like being cross-examined. She asks question after question after question. When I ask about what's going on in her life, she gives one or two word answers. It feels less like a conversation and more like a demand that I entertain her.

If she doesn’t later judge you on what you told her, like my late mother did, then she is discussing it in the strangest of contexts with people you don’t even know (like my dad does). I had no idea he did that, and he does it seemingly non judgmentally but I once received a butt call from him and he was discussing how small my apartment was with someone he barely knew. Mind you, the man was poor all his life and I shared a bedroom with my brother for the longest time. Now he is “upset” about my living conditions!
Anyway, I barely tell him anything and I avoid having him over.

Are you me? These are my parents precisely. I learned a long time ago to be judicious about what I told them because they are so judgmental and will blab anything I tell them to literally anyone. They live in the small town where I grew up and they've said incredibly critical, personal things about me to random people who wind up being related to some friend from high school, and it will get back to me and it's embarrassing and unkind. So now I tell them very little and they complain about that, but it's the only way to keep them from gossiping about me.

We don’t tell MIL 90% of the “real” stuff in our lives (the hard, imperfect, messiness; the health issues or job issues or whatever other normal life stuff) because she will tell everyone, be judgy, and claim she isn’t being judgy while also being casually racist/classist/etc. (her go-to is the “I can’t be homophobic/racist/etc because so-and-so in their circle is whatever) My sibling transitioned several years ago and we haven’t told MIL because she’s met my sibling exactly once (at our wedding) and has no right to get to say a single word about them.

The first pp here. My mother was great at finding something to criticize even in the good things I told her. I’d tell her oh your grandson is reading chapter books (it was early for his age) and she’d complain it wasn’t the author she deemed worth of reading.

I finally realized never to tell my mother anything at all. Just let her talk. Because if I give her anything it's like
"Mikey got 100% on his book report."
"What was the book?" "Redwall"
"I've never heard of that. Why do you make him read such junk? He wouldn't pick books like that if you didn't push them on him."
"What on earth are you talking about? You don't even know what it is."
"If I've never heard of it it must not be any good. You should be making sure he reads quality books. Your sister only gives good books to her kids."
Ready to hang up the phone at that point.

Yes! This is exactly how it would go with my mother as well. Then she’d criticize my brother and tell him that his sisters kid reads chapter books haha

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP. did Steak tops BIL croak? I don't give a fig about pink hair but I need to know what happened to your BIL. It keeps me awake wondering how it all came out!

He left the house very much alive! And a dirty pan behind

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. did Steak tops BIL croak? I don't give a fig about pink hair but I need to know what happened to your BIL. It keeps me awake wondering how it all came out!

He left the house very much alive! And a dirty pan behind

To clarify I’m not the original PP, just a passerby

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now that I’ve had time to think about it after the last guest left, my SIL told me she’d bring cherry pie because she likes to bake. She and my brother showed up an hour and a half late empty handed. She had spent the day visiting her family even though she RSVPed to me. When I texted them their eta because the turkey was cold and sides were drying out,, they said they hadn’t left yet and go ahead and start without them. After dinner she went straight to the living room and did not help with cleanup at all.

Why blaming SIL for not helping with cleanup? Did your brother bring a cherry pie or help clean after dinner?

This. It was probably SIL’s year to be with her family and BIL whimped out and didn’t tell his family. Good for SIL for standing her ground. Team SIL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:My mom always focuses on everyone’s body type and weight. She had already asked me how much three people weigh. I always say it’s rude but she doesn’t care. It is so annoying.

How on earth would you know how much someone else weighs? 😂

My MIL is this way, she comments incessantly on everyone's weight. It makes having even minor weight fluctuations stressful because I know she will clock it and then for the next three months be telling everyone she knows that I look like I recently lost or gained like 10 lbs. I feel bad for her because it's obviously because she also pays that kind of attention to her own weight and has her entire life, but also she is totally oblivious to how toxic it is and how it impacts others.

