3.1 My history with the in-laws: marriage and babies...

Fast-forward to about 5 years later. The MIL didn't like me but had stopped constantly battling me, at least for a few months... I think she had lulled herself to sleep for one moment and convinced herself that our relationship wouldn't last forever. (I will write about her evil ways during the period in between in a separate post).

We were together for about 7 years when we decided the time was right to have children, if possible for us. We had been talking about if for a year or two then I think. After a while I had a very strong feeling I was pregnant and started testing way too early, I was just too excited to know. The day I knew the pregnancy would be detectable I tested again. My hands were shaking uncontrollably when I checked the test strip and I immediately started crying for joy when I saw it was positive. I couldn't speak at first when I wanted to tell DH, and I was crying so hard, that he thought I had bad news, but I was pregnant! I was so happy and excited :-).

My husband almost immediately wanted to tell his parents. I didn't want to, mostly because I feared this wouldn't bring up the best in the MIL. I wanted to have some peace of mind for us. I wanted us to have time to adjust to the idea that we would have a baby and become parents, without any interference of her. Besides that we didn't know how the pregnancy would develop. We decided to wait for 3 months, mainly because I wanted that, my husband foresaw problems with his mother for not telling her immediately. (As if she was entitled to know it right away).

My pregnancy progressed well and we had the first ultrasound. It was so very touching and beautiful to see our little baby bouncing around. He was already a very busy little guy at only 12 weeks, full of life :-).

After 3 months my husband wanted to call his parents ( I would have rather brought them the news personally). The MIL was very surprised to hear I was already 3 months pregnant at the time they heard, that was the main message.

The first time we saw them, after they had heard the news, was at his brother's house. We were already there before them. My FIL immediately came up to me when they arrived, and congratulated me. He was visibly emotional and very happy and excited with the news. The MIL on the other hand lingered around my husband and didn't come to me. She acted real dramatic to him, 'oh how wonderful...., a baby!!!!', while sideways looking at me but making no effort to come up to me to congratulate me. She obviously wanted me to come to her, I didn't do it. After about 5 awkward minutes she finally came to me, throwing her arms up in the air as if she walked on a stage and was about the receive an Oscar, and then congratulated me but her sullen facial expression said something entirely different. She very well knew the others were all behind her and couldn't see her face.

After a while FIL, DH and his brother went downstairs to do something and my SIL went to the kitchen to prepare dinner and for a moment I was left with her alone. She looked very unhappy, and had a facial expression as if she had just attended a funeral. She started complaining to me about all sorts of (trivial) things that made her suffer (she's a real martyr). I felt a stone in my stomach looking at her. I felt all my energy disappear like snow before the sun. It felt like she wanted to suck all joy and happiness out of me. I escaped her presence by asking my SIL if I could help her.

When we sat down for dinner we showed them the ultrasound sonogram and the MIL held the sonogram above a candle to have a better view (?!?!). It is that I screamed otherwise it would have burnt. She then pulled the sonogram away from the candle and looked at me with this strange smile really savoring she had provoked me while at the same time acting like, 'oh silly me, I didn't realise it was a candle, does a sonogram really burn?'.

(To be continued).

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).

Do you feel anxious and tense or totally stressed out...

When you are experiencing so much trouble with in-laws this can really stress you out. It can cause so much tension that you don't know how to deal with it anymore. One thing I found really helpful was listening to hypnosis mp3's, for relaxation, reducing stress, and much more. I found a website where there is a wide range of topics available for download, so I'm sure there is one for you too. There is even a download specifically dealing with in-law problems!

Have a look here: http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/

If you have decided to download one of these mp3's and it has helped you, please let me know.

Although I was skeptic, these downloads have been of great help for me in times of extreme tension. I now consider this as a very helpful and healthy resource, so I wanted to share this with you.

Quotes I like

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http://narcissists-suck.blogspot.nl/search/label/Red%20flags%20of%20Narcissism From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

'The last of my words will be addressed to those heroes who might still be hidden in the world, those who are held prisoner, not by their evasions, but by their virtues and their desperate courage. My brothers in spirit, check on your virtues and on the nature of the enemies you're serving. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, your love --the endurance that carries their burdens-- the generosity that responds to their cries of despair--the innocence that is unable to conceive of their evil and gives them the benefit of every doubt, refusing to condemn them without understanding and incapable of understanding such motives as theirs...life is the object of their hatred. Leave them to the death they worship...don't exhaust the greatness of your soul on achieving the triumph of the evil of theirs... 
...to win requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person...'.
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http://narcissistschild.blogspot.ca The ABC of Boundaries: Keeping the Narcissists at Bay.  Quoting Sweet Violet:

' Now, some NMs are crafty little weasels....'.
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Never underestimate the power of denial.
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http://narcissists-suck.blogspot.ca/2006/11/is-there-good-in-everyone.html Sibling Survivor said:

'I agree that if you have to go looking for the good in a person it isn't there. It's like assuming that somewhere in the dark there must be a light. Never mind the fact that in the dark you would be able to see the light easily, so if you don't see it, it doesn't exist.'
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http://galewarnings.blogspot.nl/2007_02_17_archive.html Quoting Stormchild:

'Emotional abusers behave in similarly patterned ways - ruin the holiday; ruin the birthday; spoil the accomplishment; demand all the attention at the wedding/ the funeral/the bar mitsvah.

