It is not easy to learn how to combine with another
family. You have your quirks, they have
theirs, and sometimes these clash. And
that’s okay. Really, it’s okay. Things eventually smooth out with patience,
especially if you are willing to open yourself up to the other people and allow
them to know you.
This is coming from a situation with my future
mother-in-law. Yes, mother-in-law jokes
are a cliché, yes, they are sexist, and yes, they exist for a reason. Yes, sometimes I don’t get along with her,
and I do often keep it to myself when she says things I find hurtful, because I
am desperately trying to learn how to connect with her. Given my past, this is especially difficult
for me (recap: my mother is completely INSANE, she tried to murder me in 2003,
lots of drama in general, I cut off all contact with her in 2012 (which
included deleting my original Facebook and abandoning my original blog), and it’s
just easier to live life as though I have no mother at all). I have been trying very hard for FMIL,
because I want her to like me, and I also want her to understand who I am as a
person, because the day will come when I finally stop being so careful around
her (probably while I am in labor with our first child).
This is coming from a situation from the last couple years
where she will say things that are really hurtful without realizing how hurtful
she actually is being, or giving unsolicited advice, and a general feeling of
having my toes stepped upon. Not
everything is resolved, and not everything can be resolved right now, but that’s
okay.
I had a little wedding meltdown recently over something
arguably stupid (short explanation: I thought one of the cousins didn’t receive
an RSVP card in their invitation and PANICKED), and I know I made her feel bad.
The meltdown was worse than it may otherwise have been because on top of the
thought that it went wrong the one time I actually tried to trust someone else
to do something for the wedding without me micromanaging (I swear I’m trying so
hard not to be a bridezilla), she had said some things earlier in the week
about some life choices Matt and I are discussing that she wasn’t very happy
with. This led to me not being very
happy with her, so compounded with the situation with the RSVP card… I freaked
out more than necessary due to already being rather upset, and it wasn’t
pretty.
To make matters worse, it was also a Friday in September,
which means I’d spent an entire week going outside with the ragweed, getting up
early, and not sleeping well because of the ragweed. Usually by Friday during this time of year, I’ve
had a whole week of getting up early to work on schoolwork, being exhausted by
being surrounded by people all the damn time on top of all the running around
on the enormous-ass campus, I feel like shit physically because what little
sleep I’m getting is poor quality because I can’t breathe, and so I’m just done
by Friday. So a Friday night is the
worst possible time for me to get confused about a situation involving the
wedding. It was ugly. It was not my best moment.
By the next morning the air was cleared, and I felt like an
asshole. Which I told her when I sucked
it up and apologized like an adult. I
used a different adjective, though.
Anyway, this situation led to a long talk while we were driving to a
specialty lingerie store to get a different bra for the wedding – the one I
bought in July is not supportive enough even with boning in the cups – and I
feel like this has led to my FMIL and I understanding one another better. We spent probably 10 hours together (we did
some other wedding things and also visited FMIL’s mother, we did not spend 10
hours at a lingerie store) and got along really well, which was awesome. We talked about a lot of things, including
how when she first met me, she told Matt’s dad (FFIL for this) that I am just
like her in behaviors, and she wondered if I was the one. And from that point on, every time I did or
said something in front of them that bugged her, she would look at FFIL and he
would nod his head to let her know that that was exactly her. She even had the exact same problems with her
own MIL when she was getting married. I
also talk about as much as FFIL does (he talks so much that we call it “name-ing”
people – pretend his name is there), so Matt is basically marrying a condensed
version of his parents, which I find hilarious.
But she and I have the same people management skills and mannerisms, the
same level of patience with people, we both yell at Matt for the exact same
things in the exact same way, we have the same meltdowns when we’re tired…
whee!
Unfortunately, because of the similarity between me and
FMIL, we are probably going to butt heads rather often, but now at least we
both understand each other better and maybe that will mitigate some of the
frustration with each other. After all
that talking (I talked so much that my throat was sore by the time I went to
bed), I definitely feel a lot more comfortable with her, though I don’t know if
I will ever really learn how to act like a daughter.
