Over at Social Moms, you can give writing prompts for everyone and I asked the question –
What are your tips on how to deal with difficult in-laws or family members? - Is it hard for you to get along with your in-laws or other family members? Has it gotten so bad that you don’t bring your kids around them any more? How do you overcome your differences for your children’s sake? Share your tips on how to make a better relationship with difficult family members.
If you’ve followed my blog for awhile, you know that I have not always been my in-laws’ favorite person. In fact, I’ve never been. My FIL, may he RIP, one time told me when Pato was in Mexico and I called down there, that he would not let his son be with me.
One of my SILs likes to give me grief about my weight, one time telling me that the reason I am fat is because I like cheese so much. This was before I had Kat, Alyce, and Nano. I was a size 8/10. It was actually the thinnest I had been in years, I had lost 80 lbs.
When Kat was 3 months old we went to visit his mom who had come up to Ohio. Pato had told her that I didn’t want to feed Kat food until at least 4 months, possibly 6. That’s what doctors here recommend. I turned my back and my MIL was feeding my 3 month old CAULIFLOWER. Not joking. Cauliflower. The next day I came downstairs from going to the bathroom and my youngest SIL was feeding her baby fruit out of a jar. I snatched Katiana up out of that high chair and told Pato he’d best be doing something.
There’s no boundaries. They don’t listen to me or respect my opinion.
If you read my blog back in August, you know what my last trip to visit my in-laws was like. It was HORRiBLE. I told my husband I would not be going back to Ohio. If his mom wanted to visit, she could come here. No way am I staying in his sister’s house again. It started out so pleasant. I thought things had changed. I truly did. I thought we were good. Until I didn’t do exactly as his sister said to do. Then I had both of the women who think they love him more than I do on me.
I don’t get it. I have never been anything but kind and respectful to my in-laws. Not just the ones I married into, the ones who my family has married also. It’s what I do. I’ve never seen my parents be anything but kind, respectful, and friends with their in-laws. Never.
Pato wonders why I would get upset when he’d leave me alone with them to go do something with his friends or male family members. It’s because they push, and they are overbearing, and they are rude, and sometimes they are downright hurtful.
Why should I have to put up with that?
I’m lucky in that my inlaws that are in the US are 700 miles away in Ohio. The rest of them are in Mexico. I have to say I do absolutely adore one of his sisters. She has always been kind to me. She is more like Pato. His younger sister, as she is getting older, seems to be maturing into a fabulous young woman who I am now able to get along with. At least on Facebook. I haven’t actually seen her face to face since Katiana was almost 1. His other sister, I don’t think there is any hope for us. Period. She’s one of those people who think they have to control everyone.
I’ll never forget walking into the kitchen at her restaurant and overhearing her ask Pato who he loves THAT woman. He told her to back off.
I don’t know if it’s because I am an American and they didn’t send their son up here to marry an American and stay forever. They sent him up here at 17 to work and send money home to the family and eventually come home. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not Catholic though they’ve tried their hardest. I’m Pentecostal. We don’t baptize babies at birth. I feel that that is a personal decision between a person and God and not one your parents can make for you. Plus, baptism is to wash away the sins and be born again, what has a baby done that was sinful that needs washed away? We anoint with oil and dedicate the baby to God. Because of that, I am raising my children like pigs in a barn. They will be heathens, forever lost to wherever you are lost if you aren’t baptized as a baby. Yes, she has said that to me.
It could be those major reasons or it could be some other thing that I don’t even know about.
I know it drives my MIL crazy because the kids don’t speak in Spanish. They understand it. They choose to speak in English. I’m supposed to speak to them in Spanish 24/7 so that they learn it. What happens when we go to Mexico and they aren’t able to communicate with anyone? I don’t know. Considering the fact I haven’t been to Mexico in 9 years and the fact that my youngest 3 have never been to Mexico, I suppose it would be more important for them to speak Spanish fluently. I mean, they only live and go to school in the US where English is the primary language. It would be silly to make sure they have a good grasp on that before both of us speak to them only in Spanish. (Since birth, Pato has spoken to the kids in Spanish and I in English so that they can learn both.)
You can see my frustration and the reason for the writing prompt.
So, tell me – and everyone else, how do you deal with in-laws that hate you?
Leave me a link to your blog post and you can link it up over at Social Moms.
Have a great day!
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