Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This wasn't an all-out confrontation with shouting, etc., but I did tell my MIL and her boyfriend that he wasn't welcome at my house until he could stop saying racist and homophobic things. I am not white and neither are my children. He now comes to visit, but aside from laying on the couch and watching Fox News all day long, keeps his racist thoughts to himself.

I never understood this. If you visited them, would he be OK with you watching MSNBC? I doubt it. So why let him get away with this at your place?

Because Fox News has news programs and opinion programs. MSNBC is all opinion.

I am aware of the opinion shows, but when does Fox run their news programs?

Anonymous wrote:My grandmother, under the direction of my mom, ordered me to cancel my wedding 2 months before my wedding date because I invited my father (they divorced when I was 15). I refused.

My mom then woke me up at 5 AM the next day and dragged me out of bed by my hair, saying she was calling the cops on me for “abusing” my grandmother.

I haven’t seen either of them since, 6 years later. My wedding went through as scheduled.

I did speak to my mom on the phone a few years later, and I told her I was really hurt by what she did, and also hurt that she’d never tried to contact me since (including when I almost died in childbirth and was in the hospital for a week and baby was in NICU for extended period of time).

She claimed all of it was my fault, that I banned her from my wedding, that I hid my child from her, that she was 100% the victim of my “abuse”.

I don’t think I’ll ever see her again or that things will ever be worked out.

op, that is just devastating - hugs to you and your family

Had a fight with MIL before wedding - she exceeded her guest list and asked me to solve the problem by uninviting some guests. This came right after she argued with me that my parents' name should not be on the invitation as they were not paying for it (nor was she but guessing she was claiming space on invitation as they were hosting rehearsal dinner - "people need to know who to thank"). She apologized, we moved on, and now largely have a good relationship.

Her daughter OTOH remains a piece of work. She resented having to share the attention of her dad, brother, and husband when I came along - or at least that's what DH and I concluded. She told her kids to never refer to me by aunt. She asked DH for money for her DCs' birthdays/holidays but gives hand me down toys to her nieces and nephews (and I would not have a problem here if money was issue, but it is not - she just wants to purge her house and has decided that our DCs should be the recipients). She does not show up for our family events but will make a scene if we do not attend for her family. And none of that covers the stunts she pulled at our wedding. Sometimes when I am riding our DCs, DH suggests i let up and I respond that I will do anything within my power for our DCs to not grow up to be as selfish and as self-involved as his sister. He gets it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mother’s second marriage was to someone she met online and knew for fewer than 6 months before getting engaged. They lived thousands of miles apart and had spent about two long weekends together in person before the wedding.The guy gave me serious conman vibes. So I “spoke now” instead of “forever holding my peace,” but I did so well in advance of the wedding.

I thought hard about not attending the ceremony, but I decided to go. My feeling was that to skip it was to end my relationship with my mother. For the life of her husband, I stayed distant but supportive. We saw each other much less often, and I was less forthcoming about my personal life with her. We’ll never be as close as we once were, but it’s perhaps healthier for us both this way.

So... was the husband a conman or not? Were you wrong or right?

How long has it been? From your tone this doesn’t seem recent, so what kind of person did he turn out to be?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A huge fight over how he was attacking friends of mine on FB over his Trump BS. I stayed away from his page, and asked him politely - repeatedly - to keep his crap off mine. But he just couldn’t stop. Then I started getting private messages about how I “needed to listen to [my] elders” (I was 47) and comments like how people like him with guns “weren’t going to take crap anymore.” But he was almost a bigot, racist and misogynist. Trump just made him feel like he could be more open about it. So yeah, done and blocked. Haven’t spoken to him since. Fallout - some tense times with his kids, but mostly they were ok to me. Things with them are almost back to normal. I’ve never regretted cutting him out. There were plenty of reasons to before, so no regrets.

Was this an uncle or an in-law?

The proverbial “everyone’s got that one racist uncle.” He was technically an in-law, married to my aunt. But he was around well before I was born, so always just my uncle.

So your biggest confrontation revolves around blocking a trump supporter on facebook? mkay

Um, no ahole. The blocking and never speaking to him again was how I ended it. The confrontation was the result decades of misogynistic and racist bullshit that increased because of Trump and spilled over to him attacking my friends on FB, and not-so-subtly making threats related to the firearms he owns. But nice try dipshit.

Anonymous wrote:My grandmother, under the direction of my mom, ordered me to cancel my wedding 2 months before my wedding date because I invited my father (they divorced when I was 15). I refused.

My mom then woke me up at 5 AM the next day and dragged me out of bed by my hair, saying she was calling the cops on me for “abusing” my grandmother.

I haven’t seen either of them since, 6 years later. My wedding went through as scheduled.

I did speak to my mom on the phone a few years later, and I told her I was really hurt by what she did, and also hurt that she’d never tried to contact me since (including when I almost died in childbirth and was in the hospital for a week and baby was in NICU for extended period of time).

She claimed all of it was my fault, that I banned her from my wedding, that I hid my child from her, that she was 100% the victim of my “abuse”.

I don’t think I’ll ever see her again or that things will ever be worked out.

I’m sorry PP. I’ve been through similar. Sounds like your mom has a serious mental issue.

