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#Post#: 42634--------------------------------------------------
Re: Inviting (or not) judgmental MIL to Christmas lunch?
By: Hmmm Date: November 25, 2019, 11:16 am
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[quote author=wolfie link=topic=1407.msg42628#msg42628
date=1574697358]
[quote author=Hmmm link=topic=1407.msg42564#msg42564
date=1574552498]
[quote author=OnyxBird link=topic=1407.msg42559#msg42559
date=1574547790]
[quote author=PVZFan link=topic=1407.msg42502#msg42502
date=1574459374]
[quote author=wolfie link=topic=1407.msg42495#msg42495
date=1574456090]
[quote author=Aleko link=topic=1407.msg42488#msg42488
date=1574451692]
[quote]I don't see this as kicking so much as maintaining the
status quo. She hasn't gone to christmas for a while.[/quote]
snipping the tree.
[/quote]
There are very good reasons to assume there is no truly toxic
behavior.
1) Sue is willing to spend time with MIL when it is convenient
for her and does not impose on how she wants to spend her time
with her family.
2) Tom wants to spend time with his mom.
3) The OP is close enough friends with Sue for Sue to confide in
and for the OP to give Sue her opinion. If there was true toxic
behavior, the OP would most likely be aware.
[/quote]
None of those are good reasons to assume there is no truly toxic
behavior.
1 - she is willing to spend time with MIL in places/events that
minimize bad behavior
2 - people who are raised by toxic people rarely are able to see
how toxic their family is without help.
3 - not everyone shares everything with everyone. how often do
are people shocked at domestic violence and express that they
never knew it was happening.
In this case based on the new info it doesn't seem like MIL is
toxic
[/quote]
I get that some people have such bad experiences with inlaw's
that it colors their opinion. But there is nothing in the OP to
state any of this is true.
1. There is nothing to suggest MIL's behavior changes if she is
at MIL's home or the SIL's home during the previous holiday
visits. Overbearing people are usually worse in their home turf.
2. We know Sue is willing to speak her mind and set the house
rules since she is forbidding her husband to invite is mother
for Christmas Day lunch. To me it is a stretch to assume that if
her MIL was truly toxi, Sue is just now getting around to
pointing that out.
3. If Sue is willing to share that she is excluding her MIL from
Christmas lunch, it's hard to imagine that she has not also
griped previously about truly toxic behavior. It is my
understanding that those in domestic violence situations hide
all bad behavior. Anyway, toxic relatives and domestic violence
are like apples and oranges. I know of few female friends who
are not only willing but eager to discuss their inlaw's toxic
behavior with close friends.
#Post#: 42644--------------------------------------------------
Re: Inviting (or not) judgmental MIL to Christmas lunch?
By: wolfie Date: November 25, 2019, 2:52 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Hmmm link=topic=1407.msg42634#msg42634
date=1574702166]
[quote author=wolfie link=topic=1407.msg42628#msg42628
date=1574697358]
[quote author=Hmmm link=topic=1407.msg42564#msg42564
date=1574552498]
[quote author=OnyxBird link=topic=1407.msg42559#msg42559
date=1574547790]
[quote author=PVZFan link=topic=1407.msg42502#msg42502
date=1574459374]
[quote author=wolfie link=topic=1407.msg42495#msg42495
date=1574456090]
[quote author=Aleko link=topic=1407.msg42488#msg42488
date=1574451692]
[quote]I don't see this as kicking so much as maintaining the
status quo. She hasn't gone to christmas for a while.[/quote]
snipping the tree.
[/quote]
There are very good reasons to assume there is no truly toxic
behavior.
1) Sue is willing to spend time with MIL when it is convenient
for her and does not impose on how she wants to spend her time
with her family.
2) Tom wants to spend time with his mom.
3) The OP is close enough friends with Sue for Sue to confide in
and for the OP to give Sue her opinion. If there was true toxic
behavior, the OP would most likely be aware.
[/quote]
None of those are good reasons to assume there is no truly toxic
behavior.
1 - she is willing to spend time with MIL in places/events that
minimize bad behavior
2 - people who are raised by toxic people rarely are able to see
how toxic their family is without help.
3 - not everyone shares everything with everyone. how often do
are people shocked at domestic violence and express that they
never knew it was happening.
In this case based on the new info it doesn't seem like MIL is
toxic
[/quote]
I get that some people have such bad experiences with inlaw's
that it colors their opinion. But there is nothing in the OP to
state any of this is true.
