Reply to My ILs don't listen

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "My ILs don't listen"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just got off a speakerphone call with my ILs. They told us DH's aunt has early-stage, treatable breast cancer that we have every reason to be optimistic about. We are of course sad, but thankful for the silver linings here. MIL then says, "Well, Kate, I don't know if you know much about breast cancer, but it does run in our family."

Why yes, I do know a little something...on account of my mother having it. Radiation and a lumpectomy and a precautionary hysterectomy. Which I have talked to my ILs about. At length.

I'm shocked, but I shouldn't be. They never listen to me. They know virtually nothing about me and my family, despite me answering any question they've ever asked, and volunteering info when I try to be part of their conversations. They don't listen, and wonder why we are not close.

Sorry. This just made me feel awful, on top of hearing this unfortunate news, and I needed to vent.[/quote]

This is not an excuse but it is a possible explanation: She might have been reeling from this news herself, especially if the aunt is her own sister, so that she just blanked and was repeating what doctors or DH's aunt (her sister?) had told her. Probably someone--a doctor, or the aunt--had mentioned that "You should let other women in the family know that this runs in families so they get checked," and in the shock of the bad news she just was repeating that because, well, it gave her something to say. Thoughtless, but possibly understandable. Yes, she should have remembered that your own family has this history, that you have told her about it before, that your own mother had it and went through treatment. And clearly there's larger history here where MIL doesn't seem to remember things about your family, and that does hurt (and doesn't change--folks who are like that tend to stay that way). But maybe you can write this one sentence of hers off as someone doing a poor job of delivering difficult news and leave it at that.

Be ready to hear about this a lot more; MIL will probably update you and DH on his aunt's treatment over time, so you might want to take an opportunity (when it's next brought up) to remind MIL that you do get what's going on because "You might not have remembered but my mom had breast cancer too so I've been there." Maybe your family's experience can help DH's aunt somehow?

[/quote]

OP here. Thanks for that nice and thoughtful post. That is good advice.

A couple issues at play: this is not her own sister, and she habitually "forgets"/doesn't take in information about me and my family (and never wants to talk about my family in an oddly controlling/way). I need to try to separate the past hurts/"incidents" out from this one, and just deal with this scenario as this scenario. I really will try. I am bracing myself. I see them on Friday.

Weird things...like they have asked me several times where my parents grew up, and seem interested in my mom's military medical officer-family background, which included the fact that she lived in Alaska before it was a state. We've discussed this numerous times over the years. And when they went on an Alaska cruise, they went on and on about this town and that town, including my mom's "Alaska hometown." And I said yes, I've seen/heard a lot about Anchorage, since my mom lived there. "What, your mom lived there? When?" Rrrrrgh!

It comes up sometimes that both my husband's sister and my own brother are gay. They always ask "how my parents took it." We've talked NUMEROUS TIMES about how they took it completely in stride, with love and acceptance, and they always act shocked about that, because "aren't they Republican Catholics?" RRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH.

So yes, I need to prepare myself for this to come up again this weekend, and just prepare in general to feel like they ignore, discount and don't care about me as a person/individual in my own right, beyond being the mother of their grandchild and the "vessel" for their new grandchild...

Thank you, seriously. Your post was really helpful.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics