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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Difficult relatives
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
Okaaaayyyy, new page, so that none of us have to read about anyone's rude bits any longer. I came here for snark and smackdown, not…whatever mental image I just accidentally got. Come on, people, if I wanted that, I'd be on 4chan, not here!
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Anoesis, for what it's worth (nuttin'), here's my diagnosis: this isn't actually about you. It's about your mother's friends. The "everybody else got visits from the grandkids" line gives the game away. Your mom sounds like someone who needs constant "proof" of other people's "love" for her, so she can yak about or brag on or run down or whatever her grandkids (& possibly you) to her circle to make herself seem important. Does she want to see[i] or [i]use you as fodder to inflate her image with her friends?
There is probably something in what you say - I think she may well be a bit insecure, but (see reply to Organ Builder earlier), perhaps that's understandable, and I should just attempt to build it in to my relationship with her - ie: be aware of it but not upset by it.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Also, your claims to have intimate knowledge of my genital area are puzzling.
He's just fishing. He wants the job of oiling them.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Great. That's another page ruined.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Left at the Altar
Ship's Siren
# 5077
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Posted
Well, my mother so incensed me (and my siblings) by yet again turning up to Christmas and announcing that she had not had time to buy presents for anyone (despite having nothing at all to do all fucking year) so had nipped down to KMart that morning and bought us each a $2 torch and then proceeded to tell us about how she and my father have been planning their next overseas holiday, I spent at least half an our googling "Cheapest funerals". Lucky for her she didn't cark it that day, or she'd have been buried in a plastic bag, upright in a hole dug by a post hole digger, with no service at all.
I have calmed down somewhat now.
Posts: 9111 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) Just like you've never been away, LATA. Missed you. Nice to see you, to see you, nice.
[I seem to have returned from the Dark Side ...]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
That's the spirit.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
If I'm lucky. Doesn't have a high alcohol content, anyway. Shall I ruin it by some further speculation about a certain HellHost.
Tempting ... but Nahhh. You'd think I really had gone nuts.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Well, my mother so incensed me (and my siblings) by yet again turning up to Christmas and announcing that she had not had time to buy presents for anyone (despite having nothing at all to do all fucking year) so had nipped down to KMart that morning and bought us each a $2 torch and then proceeded to tell us about how she and my father have been planning their next overseas holiday, I spent at least half an our googling "Cheapest funerals". Lucky for her she didn't cark it that day, or she'd have been buried in a plastic bag, upright in a hole dug by a post hole digger, with no service at all.
That's the problem with not having an Established church - the bastards expect you to pay them to bury you. Good to see you back - you may have been left at the altar but you've never left our hearts (cheap. cheap schmaltz, schmaltz)
And we're of to a pleasant restaurant in a few minutes for dinner with friends. No more small talk of Orfeo's genitals please.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
I came here for snark and smackdown, not…whatever mental image I just accidentally got.
Until next time you are having a bowl of muesli and a raisin falls onto your chin.
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
The funeral bit hit my funny bone, because a sticky point with me has been that when my grandfather died, he got the fancy casket and the big, formal funeral, and when my dad died, he got the cadillac of caskets and the cement lined plot and the gorgeous black granite headstone, and when Grandma (my mom's mother) died, she basically got plopped in a cheap urn and tucked on top of Grandpa. Which would have been great if it had been anywhere near what she wanted, but via various discussions I had had with my grandma-- with whom I was quite close-- I knew she hated the idea of cremation.
And no, it wasn't finances. The travel budget stayed exactly the same.
She has bought, paid for, and arranged her own funeral, and a good thing it is because if she left it up to me it would be a styrofoam cup in a divot above Dad's grave.
(I exaggerate. A Thermos, maybe.)
[ 24. January 2014, 08:01: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
No more small talk of Orfeo's genitals please.
Again with the size references.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Left at the Altar
Ship's Siren
# 5077
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Posted
I forgot to add that I planned to tell anyone wanting to buy flowers, to donate to the Australian Labor Party instead (communists, in my mother's eyes).
My mother envisages herself looking down from heaven at everyone weeping and taking note of who hasn't turned up. The very thought of no flowers AND no mourners AND the commies getting her flower money would be more than she could bear.