1. There is nothing to suggest MIL's behavior changes if she is
at MIL's home or the SIL's home during the previous holiday
visits. Overbearing people are usually worse in their home turf.
2. We know Sue is willing to speak her mind and set the house
rules since she is forbidding her husband to invite is mother
for Christmas Day lunch. To me it is a stretch to assume that if
her MIL was truly toxi, Sue is just now getting around to
pointing that out.
3. If Sue is willing to share that she is excluding her MIL from
Christmas lunch, it's hard to imagine that she has not also
griped previously about truly toxic behavior. It is my
understanding that those in domestic violence situations hide
all bad behavior. Anyway, toxic relatives and domestic violence
are like apples and oranges. I know of few female friends who
are not only willing but eager to discuss their inlaw's toxic
behavior with close friends.
[/quote]
and all of them are still just assumptions that prove nothing.
You can't say that someone willing to meet with someone on
another occasions is proof that they are not toxic. Neither is
the fact that other people don't see them as toxic or that
someone raised by them wants to see them. Those are all just
things that could be true wether or not a person is toxic.
#Post#: 42659--------------------------------------------------
Re: Inviting (or not) judgmental MIL to Christmas lunch?
By: Aleko Date: November 26, 2019, 1:07 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I just can't see any point in speculating whether MIL is toxic
or not. I mean, yes, she might be; but then she might be an
undetected serial poisoner or a Hollywood madam, for all we
know. I think we should stick with discussing the case as
presented to us, in which she's described as dogmatic in her
child-rearing ideas and tactless.
#Post#: 42665--------------------------------------------------
Re: Inviting (or not) judgmental MIL to Christmas lunch?
By: Aleko Date: November 26, 2019, 6:33 am
---------------------------------------------------------
After sleeping on LoP's further information about Sue's parents,
another possible scenario has formed in my head. It could well
be that Sue knows that she can not trust them to grit their
teeth and behave pleasantly if MIL starts to sound her mouth
off. If so, when she says to LoP 'I don't want to be judged and
commented on in my own house on Christmas Day. Plus, it's not
fair on my parents if she is there - there is too much tension',
that second sentence may well be a loyal daughter's
bowdlerisation of her real fear, viz. 'Plus, it's not realistic
to hope that my parents won't pile in and counter-attack if she
does, and it will all end badly'.
The logical thing, surely, if these three people can't be
trusted to stay civil and pleasant over Christmas dinner, would
be to switch the normal arrangement around, and have MIL for
Christmas dinner and Sue's parents for Christmas Eve and/or
Boxing Day. It's a reasonable ask for her parents - they have
each other to celebrate the day with, and aren't presumably
mourning a close relative recently dead as MIL is.
Some people tend to go rigid under stress (I know - I'm one of
them :o): faced with a disastrous situation or plan they are
not only incapable of rationally looking around for
alternatives, they tend to reject viable alternatives out of
hand when these are suggested to them. I can easily see Sue
howling at Tom 'No! We've already invited my parents for
Christmas dinner and I couldn't possibly ask them to change! No,
I can't even suggest it to them! We're stuck with it! It's all
terrible! Waaaah!' I've reacted like that, I admit, in the past,
and DH has really had to work at shaking me out of 'it's a
disaster and there's nothing to be done about it' mode.
#Post#: 42689--------------------------------------------------
Re: Inviting (or not) judgmental MIL to Christmas lunch?
By: Gellchom Date: November 26, 2019, 2:03 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
After the update, I'm even less sympathetic to Sue. It sure
sounds like Tom's mom is annoying, but it is HER parents who are
the judgmental ones.
Of course, it's much, much harder to hear unsolicited advice or
opinions from a MIL than from a mom -- things that drive us nuts
when an in-law says them wouldn't even strike us as
inappropriate from our own relatives (thus the Favorite Aunt
test). Well, too bad. Grow up and deal with it -- people
aren't perfect, and they aren't just there for our
gratification.
And she is Tom's MOTHER, not his MIL. He may not mind his mom's
annoying comments but hate his in-laws' judgmentalism. What
would Sue say if Tom said that her parents weren't welcome
because they are so judge-y of his mother?
She and Sue's parents are in the same position at family events
-- both parent and parent-in-law -- but it seems like only Tom's
mom is held to such a high standard that even small annoyance
gets her excluded and alone on Christmas (and this one of all
Christmases).
