Pages

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Answering questions no one has asked

Found this post (scroll down for the post from June 19th) today on one of my favorite blogs.

It really hit home with me. All to often I do feel that I answer peoples questions they have not asked. Not to mention my life would be considerably less stressful if I chose to argue the point less. Needless to say, this attitude expressed by Crazy Aunt Purl is something I plan to adopt as part of decluttering my relationships. I was probably aware of all of this before but the way she presented it just really made sense.

The scope of my blog is always to talk about positive elements to my life and to connect with other like-minded individuals. Weather it be things I am working on or goals I want to acheive. Not to mention celebrating life's little joys.

One thing that has been bogging me down lately is a continual dispute with my inlaws. In the beginning I just thought they were really family oriented people. In their own way (and in their own minds/worlds) they are. They just take everything WAY TOO FAR. My MIL has a supremely high opinion of herself and coddles my SD which is NOT balanced by how she treats my SS. Until I found a website about narcissistic personality disorder (thanks Vanessa!) I thought I was going crazy. For the past eight months we have not spoken (in person) to my husbands mother and step father and we literally live feet from each other (in the same condo complex). Pretty much all of our communication is via email.

Without going in to detail, our (hubby and I) core values just do not line up with my MIL (who wears the pants in her "relationship") and when we but heads due to those core values she goes balistic by belittling us and trying to take control. We finally put our foot down and it's getting to the point now (with the help of a counselor) where we are in a place we may need to cut off the inlaws for good. That problem I have with that is it will hurt the kids which is never our intention but a necessary evil.

What absolutely kills me about this situation is my MIL can't be there for my hubby the way she should be. In a loving and supportive way. We have enough to deal with his ex wife that we don't need stress from my MIL as well. My own parents and I have an adult relationship but it's not the way I would like it to be. It's taken me many years to get over the way I was parented by them and I REFUSE to do the same thing to my SK's.

Sorry to be such a downer but I really felt I needed to get this off my chest. Thanks for listening!