Want to hear a story? Found a blast from the past in my email archives.

I recently found the following email that I sent to a friend and confidente 15 years ago, and it offered quite the reminder of what typical scenarios with my MIL have always been like. This was before we went VLC. For the sake of continued healing from the crazymaking of my JNMIL, and for a little entertainment, I thought I’d copy and paste it here to be dissected. The following was the email:

You know ****, I keep trying to give MIL the benefit of the doubt, I really do. I treat her with love and kindness because that is how I wish to treat her. But seriously, the woman drives me mad. She blew into town last night with the biggest sense of entitlement I’ve seen her display in a long time. If I had ANY doubt this woman shows signs of narcissism before, I certainly have none now.

DH has told her twice in the last two weeks that we’re going to be busy on the weekends until the beginning of July. She’s been coming to see us rather often these past two months and we want a break from her. In fact he talked to her on Friday and, on a hunch, told her not to come and see us because both he and DS#1 are sick this weekend and need the rest. So who shows up on our doorstep last night? What are the first words out of her mouth?

“So are you going to feed me supper or what!”

I admit, we didn’t have our shields up as we weren’t expecting her and she just kind of walked all over us. DH, who should have been in bed resting, made her supper, which she never uttered so much as a thank you for. We all visited with her and entertained her.

She brought me roses. But get this….she had given me a full five seconds to take note and when I didn’t immediately see them she huffed and puffed about it and got upset. Then she hovers over me as I cut the tips and put them into a vase. “I bought them old because they were cheaper. Just peel the brown petals off. Don’t they smell beautiful? I picked them because I thought they were gorgeous. Aren’t they pretty colors. They’ll only last you a couple days because they’re so old so you’d better enjoy them. Didn’t I do a good job picking them? Aren’t they lovely?” Then every single time she passed the table where I put them, for hours on end, she would say, “Wow DIL, someone got you beautiful flowers. Aren’t you special. I did a good job didn’t I. (A statement, not a question). Wow someone in this room sure is nice. Aren’t I a nice person?” It was exhausting. Hour after hour after hour she kept giving herself compliments and expected me to agree with her…all the while touting her own supreme eminence and ability.

Then she showed me photos from her camera and again complimented herself and expected me to agree with her. “Don’t I take such nice photos of the mountains! I take really great pictures. Do you want to see them again. Didn’t I do a wonderful job?”

She plopped a form in front of me and ordered me to fill it out. It was a draw for a new bed. I so did not have my radar on and I just blindly complied with her order. I keep kicking myself for that. She told me to fill it out and give it back to her, which I did. Then later DH comes in the room and asks what this order form is for. I’m standing right there and she totally lies to him and says, “DIL wanted it and she’s going to put it in the mail.” I threw it out as soon as she left.

Then she hands me this flyer and orders me to read it. Literally, “read it NOW!” Stupid me just complies like a spineless simp. It offers a cure for a diabetes…both type 1 and type 2. Now I know there are a lot of things that can help. Hey, I’ve been using the natural route for several years now, medication free. I believe there are many things that can reverse type 2, but this flyer was clearly a bunch of baloney. “An aloe vera plant simply sitting in your window will cure type 1 diabetes.” Uhmm…last I heard you actually need a new pancreas to cure type 1. I don’t think a single aloe plant in your window is going to make you completely disease free. But she’s chattering in the background that I need this book and I need to rip out the order form and send it in. That too went in the garbage when she left after DH looked at it and confirmed exactly what I thought…”Wow..that’s the biggest piece of garbage I’ve read in a long time!”.

She hated my long hair. She really, really hated it and didn’t fail to tell me so. So DH pointed out to her that while she’d been criticizing me for not having noticed her roses in the first five seconds, she hadn’t noticed the hair cut at all. She turned to the boys and touched their hair. “I did too notice. Their cuts look wonderful.” “The boys didn’t get their hair cut mom, I was talking about DIL.” She stared at me, cocked her head from side to side, made an expression with her mouth that one would make when smelling something completely terrible and proceeded to spend the next half hour arguing that I couldn’t possibly have had 8 inches cut off the length. She was upset that DH pointed out that she’d missed something so she argued until she’d convinced herself that I was lying about getting a hair cut. It was so bizarre.

As the evening wore on she gets up off the sofa, starts pacing around and then barks, “So are you inviting me to stay the night after all the way I’ve come or are you just going to throw me out!” Our kids got upset with her and told her that they had BOTH asked her several times since she arrived if she was staying and she wouldn’t answer them. She mumbled that she hadn’t heard them and then added, “I just want to hear it from your mom and dad that THEY want me to stay.” To his credit DH came up behind her, faced her in the direction of the door and pretended to boot her backside. Unfortunately she didn’t get the hint and stayed the night.

This morning the tornado that is my MIL blew out just as she’d blown in, leaving us no clue as to why she came in the first place after we’d told her no twice. Her last words included a glance toward the living room where she noted out loud that her presence couldn’t have been intrusive as she had barely left a trace that she’d ever been here.

DH called her the next night in an effort to re-establish some previously set boundaries that she is blatantly overstepping. You know DH. He’s calm and collected, doesn’t raise his voice, mildly but firmly states his case. MIL knows that tone in his voice and immediately said, “What have I done this time?” Not two words in she burst into tears and took the conversation in 10 different wildly emotional directions. What was a simple, completely non-emotional reminder of a previously set boundary caused her, as always, to wildly over react and state every grievance she’s ever had with him, belittle him, etc. He tries to keep her on track, bringing her back to the point but she darts around all over the place, bubbling over like a drop of water in a red hot skillet.

He said to her at one point, “You seem to think that because you voluntarily contributed financially to our budget for groceries that you then get a say in how we live our lives, that it entitles you to a measure of control of our lives, even though you’ve offered this money freely.”

She responded with, “Well, that’s because that’s exactly what my contributions entitle me to!”

He firmly said, “NO! You are wrong. You do NOT get a say in our lives. You do NOT get control.”

Typically, just as you called it and just as DH knew she would do, she sobbed, “Well then maybe I’ll just stop giving you anything!” Her voice trailing off…expecting this to have the effect she wanted.

She got extremely upset when DH replied, “Yes, maybe that is exactly what you should do.”

“No!” She yelled at him. “Your family would go hungry without me!” Severe overstatement of actual facts.

DH then asked her why she would come and see us when he told her twice not to come. She claimed he never told her that. She asked him why he didn’t just tell her not to come. Now…does that sound confusing to you? Haha. He told her that she made it extremely uncomfortable and difficult to say no when she just showed up on our step, demanded to be let in and demanded to stay. “You knew we were sick and in bed….and to you that means come anyway…while we’re sick…and demand to stay?” She told him that he could have said no and told her to leave at any time.

He responded with, “Good. Expect that. From now on. Because I’m planning on using it frequently.”

He told me that during one particular lull in the conversation he asked her what on earth her beef is with my hair. “What on earth was THAT all about? You stood there arguing with my wife and called her a liar…over a haircut?”

She got mad all over and said, “Well yes. THAT just BLEW my mind! Eight inches off her hair. Yeah right! Totally BLEW my mind!”

That confused DH so much. He said, “DIL said she got eight inches off during a hair cut. Her hair dresser said she cut eight inches off. What is there about that to blow a persons mind?”

“Well it blew mine. I just don’t believe it!”

Ok … so there’s some catharsis to posting the email chronicles out in the open air.