I agree with this (even allowing for the principle that people
from toxic families may be better able to spot "toxicity"
between the lines than others):
[quote author=Aleko link=topic=1407.msg42659#msg42659
date=1574752038]
I just can't see any point in speculating whether MIL is toxic
or not. I mean, yes, she might be; but then she might be an
undetected serial poisoner or a Hollywood madam, for all we
know. I think we should stick with discussing the case as
presented to us, in which she's described as dogmatic in her
child-rearing ideas and tactless.
[/quote]
#Post#: 42709--------------------------------------------------
Re: Inviting (or not) judgmental MIL to Christmas lunch?
By: VorFemme Date: November 26, 2019, 7:32 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Or maybe the two sets of parents are/were as different as it is
possible to get and the daughter of one set just knows that her
MIL sounding off about "traditional child raising practices"
from a previous generation is going to go over with her parents
like the parents in the movies starring Adam Sandlar & his
inlaws - his FIL is former CIA (Sandlar's character is a male
nurse) and then his inlaws meeting his hippy type parents
(Barbara Striesand is marvelous as a sex instructor in the
Florida Keys - I have no memory of what her husband did...but
the idea was that they were such outrageous people that their
son becoming a male nurse would almost be mainstream from their
POV). Not that the MIL in the OP is going to be quite so
outrageously different...but the expectation of the DIL is that
her parents and her widowed MIL just aren't going to get
along...and she doesn't want to deal with what she expects to
happen....
And I am now picturing Sue's mother as a hippy dippy woman who
was willing to argue with her DD's MIL about the need to BF the
baby until it's three and start solids sometime around 2 years
old instead of three months...
#Post#: 42837--------------------------------------------------
Re: Inviting (or not) judgmental MIL to Christmas lunch?
By: Twik Date: November 29, 2019, 2:27 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
It sounds like this is really a problem between the inlaws. Sue
seems to be a bit under her own parents' thumbs, and is
desperate to keep them happy. But I don't think that you can
always do this. If Sue's MIL isn't toxic, just a bit annoying,
it would be cruel to leave her on her own (unless, of course,
she'd just as soon not hang out with Sue's parents.)
#Post#: 42847--------------------------------------------------
Re: Inviting (or not) judgmental MIL to Christmas lunch?
By: TootsNYC Date: November 29, 2019, 5:29 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=peony link=topic=1407.msg42357#msg42357
date=1574229648]
Sue and Tom should start as they mean to go on with this new
situation. They should make a plan that they will be happy with
going forward, because it might cause unnecessary hurt to people
to alter it later. Both sides of the family should be treated
fairly *and equally.*
[/quote]
I'm not a fan of the idea that people should get upset when
Christmas isn't identical every year. I understand this dynamic,
but I think it's unhealthy.
Maybe it's time to coach people into the idea that Christmas
isn't always the same every year.
I'm a copyeditor, and we worry about parallelism. When you have
several subheads in a single story, you don't want most of them
to gerunds and only one of them be a verb.
(e.g., a story about this very thread might have:
- Navigating the Family Christmas
- Inviting Relatives
- Sleeping at Grandma's House
- Tell Them Both to Be Nice
- Setting Expectations for Next Year)
In that case, you either make them all identical, or you change
them up so that you don't set the reader up to expect all
gerunds.
(Navigating the Family Christmas; Whom to Invite; Where Will
Everyone Sleep; Warn People to Be Pleasant; Setting Expectations
for Next Year)
#Post#: 42872--------------------------------------------------
Re: Inviting (or not) judgmental MIL to Christmas lunch?
By: Aleko Date: November 30, 2019, 4:22 am
---------------------------------------------------------
LoP's remark that Sue seems to have had a personality change for
the worse since Billy was born does make it sound as though
she's in the grip of postnatal depression. If so, it may well be
that she feels just tooling up for the normal
'Christmas-with-my-parents-coming' is a huge effort, and the
notion of either adding her MIL to the mix with all that
entails, or devising a workaround, is just more than she can
cope with.
#Post#: 43394--------------------------------------------------
Re: Inviting (or not) judgmental MIL to Christmas lunch?
By: AnnaT Date: December 8, 2019, 5:24 pm
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I'm wondering how Sue is going to cope when little Billy grows
up and she ends up as the Mother In Law that's not invited to
Christmas?
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