About this site. . .
You have found an archive of the MMSL Forum, which shut down on December 27, 2016. You can continue these discussions on this forum
Categories
- 10.9K All Categories
- 23 The New Forum 101
- 8 Moments of Zen
- 915 Introduce Yourself
- 671 911 Relationship ER
- 2.7K Married Life
- 2.1K Running the MAP
- 743 1. Fitness, Food and Health
- 96 2. Money and Material Stuff
- 304 3. Displaying High Value - Men
- 728 3. Displaying High Value - Women
- 200 4. Building Relationship Comfort
- 52 5. Personality and Preferences
- 406 6. High-Energy Sex
- 513 Singles
- 45 Faith and Spirituality
- 1.3K Off Topic
Comments
So tonight after I put my son to bed, I walk into the bedroom and say: "okay, we're going to have a little chat. I'm sorry that our anniversary didn't go the way you wanted it to; but I'm not going to tolerate you insulting me, telling me I need to grow a pair and then the very next day just pretend that never happened and wish you a happy anniversary.
I told her the things that she brings up to me about my mom are well within reason for her (wife) to deal with directly. I'm not going to take reports on how she doesn't cover her food in the microwave and grabs handfuls of teddy grahams (one of my son's snacks) while I'm not home and then go and scold my mom about it. I'm not the cookie police. If I'm present and I see something happen, I'll say something, but I repeat : I'm not the cookie police.
"It's not my place, she's YOUR mother!" she tells me.
I tell her I can't control my mother's actions and that if she wants my mom to come out of her room and watch our son whIle she cleans, she needs to go and ASK my mom to come out and watch our son - otherwise she will net the same results that she's been getting all along from hoping that my mom reads her mind.
I also brought up my mom's helping out cooking dinner, I asked if she wanted my mom to cook 3 nights a week like she had been, since last time she (my wife) complained that my mom's meals were costing us more money and Yada Yada Yada (BS - the meals were costing right about the same as my wife's. I responded with - okay, well we can work on her using the sales add to plan her meals. Do you want the help or not? You can't complain about not having her help, then complain about having her help.
She mentioned giving my mom a timeline for moving out of the house, which I agreed I needed to do (again, more on this later).
Then I brought up smoking and driving.
I told her I can't take her health concerns seriously if she chooses to continue smoking - she has a family history of heart disease and for her to light up a cigarette 30 minutes after coming home from the emergency room dumbfounded me. She quit before and she needs to do it again.
She apparently just bought some nicotine patches and hadn't mentioned them to me yet, nor started them yet. I told her that was great
The driving - I said flat out that she needs to work on it. I said it's unreasonable for her to tell me that I need to take the day off to take our son to the dentist/doctor's appointments when she's home and my mom is available to drive them. (She doesn't want to "deal" with my mom - this objection will more than likely conveniently temporarily subside the next chance they have an opportunity to go clothes shopping using my mom's deep discounts.)
She is tired of "everybody bringing it up" and harping on her about it. When asked the last time I brought it up - she responded that the last time my aunt came down to visit - "wait a minute, that's my aunt, that's not me. The last time I brought it up to you, you were still pregnant. "
She brings up anxiety and how she needs medication for it, but we don't have the money to go to the doctors. (Which I reminded her about the multiple thousands of dollars I shelled out for an emergency room visit, gynecologist visit and ultrasound, etc. For her breast lump (turned out to be benign) none of which I attacked her over, so telling me we don't have the money or I'm unwilling to spend it is not gonna cut it)
I could go on and on, but basically, I'm a cold -hearted asshole who only brings up her faults. She broke the glass off our wedding vows framed in the bedroom wall, cleaned it up and left the house on foot for about 30-45 minutes, then came back, grabbed a blanket and pillow and is sleeping in our son's room.
For what it's worth, I made it clear I only wanted to see progress. I've waited 5 years and have seen nothing but backsliding.
I'll post about the issues with my mother later.
I'm somewhat uncomfortable with how numb I am feeling about this current situation.
I believe she was taken off all work and other restrictions from her back surgery in July. She was back to work full time and out of the house 40 hours a week. I noticed a trend of her just going to work and coming home and pretty much just sitting in her room. I implemented a policy that she needs to cook 3 times per week to relieve my wife. She comes up with the meal ideas and I'll buy the ingredients. It was going OK for about a month, but she would need to be constantly prodded to come up with her meal ideas for the weekly shopping trip. Annoyingly enough, she even made a comment "Well, I don't really want to cook after I get off work..." saying she'd rather cook on her 2 days off. I didn't let that fly, but the comment was made, wife heard and was (rightfully) annoyed by it.