I have managed to get her to not comment on my DD's weight in front of her, but I have no control over what she says about DD when we aren't around -- I'm certain she's discussing DD's weight with everyone she knows. I hope this never gets back to DD but ugh, it might.

The weight comments! My MIL got banned after ranking DD’s entire Girl Scout troop by weight (NOT in front of them, thank god) after we all went to a Girl Scout event while she was visiting. And then refused to use their real names for the rest of the week and just called them by the nicknames she’d made up for them, because names like “Emma” were “so unusual”. So instead my DD would be telling an anecdote about Emma and MIL would say “who? Do you mean the Chubby One? Or do you mean Big Cheeks?”.

She is awful.

Wow. She is awful. I have a cousin who gives little digs to her DIL who is slightly overweight. People are strange (or mean, stupid, etc).

Ugh. My MIL finds a way to insult all of DD’s friends. One who dyes her hair pink has “weird hair.” Another is “fluffy.”

Pink hair IS weird hair, and a cry for attention, which she is now getting.

You don’t have teens do you? It’s problematic to comment negatively on a teen girls body.

I have four from teen to twenties and teach teenagers. Stand by my comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband’s cousin and his life are good people who left on Friday like good overnight guests should.

MIL and FIL aren’t leaving after lunch which apparently they expect us to set out for them. DH can handle it. I’m having my coffee in bed like I normally do, while they fret and fuss around the kitchen even though I set out breakfast food and set up the coffee and hit start the nanosecond I woke up; even though it literally had a sign on it that said “Feel free to hit Start”

I’m over it. After my coffee, I’m going to shower, grab a bite, and take my oldest shopping like she wanted to yesterday but we didn’t Because Family. We’ll say our goodbye at 10 even though they are staying until 1. And if we stay out so long they’re gone when we give back, OK, we’ll give you hugs now just in case!

BYEEEEE! BYEEEEE! We want to actually relax during a break now! Have a good trip!

It may very well be that they are relieved to hang out with only their son! I love it when my SIL does her thing and I can actually talk to my brother!

Then invite your brother out for drinks or something. I hang out with my brother and his partner, but I also hang out with my brother solo. Make separate plans outside of the house rather than parking it in your SIL's house where she will, understandably, be.

[Anonymous]

SIL brought a salad kit to our house for a potluck then asked for goat cheese & basil to make her salad. Also requested for a specific slotted spoon for the salad. I had none.

Later she asked if my mom is coming because she's looking forward to a certain dish but she doesn't remember what my mom made that she liked.

[Anonymous]

Relative came. Woody Allen/Soon-Yi type situation. No one wanted them there, but did so for kids involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband’s cousin and his life are good people who left on Friday like good overnight guests should.

MIL and FIL aren’t leaving after lunch which apparently they expect us to set out for them. DH can handle it. I’m having my coffee in bed like I normally do, while they fret and fuss around the kitchen even though I set out breakfast food and set up the coffee and hit start the nanosecond I woke up; even though it literally had a sign on it that said “Feel free to hit Start”

I’m over it. After my coffee, I’m going to shower, grab a bite, and take my oldest shopping like she wanted to yesterday but we didn’t Because Family. We’ll say our goodbye at 10 even though they are staying until 1. And if we stay out so long they’re gone when we give back, OK, we’ll give you hugs now just in case!

BYEEEEE! BYEEEEE! We want to actually relax during a break now! Have a good trip!

It may very well be that they are relieved to hang out with only their son! I love it when my SIL does her thing and I can actually talk to my brother!

Then invite your brother out for drinks or something. I hang out with my brother and his partner, but I also hang out with my brother solo. Make separate plans outside of the house rather than parking it in your SIL's house where she will, understandably, be.

We live a plane ride away

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Relative came. Woody Allen/Soon-Yi type situation. No one wanted them there, but did so for kids involved.

Your relative married their own stepdaughter that they’d helped raise?