Couch 78: Put your feet up and stay a while

Oh mkic, what a j e r k. Sounds like what he would really like to do is urinate everywhere to mark his territory.

MKAC...

Is it possible to invite FILs relatives to your house for dinner?

Have you been able to explain to your favorite relatives what is going on? Is it possible that the next time they are in town they could stay at your house? I would imagine that if I were them I would be uncomfortable now that she has a new man in her life.

Our house is tiny and MIL's borders on a mansion. There really is not room at our house for additional people to sleep. And I really love spending time with my MIL also. Getting her out of his clutches is getting harder and harder. He tries to make her feel guilty for every minute she spends with us without him. When I am making plans to meet her for lunch or dinner with the family, I can hear him in the background asking in this very whiny or angry tone, "well what am I going eat? What am I going to do?"

She pays for everything, but he has started doing things like rearranging where she keeps things so she has to ask him where things are, AND he has started keeping food that SHE BUYS that he likes to eat up on really high shelves where she cannot reach it. She has to ask him to get it down for her and then he pretends not to hear her and just gets some for himself. I cannot fathom why the **** she is putting up with this ****.

Mkac - i guess i am not understanding what the problem is. The parents of the young daughter can protect her from the SO trying to hug her. If need be, you can run interference if the SO tries to engage with your D after an initial polite (but distant ie hands-off) greeting. Are you saying this situation is more than can be handled by etiquette? Ive been hanging around a wedding website and they use etiquette a LOT bless their hearts! but it does help sometimes to defuse situations. That said, i have had creepy uncles (one - no make that two in particular) consistently grope me at parties and i wish i had had someone to defend and protect me.

Personally I would rather sleep on sleeping bags under the dining room table than stay in a mansion feeling uncomfortable.... But that may just be me...

The problem from my perspective is that my D refuses to be around the SO. So if he is around, she will refuse to go into the city to see the relatives, or if she goes, then she doesn't talk to the guy and won't be in the same room with him and MIL gets angry at her and at me (for not forcing her to speak). So I feel like I have to choose between forcing D to go and talk to someone who is rude and horrible, leaving D at home, or just not seeing these people I adore. It is not a HUGE problem in the overall scheme of things, I grant you, but I find it upsetting and it reinforces this thing that always happens in my life -- that somehow everything is always my fault.

MKAC... it may be sort of harsh to do but when your mil starts up with her complaining to you could you just say to her. "You know what the solution is to this situation. IF YOU want to spend time with your granddaughter...that is within YOUR control. YOU are the one letting some man dictate YOUR decisions."

but it really does suck...considering how much you love your mil and how wonderful your fil was that you and your h cant do anything but sit back and watch your mil make bad choices.

Cool whip will do that to a girl.

Then i think etiquette says she says hi, then goes to another room and talks to other relatives or whatever. She is not always going to get her way in life, where she gets to not be around obnoxious people. Geez - then she couldn't even stand to be on the couch here! Where the benefits FAAAAAAAAAR outweigh the bads! We have Cool Whip!!

MKAC - I hope you know it is not all your fault. D shouldn't be forced to deal with a creepy associate (I won't call him a relative). What a jerk.

MKAC none of this is your fault at all. no your daughter does not have to put up with having to be around anyone who makes her uncomfortable no one ever does. shame of your MIL for allowing this creepy guy to dictate her relationship with her granddaughter . I like what ready has to say about what you should say to her when she complains. I don't care if the guy is santa clause if your daughter is uncomfortable with spending time with him .it doesn't happen . why should your daughter be sacrificed because of the relationship your MIL chooses to have with this creepy freeloader

today I went and cleaned out the mothers safe deposit box . I am tired of paying for it for her. so I have a huge pile of papers sitting here and I am scared to go through them for fear that I might find more horrible legal stuff from my past .

