I’m SO much more tolerant of my mother-in-law’s flaws now that she’s dead. It’s not like I see them as less flawlike now. It’s more like—well, let’s say you were having a baby, and you had HORRIBLE labor pain, and you were all, “OMG THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN I’D EVER IMAGINED, DYING DYING DYING!!” And then the baby was born an hour after the first pains began. Well, the pains were still horrible, but they were over so much sooner than expected, and so now they don’t seem as bad. It’s like that.
I probably wouldn’t be going through a divorce if it wasn’t for my MIL. We are talking about a woman who would email my husband things like, “Call me as soon as you get out of marriage counseling! I can’t wait to hear what was said today!” Crazy witch.
Good analogy, lol. It is harder to feel angry at things once the person can’t act like that anymore, that’s for sure!
You are hysterical. And not in the Victorian sense.
@Andria-Thanks for a little perspective. I’m just home from two weeks staying with family members and will be going for another two weeks for Christmas. I was thinking I had some crazy family members.
I’m hoping mine checks out soon enough to verify… Wait, did I actually write that?!?!?!
cannot, stop, laughing.
Mine once wrote me an email which included the line “Since he won’t leave you, …”
Teehee. I’m loving these comments, too.
My MIL is looking pretty good. Although when we were engaged and wedding planning, she wrote me a ‘to-do’ list which began with “CHANGE YOUR NAME.”
Mine isn’t THAT bad. Not great though. When my first baby was eight weeks old, (and I had gained a LOT of weight) she told me not to worry. That flabby belly of mine would soon go away. Depending on my diet, of course.
Very nicely put, Swistle!!
YES. My father was a very difficult person. We constantly fought. He was a grumpy old man and wasn’t very nice. He died suddenly in July and since… it’s been much easier to remember the positive things about him. The negative things are quickly fading away.
GREAT analogy!
My MIL is a saint compared to yours and she’s a good mother and grandmother. But she has fat issues. And I’m fat. I brought a box of Godiva chocolates for each of my SILs and her at Thanksgiving. She said, “why did you get this? I’ll eat them all and gain ten pounds!” Then she put them up and didn’t open them the whole week we were there.
Yes – great analogy!! Just having gone through a shorter, med free labor, I definitely can understand this sentiment.
I find that psycho grandma is much easier to deal with from a few thousand miles away, too…
This is so wrong, but I really loved the first line of this post. It would be an awesome start to a novel.
Hee hee hee…great analogy!
Y
Buttular? BUTTULAR?
The next time I see that contest for superb first lines, I’m going to nominate this post.
heh heh. I’ll giggle all day over this.
Yes, I so agree. If I thought my MIL was a short-term problem, I would grin-and-bear-it with more tolerance and grace than I have now. It’s the thought that I have to put up with this woman every week for every year of the rest of her life, and have her at every birthday party and Christmas celebration, which could easily be 30 more years or so. DH won’t move away from her, because she “needs our support” so I’m stuck with her. At least I put my foot down about her living with us, ever, for any reason. I don’t exactly wish she’d die, but I’m jealous of your good luck.
Wait? What? Died? Where? When? Huh?
Look, I love your blog, and your writing, but this seems in poor taste.
Anonymous 11:30– Startling News, Ack, Everything is Going to be Fine, and a couple of others.
Anonymous 11:44– Oh, do you think so? I don’t know who you are, so I don’t know how much weight to give your opinion.
I think this is in wonderful taste.
Then again, I have a post from earlier in the year talking about how glad I was that my mother in law’s mother was dead and how frustrated I was because I couldn’t find anything to wear because I like to be the prettiest girl at the funeral
(FUNeral)
so maybe I’m not the benchmark of taste.
Anyway, I’ve been wondering about how you were taking all this. If I were you (or me) I’d feel guilty that I didn’t feel bad, but I wouldn’t feel so guilty that it would have a huge impact on my day but it would be sad to watch my husband go through the process of losing his mother and his sadness would impact my day but at least we weren’t both sad and someone’s gotta feed the hungry mouths and pick up the socks so it’s glad you aren’t all sitting around and crying.
Or something.
The only problem with this analogy is that you don’t end up with a baby at the end, which would make it so much better. I had a difficult breast biopsy about a year ago, and I pointed out to the doctors that if I’m going to go through that much trauma, I expect someone to hand me a baby. But, sadly, that is not the way it works…
cherylc
I feel bad for the people who did love your MIL, but I’m glad your burden is lifted.
Lora- The whole thing has been pretty easy, because Paul’s not sad either, nor are the kids, nor is his sister, nor is my MIL’s sister. …She really was a difficult woman!
Anonymous 11:44 – it’s sad, but there are some people who are so difficult that no one is sad when they die. From what Swistle says, her MIL was one of those. My grandpa was another one. There was no one crying at his funeral, either. So while it may seem in bad taste to you, if no one is sad that this woman is dead, then she must really have been a pain. Let Swistle say what she feels in peace.
Oh, I’m so glad you posted this (and I have similar issues with the MIL btw) because when I read your post about her death I felt bad for your kids and husband but I also had a totally inappropriate reaction causing a certain song to be stuck in my head all day (from the Wizard of Oz, starts with “ding, dong…”) and then I just couldn’t post condolences. So, condolences. And now Anonymous can think *I’m* inappropriate. ‘Cause seriously, if a woman’s behavior results in her children, siblings and grandkids not being sad that she’s gone – I gotta say, kinda HER issue, not theirs.
Probably one of the funniest first blog lines I’ve ever read. EVER READ, Swistle.
You’re hysterical.
You made me laugh.
I needed to laugh.
Thank you.
So? When you first posted about your feelings of her death, I was a bit taken aback. I didn’t post anything, but I was just a little surprised there was no remorse on your part over not reconciling before her untimely demise. This is ONLY because so many of the things you say on your blog are so, so similar to my feelings on things. SO similar.
But, then, I started to think that my only feelings of remorse would be guilt that we didn’t get along. And, I was SO, SO glad I didn’t comment until I’d thought it over.
Now that you’ve explained everyone’s utter lack of sadness? I totally understand. And, I’m happy for you!
I hope that none of this comment came off jerky or inappropriate. I sincerely mean that I’m happy for how things worked out for you.
And! I even feel PLEASED and PROUD because I treated her so well she never even knew I didn’t like her! And now I’m so, so glad I never did any kind of confrontation or “Let’s get our feelings out into the open” thing, and that I in fact did the extras to make it look as if I liked her visits. So I don’t even have the guilt stuff! I feel relieved that I vented my feelings to the blog and not to her.
That is so great! :)
LOVED this post. We had issues with the first step-MIL (hubby’s dad already married the 2nd step-MIL, who’s absolutely FANTASTIC, btw). The first SMIL was an awful, spiteful, hateful woman, who made the kids so miserable that they actually considered planting poison ivy on the grave after she was buried.
And if that’s in poor taste, I personally don’t give a rat’s buttular region.