Anonymous wrote:My mother’s second marriage was to someone she met online and knew for fewer than 6 months before getting engaged. They lived thousands of miles apart and had spent about two long weekends together in person before the wedding.The guy gave me serious conman vibes. So I “spoke now” instead of “forever holding my peace,” but I did so well in advance of the wedding.

I thought hard about not attending the ceremony, but I decided to go. My feeling was that to skip it was to end my relationship with my mother. For the life of her husband, I stayed distant but supportive. We saw each other much less often, and I was less forthcoming about my personal life with her. We’ll never be as close as we once were, but it’s perhaps healthier for us both this way.

So... was the husband a conman or not? Were you wrong or right?

My grandmother, under the direction of my mom, ordered me to cancel my wedding 2 months before my wedding date because I invited my father (they divorced when I was 15). I refused.

My mom then woke me up at 5 AM the next day and dragged me out of bed by my hair, saying she was calling the cops on me for “abusing” my grandmother.

I haven’t seen either of them since, 6 years later. My wedding went through as scheduled.

I did speak to my mom on the phone a few years later, and I told her I was really hurt by what she did, and also hurt that she’d never tried to contact me since (including when I almost died in childbirth and was in the hospital for a week and baby was in NICU for extended period of time).

She claimed all of it was my fault, that I banned her from my wedding, that I hid my child from her, that she was 100% the victim of my “abuse”.

I don’t think I’ll ever see her again or that things will ever be worked out.

My sister-in-law yelled at me when all of our kids were sharing a room together at MIL's house - and I told the kids it was time to be quiet and go to sleep. She told me I'm never to parent her kids, and must just go right to her (even though her kids were keeping my younger kids awake). It turned into a whole thing, with all of the siblings yelling at one another. I left the room. This was years ago, and we all have a fake superficial relationship. My husband thinks of himself as close with his siblings, but I think they're selfish and emotionally immature and hope to keep a respectful distance.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents isolated me from both sides of my family growing up, now I’m an adult and we’re effectively estranged. There’s no shared history and it’s too hard to start a relationship now.

So, yeah, zero family means zero conflicts. Yay me!

The family was probably toxic and that’s why they did so, hence the zero conflict. Go make your own family of friends/nuclear family bitter one.

And maybe the parents were the toxic ones?

Anyways I have started my own family, but I do feel a pang of loneliness every time I see my DH with his extended family. That’s a connection I will never have no matter how wonderful my own children and in-laws are.

I’m the PP you’re addressing. Maybe they were. I’m in your same position, and I completely understand those pangs. However, my extended family is very disturbed. I would never have that extended family I envy so much, but do try very hard to raise my family differently.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Told my MIL after she gave my tree-nut-allergic daughter granola without checking with DH and I that she needed to look at me and listen to me to have the serious conversation after the fact. She kept trying to brush it off and laugh it off and make light of it and move on, and I finally said, "I will never trust you around my children again if you don't look at me, take this seriously, and have this conversation with me."

She knew I meant it.

Wow! I can’t believe your DH didn’t talk to her.

He's been conditioned from childhood to accept her surface-level conversations with him as "we talked about this." When you don't make eye contact and try to brush things off, I know you're not taking it seriously. I don't buy that "we technically talked about it." You're going to look me in the eye and get serious, or you will literally never watch my kids without my direct supervision. Ever.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This wasn't an all-out confrontation with shouting, etc., but I did tell my MIL and her boyfriend that he wasn't welcome at my house until he could stop saying racist and homophobic things. I am not white and neither are my children. He now comes to visit, but aside from laying on the couch and watching Fox News all day long, keeps his racist thoughts to himself.

I never understood this. If you visited them, would he be OK with you watching MSNBC? I doubt it. So why let him get away with this at your place?

Because Fox News has news programs and opinion programs. MSNBC is all opinion.

Uh huh. you keep telling yourself that.

Also, "I watch Fox for the hard news" must be the modern day equivalent of "I get Playboy for the articles." No one believes you, and it makes you sound ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This wasn't an all-out confrontation with shouting, etc., but I did tell my MIL and her boyfriend that he wasn't welcome at my house until he could stop saying racist and homophobic things. I am not white and neither are my children. He now comes to visit, but aside from laying on the couch and watching Fox News all day long, keeps his racist thoughts to himself.

I never understood this. If you visited them, would he be OK with you watching MSNBC? I doubt it. So why let him get away with this at your place?

Because Fox News has news programs and opinion programs. MSNBC is all opinion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This wasn't an all-out confrontation with shouting, etc., but I did tell my MIL and her boyfriend that he wasn't welcome at my house until he could stop saying racist and homophobic things. I am not white and neither are my children. He now comes to visit, but aside from laying on the couch and watching Fox News all day long, keeps his racist thoughts to himself.

I never understood this. If you visited them, would he be OK with you watching MSNBC? I doubt it. So why let him get away with this at your place?

Because as long as it's not overly offensive, I am not going to dictate to my guests what they watch. Anyway, it also shuts him up and keeps him occupied and no one pays him any mind.

My sister is a difficult person to get along with. That's putting it nicely. I won't go into all the details, but the biggest issue with her is she likes to tell other people how to live their lives, and she's very aggressive about it. Our big confrontation was when she went on a rant about our trans cousin. She thinks trans people are just gay and in denial. I defended our cousin and told her to mind her own business. She got heated and punched me in the arm. Haven't spoken to her since. Once you get physical, I'm done.