She can say hello and then avoid him, I agree. However, I disagree with you entirely about whether she has a choice about whether to be around obnoxious people. YOU, of all people, don't get to say that she should have to tolerate noxious, unhealthy people. When someone is truly toxic, a person is allowed to cut the toxic person entirely out of their lives. That is what you have done with your family, right? Why should my D not have that right also?

looking up plain tickets to FL .just got the news that the mothers bladder cancer is back and is going in for surgery on the 16th. grrrrrr am I insane I just want to know

I would love to see my family, but it hurts me to do so. That is the judgment i am making. I dont see how seeing the SO would hurt your daughter. It just sounds like you and or she are judging him and or your MIL and trying to force the MIL's hand into dropping the SO. Then D would return. I would return to my family based not on THEIR changing, but on MY being able to tolerate them just as they are. That is what t and i are working towards. But seeing them now would set me back. As does their calling me "every so often just because".

not trying to argue, just trying to spell out how it is for me. Then maybe you can counter your MIL's statements. "It hurts D and me to see you kowtow". Cuz it kinda sounds like when you say you have to give up wanting what you wanted from h. Thats why it feels like your fault. Its like she is saying, she puts up with crud from SO, why shouldnt you? Yeah, i would want to strangle her. Its hostile.

I get it now. After i send the" rainbow unicorns" to my mother's, i'll send them to the SO's

So... This morning I send an email to t.. Told him that h left our appointment yesterday, I had this urge to not come back and that things felt weird/different. Fast forward to this afternoon, h and were in Target.. Walking around in the school supply section, and T's son literally runs into me! I look up and I see T's daughter and wife. I say hi (remember we know each other from school) and make small talk, sure enough t rounds the corner as I stop talking to them, and go into aisle that I need... He looks at me and smiles at me.

There you go.. Email your t and tell you don't want to come back to him and you'll run into while school shopping!

Leaving D at home sounds like the answer.

MIL seems to be saying "Everyone I love must love each other" Which is a fairly common delusion.

Many of the characters in this story are really saying, "Prove you love me most." I myself am often like that.

The love-love-hate triangle is very common in real life but it is largely missing from our literature. Or maybe I just avoid books about dysfunctional families.

Madame T said it is "sibling rivalry", which is just a useless label that doesn't solve anything. Or perhaps she simply meant that it is inevitable and there's nothing you can do.

At least you can get around - whole expressways are under construction here! I mean literally! Not building new ones - reconstructing old ones. Its mind-blowing! My mind is blown! I dont know HOW they expect to get it all put back together. Im sure this is a metaphor for something in my life...

Our golden(Oliver) got a pack of Hall's cough drops off my night stand last night and devoured everything but the wrapper.
He also ate the ear pieces, a nose piece, and one of the lenses from my glasses.
So at five o'clock this AM, I retrieved the crate from the garage, assembled it, and put him in it. I was lucky enough to get an optometrist appt this afternoon, as my spare glasses are old and almost useless.

Omg!!! Did you call the vet?? I mean, im sorry about your glasses, but that does sound a little dangerous. And to paraphrase Prissy, i dont know nuthin bout poopin puppies...

Hankster, we just found the lens, so the rubber ear pieces and the nose piece shouldn't cause him too much discomfort. And I have calmed down a tad, so all is good.

One of my dogs had a thing for glasses when he was younger. He is 5 now and has mostly grown out of it. But it is both annoying (aghh - my glasses - I need them to see) and scary (what if he ate some part that is going to poke through his intestines).

Its amazing what dogs can pass though. When we first got our dog he had been abandoned in a timber yard and for the first week or so would only eat wood. It all passed through fine, he now has a steady diet and good health. Though I think his eyesights going.

Hey y'all...Let's get this party started...
lol.
Wazzup All? (SD: What's new?)
I saw this pic on FB and it made me think of yous guys, so I figured I'd pop in for a second and say hey. I have not kept up with the forums, so I don't have a clue what's going on in anyone's life.
Here in Wikiland: We lost our older dal Lex, that was so incredibly hard. We have Sadie and Dot. Dot is just a foster, but at 5 months old a handful. Big handful. And Sadie has become the older mature dog..funny how time changes things. Physically I am holding my own. Mentally I'm okay, feels weird to say that but I am mostly stable.

Anyways....the pic (hey granite, when did you pose for this? lol):