Even after my mother was consistently helping with the cooking, my wife would start complaining that her meals cost us too much, and that she was bound by a budget (that I never actually set, I merely told her to cool it on convenience items like those stupid instant oatmeal packets) and that my mom just picked whatever (while I didn't run the numbers, I am reasonably certain that the cost per meal was about the same between the two of them.)
Eventually my mom had gained unwanted weight from being mostly sedentary and grazing on my son's teddy grahams and whatnot, so about a month ago my mom declares that she wants to cut carbs for a week and when we're creating the grocery list, I ask her what she would like to add to the list and she in turn requests to come with us shopping. She starts picking out her stuff - organic ground beef
I say : "no, we're not getting that, you can get regular ground beef"
"but it's just for me"
"you can get regular ground beef. "
This goes on with a couple more items; ready to eat microwavable bacon, for example.
"We have plenty of bacon in the fridge, I'm not buying that. "
That was on a Saturday. Monday comes and I get home from work and find 3 packages at the front door for my mom. A pair of shoes, an exercise bike and a bottle of perfume. I had been aware of the exercise bike being ordered - she wanted it to help regain strength in her back. I should have shut that down prior to this; but I became indignant when I saw all three of these things ordered at once, all the while she can't afford to buy her own groceries for her diet whims.
I pulled her aside and said: "I need to talk to you about your financial situation. Are you/have you been putting money aside for your eventual move into your own place? This is not a retirement home."
In a nutshell, she responded in tears that she was set back by being out of work, and that the money she used to purchase those things were from her father's inheritance/
Retirement fund she pulled out when she quit her job last year with no fallback plan. If I wanted more money per month, she'd give it to me but she honestly can't afford it.
"If you have to pull money out of your retirement account funds, you cannot afford to purchase these things"
She ended up returning the exercise bike. The shoes were for work so whatever. I didn't force her to return any of it. I did discover that the bIke cost around $250, which made me even more irate that she would think it's okay to buy in her situation.
She sulked for about a week and after she was done with her carb-cutting diet she hasn't gone back to helping cook, nor have I pushed it because of my wife's previous complaints.
Wife also complains that my mom just sits in her room all day, doesn't even offer to help watching our son, but will emerge after I get home to "put on a show" and play with my son and offer to help me if wife doesn't feel well enough to cook dinner or whatever. I don't ask for help, she just offers. I am always annoyed by it, actually, but I'll let her help by cooking sometimes because she's just plain better at it than me. This doesn't happen very often.
I tell my wife point blank, every time. If she wants help from my mom, she can ASK. I cannot control my mom's habits and I can't force her to be suddenly more thoughtful. Nor can my mom read my wife's mind.
The response is ALWAYS "I shouldn't have to ask/ it's not my place, she's your mother"
And still, my wife will happily chat it up with my mom in spite of this seething resentment. As if she just wants me to be the bad guy and correct any behavior she doesn't like so she can enjoy having a human interaction without rifts caused by her. I refuse to be the G-D cookie police!
In summary: yes I need to set a timeline for my mom to save up and move out, but I will not budge on this petty interaction issue.
Others may have pointed this out to you already, but it sounds to me like you married someone who is very much like your mother.
What I an unwilling to do is take a laundry list of pet peeves my wife has compiled during the day and counsel my mother.
"Hey mom, can you occasionally pop your head out of the room during the day and ask my wife if she would like you to watch your grandson for a little bit? "
Or
"I understand you've been eating my son's cookies that are meant for his snack time, please stop" (read as : "my wife is annoyed that you eat my son's cookies and so she asked me to tell you to stop") to me, that just seems like a huge DLV.
My wife can simply say : "hey, I need to get X done, can you please watch him for a little bit? "
Your wife may lack the personal confidence or skills to deal with this head-on, and she probably doesn't want to damage the relationship with your mother. Thus the swings between irritation expressed to you and laughing with MIL. You get the irritation because she can tell you and frankly, I suspect she's disappointed in you.
