Thanks But No Thanksgiving

I stopped inviting my husband's very elderly parents years ago. The first time they said they wouldn't come because they said Thanksgiving is a Gentile (not Jewish, but Christian) holiday. We all know it is an American holiday, but they don't. The next time they said they wouldn't come because they were on a diet.

I cried and cried. My husband should have called his parents and told them 'get yourselves here and be a part of your family', but he didn't.

Ah, but there was yet another time they did come. That's the time my mother insisted on adding more seasoning on the turkey before I cooked it. She was going to town with loads of garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika. My husband told her to stop over seasoning it because his parents were coming and had to eat a low sodium diet. "Wham!" My mom threw the turkey into the sink and said "I'm outta here!" More tears, etc...

Post Turkey Stress Disorder! lol

Have you ever thought about going on a vacation for the holiday (with whomever you want to take along?) I am so sorry you have to deal with this kind of behaviour!

If it makes you feel better me and ex had my family over for Mother's Day one year ( we hosted every freaking holiday) pretty much to honor my mom and all other moms ( my ex's mom just passed right before that and we wanted to honor her also my brother and sister in law just adopted a kid so there was a lot to honor), my dad picked a fight at the table about what kind of holiday is Mother's Day and why are we celebrating it and how is this even important and why if a woman isn't a mother. And what is special about mothers?

He was very agitated. My brother asked him to stop and the omg it started world war 3. He didn't speak to us for like 6 months after lol

I hate holidays. My ex and I started to go away for all major holidays after that. The best was thanksgiving in Vegas. So fun. And for Mother's Day I bought my mom and me theater tickets and we went to shows every year since.

We aren't together anymore but remained on good terms. Before big holidays we still laugh about avoiding them because we had years of night mare.

His family is even worse ( we had to go to his daughters parents in-law house sometimes for holidays and everybody there was very drunk lol it was tough as I don't drink and all they served was pork. I am Jewish and he is Muslim and everyone knew that, still they only served pork. Lol

Did I say I hate holidays????! Lol lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, we went away last year, just us and the kids. It was really nice.

The father disrespecting mothers on Mother's Day-- that's a good one. You have to wonder what's behind something like that, whacky.

I am trying to teach myself that people will not act like I think reasonable people are supposed to act, and they do not think well of me no matter what I do. Maybe this will help me stop being so overly sensitive about the hurt.

I've been concerned that I must have an emotional disorder because I get very upset by people's truly unreasonable behavior.

Anyway, it's been really nice chatting with the very reasonable and wise people here.

I'll tell you right now that I refuse to let Thanksgiving or any of the holidays mean anything to me from now on. I've spent my whole life with " family members " on these days. The best and most memorable was when I was a kid , and when my two girls were young and my wife used to cook.
Well in the last few years I've ' celebrated " the holidays in a room by myself. Abandoned by my so called family and the others from when I was young aren't here anymore. I have a lot of good memories , and some bad ones.

Now that I'm single and alone I can really do whatever I want. I don't even have to worry about getting a phone call. Maybe a hotdog and movie ? Christmas is too commercial. Man how the real meaning got lost somewhere. New Years ? I don't need "New Years" to celebrate a day in the life. Lets all get together , be merry , etc........just to go back to your own miserable self a short time after it's all over.

Thanks , but no thanks
P.S. Let it be known though that I am VERY GRATEFUL for many things , regardless of how I feel mentally about the "holidays".

I don't think you have disorder. I am usually upset about unreasonable stuff too. It's normal. Some people have issues and those issues come up the strongest during holidays. Like you mom or your in laws or my dad etc

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

YOU'RE MY LONG LOST TWIN! LOL

No disrespect here, but we are sisters in the truest sense! My mother is a nasty, controlling so & so...

I work on Thanksgiving every year so that takes care of that.

I've decided that it's me and my 2 college age daughters. They are going to an out of town wedding this year on the 24th of December, so that is that.

I plan on volunteering or helping serve dinner for those less fortunate than I.

No *****ing on my part. I've put some serious distance 'tween mother and I over the last 5 years.

This is her affair and hers alone. Don't let your mom push you. Stick to your guns...not easy to do, but it DOES get better with time.

HAPPY THANKGIVING TO YOUR FAMILY!!

I volunteered in homeless shelter every holiday last winter. Nobody bothered me.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I called last Friday and left a message. She never called me back. Didn't she learn a lesson from her friend who was not speaking to her son when he was killed on 9/11 in the World Trade Center?

I am writing this to help myself see things clearly and to help anyone else who suffers emotional abuse.
So it goes as usual...