I, as you know, am a heathen, who reckons she'll just be dead, so she wouldn't see anything. Or care.
Makes no sense at all. And I have to say, I do feel fairly guilty for my rather hideous behaviour (although my youngest sister got into the spirit of it and proposed that we save on the costs of the digger by getting her father in law's tractor and hiring the drill thingy), but bloody hell, she gives me the shits. She's tighter than a cat's bum when it comes to buying anything for anyone else. She'd better die with a shitload of money.
ETA: I'm sure you're hung like a donkey, orf.
[ 24. January 2014, 08:09: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
Posts: 9111 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Yes,you are awful and horrible. And so am I for laughing myself into a hernia.
No kidding-- and y'all Who fans, just shut. up.-- throughout my life, my mom would occasionally drive us past a nearby cemetery and instruct my sister and I to make sure she got this headstone when she died. I presume we were supposed to access our gigantic trust funds to pull this one off.
Like I said, styrofoam cup.
(ETA: They call him Tripod.)
[ 24. January 2014, 08:14: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Left at the Altar
Ship's Siren
# 5077
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Posted
She wants a drunk angel headstone?
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Still pretty Amazing, but no longer Mavis.
Posts: 9111 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Oh now I want to make that happen. And to weld a brass replica of a bottle of Jack Daniels into the angel's hand.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
You should tell her to carve it herself. That's exactly how THAT tomb got it.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Left at the Altar
Ship's Siren
# 5077
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Posted
If she wants THAT tombstone so badly, tell her you'll consult the current occupant to see if she/he is interested in a timeshare arrangement.
[ 24. January 2014, 08:21: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
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Still pretty Amazing, but no longer Mavis.
Posts: 9111 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Hee. It was Teddy Roosevelt's cousin.
And I got the wrong grave-- or the same stone on the wrong grave.
Here is the one I got rubbed in my face all those years.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Left at the Altar
Ship's Siren
# 5077
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Posted
That's one sloshed angel. Lying all over dead folk everywhere.
Does your mother have a drinking problem?
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Still pretty Amazing, but no longer Mavis.
Posts: 9111 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Stop! Stop!
Jesus, I'm gonna be haunted by the friggen' ghost of Jenny Pool tonight
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
This thread looks as though it is about to become a LEGEND. Coffee over keyboard and all.
anoesis
I remember you very well from the time we had the same avatar and played "I'll change; no I'll change". You were generous; I never forgot it. Even though in the end it was me who changed.
I hope the recent fun and games has helped; relatives can be anything but a joke, sometimes, but it does help to laugh. Helps us to manage what cannot, often enough, be changed.
LATA always adds something special to the party spirit anyway. It's a gift.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
Just for the record, I have decided never to touch a bowl of muesli again. Ever.
Posts: 2799 | From: Nether Regions | Registered: Aug 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Originally posted by anoesis:
quote:
I sometimes propose visits to her, and sometimes they are proposed to me, and likewise with her visiting us, and its all okay.
You are way, way ahead of me there. Mum was brought up to be self-effacing to a quite extra-ordinary degree. So if she wants to visit, she phones me up and says:
Are you coping, dear? Do you need any help? Perhaps I could come and do your laundry?
Now, I would rather crawl backwards over broken glass than tell my mother than I'm not coping, and would like her to do my laundry. So I cheerfully tell her that all is well in the North East household, and she ends the call disappointed.
Then I get The Guilt. So I phone her back and say, cheerfully:
Why don't you visit, Mum? There's a new coffee shop opened that I'd like to take you to. We could visit that wool shop you like!
But Mum can't accept an invitation to do something enjoyable with me. So she then lists the worthy things she's doing, visiting the sick and dying, baking for a charity cake stall etc. etc. and tells me she can't visit.
So, she wants to visit me, and I want her to visit me, but it can't happen. Because I can't bear the sight of her, aged 80, doing my ironing, and she can't bear the thought that someone might see us together in a coffee shop and think that we were enjoying ourselves.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
All people annoy each other from time to time, me included. I used to struggle with my Mother in law's rants about all men ( especially when she went on and on in front of FIL). In fact after her death my FIL was a changed man who became funny and charming.