If you learn to see the patterns, you will learn to see the abuse. If you see the abuse, you see the abuser. Once you see the abuse and the abuser, you will find that you can actually predict how the abuser will behave; once their behavior becomes predictable, you feel less helpless, have more of an opportunity to control your responses, and can then become free.

It can be done'.

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Chinese proverb:

'The beginning of wisdom is calling things by their right names'.

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Barbara Bloom:

'When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful'.

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Japanese proverb:

'Forgiving the unrepentant is like drawing pictures on water.'
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Albert Einstein:

'The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people that don't do anything about it.'


'Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.'

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(additions will follow)

1 My history with the in-laws: how it all started...

I would like to tell you about how it all started.

DH and I fell in love with each other. After dating for a few months, he told his parents about us.

His mother told him that she would like to meet me. I told DH that I wanted to wait for a while because we were only just together and I wanted to take it slow, not involving family until we got to know each other better. We were after all in the beginning of our relationship didn't know where it would go at that moment and I thought it was way to early to go and meet his family. This was not my first relationship and I didn't want to rush anything. I felt that when it was the appropriate time to meet the family we would meet them.

Fairly soon the drama started. His mother started calling frantically, screaming, yelling, crying. She told DH that this was not the way to deal with it. She demanded my presence at their house within two weeks and if I didn't show up I would never be welcome there again. She kept calling and calling, constantly pressuring him to take me with him on one of his visits. It really frightened and bewildered me. I had no idea what to do, except for one thing and that was that I wasn't going to give in to her demands.

One of those times she managed to get me on the phone. She asked me, 'and J., what do you think, could you manage to visit us this Sunday? Because J, we think that you should really come to our house this Sunday'. She turned her voice real sugar-like but it was dripping with venom. I was stupefied, I didn't know what to say. My insecurity really pleased her. She took her time and really enjoyed to hear me stumble. It was like a cat-and-mouse game to her.

Not very much later on a Sunday morning, we were both still students and not living together, his mother called him at 8.30 am and woke us up, telling him they were in town and wanted him to go with them to a museum (8.30 am!!). He told them he would take a shower and meet them at the museum. He went to take a shower and only two minutes later I heard the door bell ringing first in his room then at his neighbour's, I heard his neighbour say, 'ok, I'll open the door for you'. My heart started pounding, I realised it was them and they could be in his room within a minute. I rushed to get some clothes on and went downstairs to the shower. Through the glass door to the apartment I saw two people storming up the stairs and I luckily just missed them. I knocked on the door of the shower and told DH I thought his parents were in his room right now. I was shaking and my heart was racing because of all the adrenaline pumping through my body. I felt like an animal being hunted down. DH went upstairs to see them and managed to get them out the door.

His mother told him, 'Why is this woman hiding from me!'. She really felt like a hunter I guess. She had acted all innocent saying they hadn't realised I would be there until they saw my clothes... Of course I knew she had only done this to force a meeting with me, in fact to ambush me and catch me in a vulnerable state.

I was shocked by this event. I felt frightened, hunted down, unsafe and very angry.

(To be continued).

Warning signs of future mother-in-law problems

Checklist future mother in-law problems.

http://drphil.com/articles/article/643

"People think 'Once we get married, that will all go away.' No, it won't," Dr. Phil says. If you want to know ahead of time if you'll have in-law issues, read Dr. Phil's warning signs:

• Mother-in-law is insensitive; doesn't respect boundaries
• Mother-in-law is overly dependent on son for emotional and lifestyle support
• Partner clearly puts mother-in-law needs/requests ahead of yours
• Partner talks to mother daily; drops everything when she calls
• Partner values mother's advice and opinions over yours
• Partner runs to mother when arguments occur
• Mother-in-law attacks your character
• Mother-in-law treats her son like he's still a child/competes with you
• During family gatherings, you're overlooked or ignored by mother-in-law
• Mother-in-law actively campaigns against your marriage

Always on the run?

Always on the run

'my mama said
that your life is a gift
and my mama said
there's much weight you will lift
and my mama said
leave those bad boys alone
and my mama said
be home before the dawn
and my mama said
you can be rich or poor
but my mama said
you can be big or small

but i'm always on the run

my mama said
that it's good to be truthful
but my mama said
don't take more than a mouthful
and my mama said
that it's good to be natural
and my mama said
that it's good to be factual

but i'm always on the run

my mama said
baby don't ride that crazy horse
and my mama said
you must push with much force
and my mama said
go get all that your after
and my mama said
that love's all that matters

but i'm always on the run'

Lenny Kravitz