Monday morning, Sister says Mom is in dire straits about running out of money. She says we all have to figure out a way to keep Mom from being put out on the street. (It's not entirely true)

Monday early evening, Mom puts Dad up to calling me and saying they need to speak to me. I say 'Is this about the money issue you've been discussing with my sister?'. Dad has no idea what I'm talking about. He says, 'actually Mom wants to talk to you'. I say 'Why didn't she call herself?'. He says 'She thinks you'd hang up on her'. I never hung up on her. Why would I hang up on her, especially after I called on Friday? So hurt that she is further insulting me, I defend myself and tell him I don't want to talk to her. But I call her a few hours later. I say 'Let's just act like nothing happened.'
She grumbles an OK.

True, they bring in less money than they lay out. True, they have been depleting their savings. They have been running out of money for a long time.

In all the conversations we have had about it, Mom insists on taking care of her problems by herself. There are steps they can take to improve their situation. She had insisted she does not want any money from her children.

Bringing it up was a rouse to deflect her bad behavior toward me!!!

If they were really going broke, why did she decide to spend a lot of money on gas and a lot of money in a bakery to over-take my Thanksgiving dinner?

Now she called me this morning as usual to gossip about a family member and act like nothing happened.

I MUST:
Keep a polite, interaction to a minimum.
Understand I will never get the love and respect I deserve.

If I decide to try to separate and never speak to her again, it will only cause me more pain.

Sadly, there is no good solution. Seeing it for what it is helps.

Also - your mother is a grown adult human being. If she gets into trouble financially, it is no one else's responsbility to bail her out. I assume this is something that hasn't just started, the spending more money than she makes, so she does have the ability to see if you spend more than you make, eventually you will end up in the hole. She knows she has to pay rent/mortgage, bills, etc. If she ends up in the street that is sad but it is not your or your sibling's responsibility to keep her from the street, because if she ends up there she does so because of repeated bad choices. If she wants help, she can ask for help and you can decide at that point whether or not to help.

Swooping in to keep her afloat without her asking is enabling behavior, and codependent. Are there alcoholics in the family? Both of my parents are Adult children of alcoholics so I found that the behavior carried on down to me and my sister even though neither of my parents drank.

Sometimes in life we have to pick the best of the available options, none of which may be very satisfying. It takes maturity to see that, and I commend you on your clear-sightedness in seeing that that is where you are at with your mother. Dealing with her will always be difficult and frustrating. There is always the "nuclear option" of terminating contact, but mature adults tend to reserve that for situations that absolutely can't be managed any other way. So you are resigned to continue "managing" as best you can, knowing that it takes an emotional toll on you, but so would ending all contact. I would call that: facing reality. Then, to top it off, instead of being an understanding and supportive ally in all this, your sister adds to the craziness with suggestions of inappropriate involvement in your parents financial situation. I don't envy you the challenge all this is to maintaining your sanity and figuring out how wide to keep the door open to these family members who will constantly be trying to suck you into their emotional chaos. No wonder you've emerged from this family background with the burden of depression. I think depression is often the product of having problems that seem unsolvable. As I started off saying, there seems to be no good and satisfying solution to the question of how to deal with your family of origin. So you recognize that and just do the best you can, knowing that there is always going to be threatening conflict.

Beyond coming to those discouraging conclusions, I think you work at "setting boundaries." This is a non-existent concept in the minds of your mother and sister, so you didn't grow up with that skill role-modeled for you. Plus, they seem pretty talented at demolishing boundaries. You have quite a task on your hands.

With practice, we can improve at anything. By all means, do completely ignore your sister's proposal that you get all up inside of your parents economic situation. Your sister sounds like a great example of what not to do. Sometimes, when people talk, the best response is no response. Always remember you have that option and you'll conserve a lot of energy. Otherwise these people will wear you out in no time. Getting you mentally exhausted is how they render you ineffective at protecting yourself. As I'm sure you know, depression depletes energy, so you don't have any to waste on total foolishness.

Another thing to bear in mind is that what seem like choices on your mother's part may not be. This is, perhaps, the only way she knows how to be. She probably grew up in a home with crazy dynamics, herself.

I hope you get through Thansgiving with some semblance of peace and harmony in your home, but that can be very hard to maintain when you're, basically, being invaded by a hostile force. Your mom has no concept of how to be a "guest." It might be good, if you could rig up actual locks on the doors to the kitchen, so you have a space to work in that you can keep her out of. Hooefully, you can get your husband to be on the same page with you and, maybe, he can help you enforce some house rules. It will be a challenge.