However, nastiness in families just feeds more unpleasantness and life is too short to start making mountains out of molehills. As my old teacher used to say 'don't sweat the small stuff'.
I'm sorry that you are having relationship issues with your mother, but you don't seem to be seeking intelligent ways to resolve the issues. Can you try to put yourself in your mother's shoes and consider what you would do and say in her place? Her words to you are unfortunate, but she sounds anxious and lonely to me. Is there a way acceptable to you to ease that loneliness and to she her that you love her? Sorry if you don't like being given advice, but I miss my own dear mother so much since her death and would do anything to be able to see and talk to her again.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Left at the Altar
Ship's Siren
# 5077
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Posted
She can come and do my ironing.
I am at the stage in life where I sort of get your mum. My eldest has just flown the coop big time (she's been away at university in another state for 3 years, but now she's on another continent) and I am somewhat bereft. I want to look after her. She, of course, does not want to be looked after.
But she is wonderful enough to let me be helpful. She doesn't need to be - she can look after herself perfectly well. But since I do love her and miss her so much, it's important.
So, I reckon let your mum do the ironing. Even if only once. Sounds like a win-win to me. She feels useful and you get your clothes pressed.
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Still pretty Amazing, but no longer Mavis.
Posts: 9111 | Registered: Oct 2003
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
But, LATA, will you still want to do your daughter's ironing when you're 80???
I'm 49. I'd love to get some acknowledgement from my mother that I am a perfectly capable adult.
My elder child is at Uni and I know he has no plans to come home. I do have a strong urge to feed him and provide treats, and I bless Facebook as a means of communication. I miss him. But I have no urge whatsoever to iron his clothes or clean his kitchen floor.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Left at the Altar
Ship's Siren
# 5077
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Posted
I have no idea what I'll want to do when I'm 80. And I can iron my own clothes perfectly well. But hell, if my mother wants to iron my clothes once a year, she can.
She doesn't want to do it because she thinks you are incapable. She wants to do it so that she can be of value (even if you don't need it - and she knows you don't need it. But that's not what it's about).
[ 24. January 2014, 11:15: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
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Still pretty Amazing, but no longer Mavis.
Posts: 9111 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
True-ish, LATA, and I agree probably best handled that way. Only one reservation, really. Underneath, there may be a desire to continue to control, put down. Some parents are like that, more's the pity. They never learned how to let go, recognise the adulthood of their children. Actually, it's childish of them but not the sort of thing children can easily correect, no matter how old we get.
[I'm 71, still get the odd bit of that from my 95 year old mum. These days I just tell her she's being bossy, and she laughs.]
But doing the ironing can't harm. It's not the thin end of a wedge unless you let it become that.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
My father is past 80 and he comes round to do my DIY. I let him. He enjoys it, feels that he's useful and not old, and I bring him cups of tea during and dinner after.
The grandchildren mill around asking for explanations of what he's doing, which he freely gives (quadrupling the time of the simplest job). They also associate him firmly with fixing things, and when he calls insist on giving him a list of broken things in the house, which he loves.
I absolutely don't need him to. I could either do it myself or pay for someone else to do it if I was desperate. But it works for us.
There would be no sense in feeling guilty about any of this and refusing it. It does me good to be humble enough to accept the help and it does him good to be able to give it.
One day he will be too old to do it, but he will still come when DIY needs doing to supervise me doing it.
I would say with a knowing and patronizing smile and a slight roll of the eyes that obviously I do need supervising don't I, but actually the evidence of the last decade is that I do.
And one day he will be dead, and I and my children will remember that he did my DIY when he was in his 80s.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Left at the Altar
Ship's Siren
# 5077
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
True-ish, LATA, and I agree probably best handled that way. Only one reservation, really. Underneath, there may be a desire to continue to control, put down. Some parents are like that, more's the pity. They never learned how to let go, recognise the adulthood of their children. Actually, it's childish of them but not the sort of thing children can easily correect, no matter how old we get.
Indeed. I take a thyroid supplement every day. I have done for 30 years. Whenever my mother stays, she asks me, "Have you taken your medicine today?". It drives me batty.
