Holy Dysfunction, Batman!

Sometime last March, my in laws and the four of us sat down to a family powwow where we all laid our grievances on the table and resolved to communicate directly. Bob’s parents had spent the previous months inexplicably not talking to us and we decided to have it out with them. We aired grievances, confronted the sources of hurt feelings and slights, and generally felt we’d accomplished something, that we had a new direction without the rancor and resentment that had characterized so much of the interaction between my MIL and us. We explained why things had happened, she admitted over reactions, we apologized, she apologized; it was difficult, but good.

Two days ago while at dinner at my parents’ home, my husband’s mother went too far and may have alienated me for good. I don’t know how I’ll handle it, but I need to think before I act because right now I want to rend flesh. Truth is, my relationship with Bob’s mom has been fraught with a crapload of complications for the better part of the lifespan of my marriage. She holds onto perceived slights like tokens of misplaced righteousness that she will then examine, re-examine and then sharpen until they hurt her to recall, then she will bring them up to anyone who sits still long enough, appropriate or not. Like my children. Or my mother.

I invited my MIL to my parents’ house for dinner on Thursday night so she could spend some more time with her granddaughters (she’d spent 4 hours that afternoon). My father-in-law was out of town and she was otherwise on her own, so we felt MIL’d welcome the invitation. My mom called her to ask and when she outlined the dinner she’d planned, my MIL broke in to say she wasn’t coming for the food and that she didn’t need a menu. My mother’s smile faltered, but she pressed on genially and told my MIL when dinner was planned.

Dinner was delicious - my mother is an excellent cook - and I delighted in the presence of my daughters and my aunt and uncle, as well a dear friend and her nine-year old daughter. After the meal, my friend and I decided to go for a quick shopping trip and left the girls to play and the others to converse.

What I found on my return was my mother, deeply upset, almost to crying. Apparently, the mother of my husband felt it an elegant thank you for dinner to take my mother aside to the front porch bench and to complain, for 45 minutes, about me. Some of the topics covered were old news, long (or so I thought) dealt with and buried, while others were newer, half-truths, overblown misunderstandings and the best? Stinging condemnations of my character. To my mother. Some of which my eldest daughter overheard.

After I told my daughters why I was so upset with their grandmother, I found out that this woman had also complained about me and Bob to our kids. On and on about how the upcoming Bat Mitzvah was so inconveniently planned in March and how dreadfully difficult it will be for them to come (old news), how Bob never visits and seems not to care about his mother, how I won’t let my daughters fly to Florida for vacation. Boo and Monkey related all this to me as I drove them home to New England and as they spoke, I began to seethe. Boo put it to me as I struggled to find words to attempt to explain:

“What the hell was she thinking?”

Argh, mostly. “She wasn’t thinking, she was trying to hurt others,” I responded.

“WHY?” They chorused.

Aha, object lesson! “Because, girls, she is deeply troubled and doesn’t know how to communicate.”

It’s abundantly clear that Bob and I have to do something drastic to make it clear that she is self-destructing where we are concerned. I don’t understand what she was thinking; was she attempting to undermine my mother’s relationship with me, her very bad daughter? MIL has made it clear she envies the closeness between my mother and me; perhaps she thought spewing poisonous lies would effect that end so she could commiserate with my mom about their distant, alienated children!

What’s so pathetic is that scenario wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. The woman has alienated both her sons, speaks openly about how much she hates Bob’s brother’s wife (one of the pearls she dropped before my mother) and even went so far as to tell my mother I was responsible for turning my husband cold to her. Anyone who knows my husband knows he forges his own way with most everything in his life. At least my mother, knowing this, had a good internal laugh.

As for the rest of the little chat, my mother listened to MIL speak out of sympathy, out of a perverse horror normally reserved for rubbernecking a disaster area, and out of shock and surprise. No matter how often Mom shifted the subject away from the noxious diatribe, MIL would press right back in, sharing another little morsel of garbage, until my mother got up and offered to get MIL’s coat. Mom knew most of the stuff wasn’t true and had defended those issues she knew about, but otherwise, she listened to see how far this woman would go.

Right off the edge.