If you have been around long enough, you know that my mother in law and I have lots of drama. Husband and I have been together since November of 1998. That would be over 13 years. I believe the drama started in September of 1999. Prior to that we both lived in PA and she was in TN. In the fall of 99 husband moved to TN to go to school and I went to school about three hours north of there. Since husband had not been around that part of his family (two sisters, mother, stepdad and half brother) for anything more than a week since he was eleven, he wanted to get to know them. A pretty noble thing for a 17 year old to do. Um, live at “home” with your family instead of head off to college. But since he hadn’t really had a normal family unit since he was eleven, it was a chance for him to have a normal family.
Once he moved there, his mother started encouraging him to meet up with various people. Various female people.
Then came the drama of me coming to visit. He had to get a job because there was no financial support from his family, so it was often me that came to visit him. There was drama in regards to me spending the nite at their house. I am just going to say once and for all – if teenagers want to have sex, spending the nite together is not when it has to happen. Let’s also take note of the hypocrisy in regards to my MIL and step FIL’s wedding date of February 14th, 1995. My brother in law was born on July 13th, 1995. Pretty sure he was full term.
There were issues with his one sister stealing my stuff and when I said something about it to husband and he told his mother, she told me if I wanted to accuse her of those type of things that I wasn’t welcome to stay there anymore. Please note that this is the sister that was pregnant less than six months later at the age of 15. And that they suspected her of drug use. And that she frequently stole items from the other sister.
Moving on.
Post college we moved into a two bedroom house across town. A bunch of our stuff was stored in their house from June until September when we moved. They literally sat in the house while we loaded things into our vehicles and made multiple trips across town but did not offer to help for whatever reason. I believe that they came to visit us a few months after we moved in. Perhaps our living in sin? Please see paragraph three for pot calling kettle.
Then we got engaged. New Zealand was our wedding location of choice – until MIL got wind of that and LOST HER SHIT. So we decided to get married in the US but not in TN (where we lived at that time) or PA (where we grew up). When we announced our decision to get married in the Yellowstone/Grand Teton area, she asked us why we would do that since there was nothing for them to do there. I know I am not the sharpest knife in the block, but I am pretty sure that is considered a tourist area. This is also known as not what she would have done for her own wedding which was uber classy at four months pregnant, in Las Vegas and on Valentine’s Day.
Wedding planning was horrific. We had a wedding planner that did a lot of the work for us since we were over 2500 miles away from the actual location. We told her things like red flowers – not roses and she ran with it. That was pretty much the extent of my crazy bridezilla. Honestly, husband handled lots and lots of it because I was afraid of doing something wrong. But again, I did something wrong because I didn’t share every detail with her. When I attempted to include her, things were miserable for me. I invited her and sister in law to come see my dress on the day that I ordered it. It was a peace offering of sorts to make her feel involved. You know what they spent the time doing? Well, let’s have SIL who was single with no prospects at the time try on some dresses. Happy special day to you Stephanie! At the same time my own mother couldn’t be there simply because of the distance. So that important moment felt really important.
We ended up having a sit down discussion with stepFIL, MIL, husband and I. I flat out said – I know you don’t like me and I don’t know why. I honestly don’t remember much of the conversation but I know that I spent the morning before the “meeting” in the bathroom at work getting sick because I was so nervous/upset. The jist of it came to this. She is the kind of person that is use to her daughters sharing every single life detail with her. I mean in the sense that I have seen both of his sisters and his mother naked and they tell each other about their sex lives. I did not grow up in a family that shares that kind of thing, so it makes me uncomfortable. So basically I spent this meeting apologizing for not being who she wanted me to be.
They missed our wedding rehearsal due to stopping for something to eat on their way to the cabin that we rented for both of our immediate families. But when we all got back to the cabin after the rehearsal, they were all sitting there chilling as they had been there for a few hours. Hmmm. Thanks for making that moment special too. They left the day after our wedding and spent an entire three days, including travel time, in the Grand Teton area.
I skipped the part about how she invited random people to my bridal shower hosted by a good friend. Random people as in someone I had never met. She also sent an email to the entire family listing their faults after the wedding telling us each what was wrong with us and that she really thinks she was depressed after the wedding not being what she had hoped. BTW, her husband is fat and my husband/her son only thinks about himself, her one daughter is a spoiled brat and the other is lazy and going to waste her life if she doesn’t get on track. I’ll just gloss over the words that she had for me. I don’t know how my husband ever became focused on taking care of himself when she left him at eleven and moved to Kentucky. I think it could have been that his father was a full fledged alcoholic and he pretty much raised himself.
Six months later we moved back to PA and it was better. Really and truly nine hours apart better. We even managed to stay in a house together for five days for my SIL’s wedding and then spend four days together one year at Christmas. Then I got pregnant and it seemed like things were getting even better. In part, my sister noted, because I wasn’t just the wife of her son any more but now I was the holder of her grandchild.
Since I only have a little bit of time, I have to stop at that point for nwo. But don’t worry, I am so upset that the rest of the story will come shortly.
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