She has threatened many times to cut me out of the will for being a communist (I'm not), marrying an Italian (I did), not being a Christian etc. Actually, she is so manipulative, her usual line is that my father will die of disappointment/cut me out of the will etc because I am hurting him. I doubt he could care less.
And from time to time she makes me so angry, I look up how much it is to bury her upright in a bag, without flowers.
But she can still do my ironing if she's that desperate.
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Still pretty Amazing, but no longer Mavis.
Posts: 9111 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
I'm castigated continually for one of the opposite problems LATA: being a Christian.
According to the latest news, the Nag Hammadi scrolls were suppressed by the church for ages because they revealed Judas was chosen to betray Jesus because he was strong enough to handle it.
Apparently she's just trying to "open my mind".
I told her an open mind is fine, just don't be so opened minded that your brains fall out. (*)
I love my mum and we generally get on famously. But oh my lordy does she have a massive chip on her shoulder about the Church and oh my lordy does she not hesitate to tell bring it up continually even tho she knows I am very much part of The Establishment.
She also loves pointing out to many of my Christian cronies that she's a Muslim, Pagan, Quaker.
(*) Thanks Mudfrog
[ 24. January 2014, 12:30: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Originally posted by Barnabus62:
quote:
They never learned how to let go, recognise the adulthood of their children.
That's how it feels. Mum won't visit just for the sake of visiting. I have never taken Mum out for a cup of coffee. There are things I've done with my daughter that I've never done with my mother.
It's not a reciprocal relationship; Mum buys me presents, but doesn't want me to buy her presents. Mum cooks meals for me at her house, but refuses to eat food I've cooked at my house.
I think she was brought up to put other people first, and herself second, always. But refusing to visit me unless she can spend the entire visit doing housework is just annoying; why can't she just visit for the sake of visiting?
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Could you be the one that rises above it?
If she offers her food, eat it, and if she wants to come and clean let her clean. You can't change her. Wouldn't that be better than no contact?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
We do have contact. I visit her roughly once a month, and we speak on the phone once or twice a week. I send a photo by e-mail about once a fortnight. I have a great relationship with my Dad; it's relaxed and affectionate. When I visit my parents, Dad and I might go out for a walk or a drive whilst Mum's cooking. I'm pretty sure I've taken Dad out for coffee, just not Mum.
She's a wonderful grandmother, too.
Mum and I just struggle to communicate.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Like I said, styrofoam cup.
I've an uncle who causes Gran naught but grief. She rises above it and suggests we not treat him poorly. I would like to go beyond her suggestion and, when he dies, build him a tomb of marble and porcelain.
I would visit often and leave something appropriate.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Got that link without even clicking on it. But I did anyway. I can think of a few it would suit very well ... at least in my mind, anyway.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I would like to go beyond her suggestion and, when he dies, build him a tomb of marble and porcelain.
I would visit often and leave something appropriate.
If he's married or has a partner, perhaps this would be appropriate.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
[Nuts jokes have moved into crapper jokes. This is clearly a progression. Will orfeo welcome it?]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Barefoot Friar
Ship's Shoeless Brother
# 13100
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
[T]hroughout my life, my mom would occasionally drive us past a nearby cemetery and instruct my sister and I to make sure she got this headstone when she died.
Sheesh. I couldn't blink if I wanted to. That thing's slightly hideous.
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Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. -- Desmond Tutu
Posts: 1621 | From: Warrior Mountains | Registered: Oct 2007
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But doing the ironing can't harm. It's not the thin end of a wedge unless you let it become that.
My MIL used to do our ironing then complain to all and sundry that she'd 'had' to do it. It was her way of still feeling useful and letting people know it.
If it got too much I hid the ironing - but usually I just let her get on with it (and the complaining). She really didn't know how to communicate her real needs.
She was very hard work. But I miss her, all the same. ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by Barnabus62:
I have never taken Mum out for a cup of coffee. There are things I've done with my daughter that I've never done with my mother.
She's from a completely different generation. Going out for coffee would have seemed terribly wasteful 30 years ago as, I suspect, would be many things you do with your own daughter. And that generation also expected you to fit in with what your elders (and betters!) wanted. They are of their time - some have adapted to the 21st century, but a large number have not. You may need to meet her where she is.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
To avoid confusion the coffee ref is all from North East Quine. (My mum is still happy to be taken out anywhere but will still argue over who should pay, now that we're both pensioners ...)