You have a chance to captain this that you're missing. You don't focus on the minutiae (number of cookies), but the overall interaction/setup. And you can tell your mom that your wife is reluctant to talk to her directly, but encourage her to draw her out more. At the same time, you can encourage your wife to make requests while you're there and she feels supported. It sounds like things go well when you're there -- how do you help make that happen when you're not?
(It sounds like your wife has some major issues that could also use captaining, and I'm not minimizing or excusing those.)
And, if you really want to swing for the fences say "sorry mom, I can't have some entitlement princess hanging around here all day that isn't pulling their weight", and make sure to say it in front of your wife.
The only cure for laziness is accountability.
- Your wife is screaming for you to love her. You are changing, and she's worried, I don't see ANY relationship comfort here.
- When she "complains" about you working too much on projects - I hear her saying "I miss you - do you still love me?". Your completely factual answer - JUSTIFYING yourself - is wrong. I would be trying to understand her emotion. You don't have to agree with her facts - but try to talk to her in her language for a while.
- You are supposed to be the captain! If one member (your mum) isn't helping another member (your wife) then it's up to YOU to straighten that out. As you said - you don't go to your mum with a list of complaints - but you DO go to her with YOUR request. "Mum: part of the agreement of you living here is that you help out. I expect you to help <wife> if she needs it". This is a phase 4 on your mum - "put in or get out".
- You tell your wife that she needs to stop smoking and start driving. Are you going to assist? Do you have a loose plan to help her start? Do you have a set time? What happens if she doesn't? YOU ARE THE CAPTAIN - so lead her!
I'm far from an expert in MMSL / MAP but I am an expert (sadly) in MIL drama.
@JellyBean makes a very good point; I agree with her.
You might consider things this way. As First Officer your wife should have rank (for lack of a better term) over your mother. Establish this fact to your mom and be sure she understands that your wife asking her for help is tantamount to the request coming from you. Then the stage is set for your wife to directly ask for your mom's help with confidence that things will progress smoothly. I know I'm making an assumption here, but, I'm willing to bet if your wife asks for help it's unlikely your mom is pleasant and agreeable.
In the early days you'll both ikely get pushback from mom. It will actually be helpful to take your wife's laundry list of grievances and bring them up to her. I understand that will be tedious, but, it will reinforce to your mom that a request from wife is a request from you. Plus, then everyone in the house knows you have your wife's back.
Edited to correct a run on sentence and grammar error.
I completely sympathize with your wife's struggle and i understand why she feels like sulking toward you. The thing about being sah is not hard work but rather the repetitiveness of the everyday tasks and feeling trapped in an endless circle of baby duty-housework. and in your wife's case it is worse because she is practically trapped without her being able to drive somewhere when she need to catch a break from the house. So believe me when i say that she kinda sees you being home as a sign that she can be relieved from that sahm duty (she didnt feel that she is relieved of her duty when your mom is home, probably because she cant ask anything of her or doesnt feel that she can completely trust your mom to take care of baby). Hence with you not being able to make it home early as promised, or not having the weekend to yourselves which she've supposed you would (in some previous posts that you mentioned), and i'm not saying this is anyone's fault here, she will feel disappointed that you've "let her down" (in a sense?).
I understand that you work very hard to support your family, but try to appreciate her tending your home and raising your baby by verbally letting her know you appreciate the things she does. By acknowledging her struggle at home, she will be more understanding toward yours at work. There is one of your posts in which you said that when your wife complains about not being able to nap and you always tell her that you dont get nap either. I feel like in that context you arent sympathizing with her (which is what she might want to hear from you), it feels more like you are saying that you have the same problem so dont come whining about it. That kind of exchange is a conversation-killer for me; i would shut down from wanting to share my thoughts and my activities of the day as well as wanting to hear about the other person's. Have you read men are from mars women are from venus? Give it a try, im sure you will be able to understand and justify some, if not most, of your wife's reactions.
Another thing that you can do to steer yourself off from her center of hostility is maybe encourage her to have friends over, or to have friends take her and the baby out for meals sometimes, or make friend with the neighbours (unless your neighbours live miles away). That way she will not see you as the sole source of fun and relief, and be less dependent of your driving and less critical about your presence at home. Try baby pooling with another sahm; to me it was great as i was able to get a lot of things done while i knew my baby was well taken care of by another mom, and we sahm got a lot of emotional support from each other.