Boy the games we have to play with family , friends , etc....
Well , now that I'm alone after almost 40yrs of marriage , I can look at things from a objective perspective.
I've been abandoned by all of them. Even my own children. I was no saint but I didn't deserve this. All the birthdays ,all the holidays , the cooking ,the gifts , the love , the hate , the hurt ,the miscommunication ,the pain , the sorrow , the blood sweat and tears that go into a lifetime.

And you know what. In the end , none of it means ****.
A whole lifetime wiped out. Meaningless because all I cared about was how others felt.
Or maybe the times I was sick. What about the times I was healthy. Busted my *** to provide.
Yes I got a lot of good stuff out of it. Good feelings , being loved etc...

But at what price ? To eventually find out that I was just being used ?
Lied to. Mentally abused. Thrown away like a piece of trash ?
The only way I can move forward is to basically forget about the life I lived from
the day I was born up until now. 60 yrs. later.

The rest of my life is MINE . If you don't like me then just get out of my way.

I'm grateful for many things and think that there's a difference between being grateful and being thankful. Thanksgiving seems like the perfect opportunity for all the phonies to give thanks for all that they HAVE. Not gratitude for what they have but don't really deserve.

Like I always said , " you come in alone and you go out alone. "

Agreed. Definitely not a disorder to be bothered by people's bad behavior. The problem is that unreasonable behavior is becoming more and more acceptable. I blame reality TV, if you grow up thinking that it's perfectly acceptable to flip tables and throw drinks in people's faces it's an issue IMO.

My mom canceled Thanksgiving! I am trying not to chortle with glee. I had originally suggested that she invite my boyfriend and his mother since it didn't make sense to have two meals, one with three people and one with two. I thought this would be kind of a buffer. Well last night she was ON like full on 1000% drama queen. She almost started crying during dinner because my dad mentioned someone's stepson got married and there were photos of it on facebook and she went into "it must be nice to have a family!" Then she said "I miss my family so much."
I asked her if that was true, why did she refuse to go to her sister's 50th anniversary party? Something the entire extended family except mine was at - I almost went by myself but did not because I had prior plans. (Mom didn't tell me until just a few weeks before that my Aunt had invited me through her months prior.) I offered to drive her the six hours and to be a buffer since she was saying she couldn't go because there would be too many people she didn't know there and she hates strangers. Even though I'm not outgoing I said I would go and speak to people and be outgoing for her and she still refused. Now she's mad about those comments but I think I'd really rather have Thanksgiving alone anyway!

That was genuinely nice of you to offer to take her 6 hours away to be with family and help her break the ice. All you can do is offer. She sure manufactures a lot of her own misery.

Well goodness, I'm surprised you didn't start tracing out hand-turkeys and coloring little pilgrims right then! Nothing gets me in the mood for a holiday like an irate mother shouting obscenities into my ear.
I say invite her for Thanksgiving, but serve no food. Instead perform an excruciatingly long interpretive dance demonstrating the genocide of the Native Americans, followed by a tearful song lamenting the deaths of millions of turkeys.

In all seriousness, it was good of you to stand your ground.

Yes, DBT, you are there for your mom and she says she has no family.

True, why do holidays that honor and celebrate freedom or religion become these psychological showdowns that take on such distorted meanings?

love it! true!

serve no food. Instead perform an excruciatingly long interpretive dance demonstrating the genocide of the Native Americans, followed by a tearful song lamenting the deaths of millions of turkeys.

what about althimers? maybe shes got that? i don't want to stick up for her bad behavior but maybe she's losing it upstairs? just a thought

It's possible something like that is starting. She is so confrontational, getting into it with anyone and every one, people in stores and restaurants. I worry about her driving around town.

She's having physical health problems, so she's also really cranky because she's in pain.

But she won't let anyone help her. It's like she wants to do too much, like she wants to fight. She says the stress is killing her, but she brings it all on herself.

She is a master manipulator, and now her behavior is so self-centered and immature. I wish I could deal with her better.

If only I didn't have the problems that I bring on myself! I had been so depressed for the past few months, I could hardly get out of bed.

I'm sitting here eating myself up over this, while she ended up talking another family member into giving her money. After she moved on from the pointless fight with me, she told the whole family she had run out of money. So instead of changing her spending and making her situation better- she got bailed out.

Sounds like a person with a pretty sharp mind to me...

My father died unexpectedly on Thanksgiving at age 55. My brother found him. It is a hard holiday. I understand.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[QUOTE=rainyday107;4774083]My father died unexpectedly on Thanksgiving at age 55. My brother found him. It is a hard holiday. I understand.

I'm sorry for your loss. Having that happen on a day when the rest of the country is celebrating must make it even more painful.