MIL aftermath?

[donnalotus]

While I'm eternally grateful that I don't live in North Queensland, or well, Queensland in general, it still feels like I've been through the ringer in other areas.

Michael's mum's ability to take one or two quibbles from a massive email and find fault with it is absolutely astounding. She completely ignored my appeal to her more ... compassionate?...side and instead went the route of Michael must be telilng complete and utter lies about everything to do with her, and I need to sit down with him and get the truth. Uh yeah, ok. It was difficult even for ME to read the email, and he read through it first. It must be so heartbreaking to give up 15+ years of your life caring for someone who is so unbelievably ungrateful. He said to me last night "I've never heard her say one nice thing to me."

Gah.

I didn't really know what to respond to. Really. According to her she never came up with the idea to move in with us - as far as she's concerned she mentioned to Michael that she'd like a little more family support, and that led to the idea of moving to Victoria. But she was always apparently going to move into her own place, and have us just visit; she did initially start with that idea, but changed her tune when Michael said he wouldn't be around there every day waiting on her hand and foot. Then she came up with the idea of buying a place together, yet apparently that was Michael's idea and he made the suggestion.

She picked up on the one thing about Lodge that she can pick on (drumming) and said she was concerned about that as she can't have percussion around her because it exacerbates her condition. I know that. I even took my drum with me to Perth when I visited them a couple of Christmases ago.

But anyway. It's frustrating but I'm starting to really see the underlying energy here, which is she is feeling completely out of control and has no say in where we're going to live etc. So I spent some time placating through email talking about the houses and saying I think we'll find something really good in the right area, etc. etc.  She went and picked up on the one possible thing you could get "bad" out of that, which was certain areas of Lakes you don't want to live in because of them being rough areas etc. and now is like "Are you sure you want to move here?"

My answer. "Yes, it doesn't really matter where you go there's always going to be a part of town you avoid - but it's certainly a lot safer and less drug ridden than the city". Then I planted the idea that the best idea is getting the little 5 acre property where we won't have neighbours! heh. So we're leaving this afternoon to Lakes, I'm really looking forward to just getting away. I hope it warms up a bit so I can go swimming!

Feeling sick as right now, yoghurt didn't settle my stomach at all. I wanted BREAD but didn't have time to stop and pick up some on my way to work because school is back today and I didn't compensate for the extra 10-15mins it takes me to get to work because of the sheer volume of cars and buses back on the road for schools (parents taking kids to school, parents going back to work now holidays are over, etc etc) and it took me 20 minutes to drive about 1km once I got to Lilydale. Unfreakingbelievable. I love school holidays, it cuts like 10mins minimum off my drive.

Comments

[moonvoice]

:( Do you know what sort of resolutions you're looking for? Have you thought about not moving in with her? (I don't know if this is possible).

Sorry to hear that the yoghurt didn't help you. :(

[donnalotus]

Hmmmm. Well at this point I don't know what to do about her. I know that I won't be emailing her anymore because every single thing I said was twisted about. M is definitely right, people can't handle the Lodge when they're in the shadow. Now we're all a bunch of cult crazies apparently who are going to come and drum under her window and howl at the moon or something.

Here's a sample of tonight's madness: Start of phone call, she starts dramatising to Michael about how I'm going to force her to be a part of the family activities (which include making her cook for us) whether she wants to be a part or not, and all she wants is her privacy and to be left alone. Not 30 mins later she's dramatising that we're going to stick her down the end of the house and ignore her for the rest of her life and she's not welcome in our lives. How exactly do you counter that?

I'm of the mind that we really should pull out, I think this is all too much for her and she's hit a point of hysteria, however when Michael suggested that to her and told her she can pull out at any time and we won't be pissed off, she guilted him by saying it would cost her $12,000 to renege on the current offer. So yeah, she wants this to go ahead, she just wants us to kowtow (sp?) to her ever whim and do exactly what she wants.

I really hope I can just breathe this through and transform it. Hopefully when she sees we're not about to run out and put an offer on just any old house that's parked next to Aboriginal drunks (which is apparently also something we're going to do) she'll settle down a bit.

*sigh*

Mother in law from Hell huh?