2 My history with the in-laws: meeting the parents...

I almost forgot about ambush No. 2. DH's brother and his girlfriend invited us to have dinner at their place. I didn't know them, we had accidentally met once when they had parked their car near DH's apartment (they lived in another city and rarely visited DH). She was very unfriendly with me and was sizing me up as if I was an opponent to her. I found this invitation kind of strange, but accepted it, then later I declined it last minute. So DH went angrily alone. When he came back he said he was very surprised to find his parents were there too. Making this failed ambush No. 2.

About a year and a half after failed ambush No. 1 at DH's apartment and after some cancelled appointments with the in-laws (I hesitated and was scared to go) we finally agreed a date. MIL insisted it had to be on a Sunday because they never made appointments on Saturdays... I didn't understand this rigid attitude. I didn't want to let this meeting ruin our whole weekend so I asked to meet on a Saturday, so we still had the Sunday to do something fun. This was accepted only very reluctantly.

Saturday afternoon I went to the market and bought some flowers and early in the evening we went, it was a one hour drive from where we lived and we had planned to be there at 7 pm. I felt nauseous going there but I tried keeping my spirits up by saying to myself, she was mad but we're going there now so she must be curious to meet me and try and behave like a normal person would when they welcome someone at their house.

It was dark when we arrived, they have there own road, so there we were in the middle of nowhere. I didn't like to be at such a remote place for this meeting, but what could I do that's where they live. We entered the house, DH had his own keys, we walked through the garage and DH knocked at the door of the living room. FIL opened the door and warmly welcomed us, he shook my hand and told me his name. And there she was, behind him, sitting on the sofa with a very sullen, arrogant, nasty look on her face. Staring at me. She didn't stand up to welcome me, she stayed seated. I had already lifted my arm to shake her hand and walked up to her but she made no effort to do the same.

When she had made it uncomfortable enough she finally shook my hand but didn't say her name. She said, so J. you have finally managed to come here and visit us, on a Saturday, you know that's very inconvenient for us... Unnecessary to say, I fooled myself believing this woman would try and do her best. I gladly would have run out the door that minute, my fright-flight-fight-response was peaking. However I didn't want this woman to get that satisfaction to see that I was afraid. On top of that I was held back by my own beliefs of socially acceptable behaviour with the parents of anyone, including  and probably even more so the parents of my boyfriend. Boundaries by which she was not hindered at all, she didn't give a damn.

She was like a spider in a web that had just caught a fly and was preparing to devour it, taking all the time she needed. So we sat down and she started to talk to me, and talk, and talk, and talk some more. She gave me the third degree. It was torture to be there. It was like the air had frozen and time stood still. All attention was focused on me. She was asking personally intrusive questions I didn't want to answer.  She told me that they were cold-hearted, mean, arrogant people in the region where they come from (huh?!?!). Was I aware of that? They were never friendly with people, did I understand that? She finished each sentence with my name. It was all abhorrent and I felt it was an insult to my intelligence to be talked to like that. FIL and DH were just sitting there watching, while she was constantly glaring at me. I was petrified, literally, I felt myself turn into stone. I really was waiting for someone to throw me a lifeline, it didn't happen...

After at least two hours of this DH finally said, shall we go? Then the MIL had the audacity to gloatingly ask me, and J. was it more enjoyable or less enjoyable than you had imagined? OMG, I had and have never been treated this way, I have never met people who would have behaved this way. I have never had such an unwelcome at someone's house. It was absolutely horrifying how she had behaved. In any other situation I would never have allowed anyone to treat me this way, talk to me this way. I would not have listened to anyone speaking to me this way. I would have told them they were way out of line and would have walked away. But here I was at the house of the parents of my boyfriend in the middle of nowhere. I said to her,  you will always get the same answer to this question, either way, because most people are polite. This gave me the satisfaction of having gotten around answering this ridiculous question.

When we were walking out the door she stopped me and she asked me, do you want these cakes to take home with you. I imagine she was trying to impersonate a friendly person and thought that after this mind blowing session with her I would fall for that. I was so fed up with it that I didn't want to answer. What did I care, cakes, are you crazy? The only thing I thought was, get out of my way, I'm leaving. Then she said, J. you should be an honest person, it is very important in life to be honest, do you want them or not? (What?!?! You're giving me a life lesson?!?! You are talking about honesty?!?!). The only thing I wanted to say was, no FY (excusez le mot) very much.

We drove home and I felt so so angry and horrified. I felt extremely insulted, mistreated and humiliated. I was angry with myself that I had let this woman trap me. I also felt very angry with DH because he just sat there and didn't come to my rescue. He said, you never have to see my parents again (as if that would resolve anything with this harassing woman).

To top it off, when we got home, she called DH and told him that I had behaved in a very hostile fashion and that she was very insulted by that. HAHAHAHA, welcome to crazy town where everything is upside down!

In fact, this was ambush No. 3: she got me cornered, mission accomplished (for now)....

(To be continued).