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
my mom would occasionally drive us past a nearby cemetery and instruct my sister and I to make sure she got this headstone
I guess when some people die there's rejoicing in Heaven and for other people there's this reaction.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Oh, that's funny. I had just remembered a minute ago that somewhere along the line during one of these jaunts, I had worked up the nerve to ask,"If the person is supposed to arriving at Heaven's gate, why are the angels so despondent about it?"
I then offered the opinion that I would like my headstone to have two angels high-fiving each other, or doing the bump, or something.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
One of the things parents know how to do is push all the buttons to manipulate their children. Not necessarily successfully to do what they want, but at least toe get a response.
As they get to be very old, their skills degenerate. It's hard to manipulate when you forget to listen to the person you are trying to change. That leaves the child with irritation of what is unvarnished nagging without the power to upset and a sadness about the decline in ability of the parent. I don't know if any of that applies to you, but it's worth noticing if what's frustrating you has changed from what it was in the past.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
you other parents of college kids have got it backwards - I want my son to come home from college and visit so he can get down the stuff from the top shelves and because all of this snow ain't going to shovel itself.
if I happen to make him cookies while he's here that's my business.
and lord protect me from my children someday "allowing" me to do stuff because it will make me feel useful. fuck that. if I'm that much of a burden stick me out on an ice floe and get it over with.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by bib:
All people annoy each other from time to time, me included. I used to struggle with my Mother in law's rants about all men ( especially when she went on and on in front of FIL). In fact after her death my FIL was a changed man who became funny and charming.
However, nastiness in families just feeds more unpleasantness and life is too short to start making mountains out of molehills. As my old teacher used to say 'don't sweat the small stuff'.
I'm sorry that you are having relationship issues with your mother, but you don't seem to be seeking intelligent ways to resolve the issues. Can you try to put yourself in your mother's shoes and consider what you would do and say in her place? Her words to you are unfortunate, but she sounds anxious and lonely to me. Is there a way acceptable to you to ease that loneliness and to she her that you love her? Sorry if you don't like being given advice, but I miss my own dear mother so much since her death and would do anything to be able to see and talk to her again.
If this is for me, rather than NEQ, I would say that I am getting a lot better over time at 'not sweating the small stuff', and also at discerning what is and is not small stuff. For instance (what is it with the ironing?), I am now quite happy to have ironing, or even vacuuming, done for me, when she is visiting, whereas once I would have read it as a veiled comment that I had let the floors get too dirty.
Obviously, the episode which tipped off my rant was relatively small stuff also, in the scheme of things (which I have acknowledged a long way upthread). It was the final comment, with its implication that I was not actually sincere about planning to bring the children to visit in the future, which lit the candle, so to speak.
As to 'not seeking intelligent ways to resolve the issues' - I assure you I have spent much time and effort seeking to resolve them, and have attempted to put myself in my Mum's shoes (see also upthread, in reply to Organ Builder), and, if it helps, I do feel that we are getting somewhere positive with this relationship. Conceptually, rather than going around in circles, we move in some sort of pattern which has rather a lot of loops in it, but a general forward direction.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
She has threatened many times to cut me out of the will for being a communist (I'm not), marrying an Italian (I did), not being a Christian etc.
She's straight-facedly anti-Italian but thinks of herself as a Christian? Whoa...
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
...and lord protect me from my children someday "allowing" me to do stuff because it will make me feel useful. fuck that. if I'm that much of a burden stick me out on an ice floe and get it over with.
Interestingly, I didn't read mdijon's post that way. I think it's only 'allowing' them to do stuff so that they 'feel' useful, if what they are doing is not actually useful, and needs more fixing quietly afterwards, which didn't seem to be at all what s/he was saying. My Dad couldn't visit without needing to fix a whole load of stuff, but I never felt as though my toes were being stepped upon, probably because most of the stuff he worked on I could never have fixed myself anyway, being effectively pixie-sized and thus quite disadvantaged for heavy-labour tasks.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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