I'm tired of cooking/preparing 3 meals a day. It's just the two of us but boy oh boy can that woman eat!! She stays slimish, I get fattish. It's bad enough I do everything here much less start making her one thing and me the other. At times I feel guilty when I buy her fast food cuz of the nutritional value....not to mention I eat it too.
You are correct . MIL continues to focus on a lot of wants and stays in denial about her needs and immobility . Very similar to FIL . Maybe they were too similar , hence the divorce 35 years ago . 🤔🤔
I’m hoping an opportunity presents itself to discuss Needs vs Wants . I may have to create the opportunity by steering a conversation.
Could you turn it into a game that someone told you about? Have a long list of requests, lots of them funny, and get MIL to class them as 'needs' or 'wants'? Doing it 'in the abstract' might be better than a specific 'opportunity'.
I could try but I sort of think she would not get the connection .
She’s so self centered and entitled her whole life , that in her world, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander , doesn’t apply to her .
She also is in such denial . At times out of touch and things go over her head.
It may just have to be spelled out for her .☹️☹️
It's like your just waiting and hoping her health fails before she hurts someone.
So sorry
Way, mil is very manipulative, still has many of her marbles. She can rationalize what she wants to. She probably likes to argue. She may well have figured out what your concerns are and already have her arguments prepared.
Don't do it! It's a game to her.
I would stay with "I" or "We"statements to make the points you want to make,and few of them, and not engage with her on contentious issues. Let her go on if she wants to. Then talk about the weather or go for a walk.
Is this a trip to talk her into or out of certain behaviours, or is this a trip to state your concerns and set your boundaries?
Words to this effect - more than 10 but to the point.
"Mom, dh and I are concerned that you continue to drive. At your age with your health issues. you could have an accident and hurt yourself and others. We will not be involved with any crisis resulting from your driving.
Mom, in life there are needs and wants. Continuing to drive at your age and with your health issues is a want, not a need and potentially dangerous to you and others. You have other options. We will not be involved with any crisis resulting from your driving.
I expect deep down she knows she is pushing the limits with her driving. It may well take a crisis for her to stop. It that case there is nothing you can do to change her. Just state where you are at, and let it go. You can't change others, just yourself. This is stressing you - try to find some peace in the storm.
Those are good examples , thank you .
The trip is our normal scheduled “ visit” . However we were wanting to reinforce what we have been telling her , that we will not rescue her if she travels to Florida or anywhere else . We also wanted to state some concerns , specifically ask her what are her “ plans “ . I told DH we are not going to tell her what to do . I told DH that her lack of plans ( no POA) is her problem . We will tell her that her lack of planning may result in consequences that we are not willing to deal with . DH is getting more comfortable with this I think partly because he’s so swamped at work . 🤷♀️
Everything you said is spot on of your description , MIL will have an argument rehearsed etc . She is very manipulative and will rationalize that teen drivers are worse . I like the idea of telling her we won’t be involved in her crisis.
Also may be good to state what you will do e.g. You will be involved in appropriate plans for her care as she ages and give an example of what you are prepared to do.
Again don't argue with her about these issues - just state what you will and what you won't do and stick to it.
I understand your need to say "may" - " her lack of planning may result in consequences that we are not willing to deal with", but do realise she can use that as a loophole. It is not a firm boundary. It may be better at this point to clearly state what you will and what you won't do even if it doesn't cover all the territory. That leaves you wiggle room for dealing with some things and not others that arise. Just a thought.
Any master manipulator like her will use anything that isn't very clear. Boundaries, when stated, need to be clear and firm. However, that being said, boundaries can be changed as/if people and circumstances change.
As to asking her what her plans are, maybe take a step back and start with asking her if she has any plans for her care in the future as her abilities decline.
Dealing with people like mil is difficult and draining. I hope you and dh can have some fun/good experiences on this trip as well. Be sure to plan something good for you that you can look forward to,
Thanks for the food for thought .
It is very difficult to figure out the best words to use with someone like this .
It’s a short trip just overnight in a hotel . We never stay with her . DH looks forward to his NY bagel breakfast just the two of us before we leave to go home . That’s about it . The previous daylong visit is too long , but it is what it is . It’s only a few times a year . I may go out for a walk in the middle of it and get a break this time . I’ve never done that before , I’m sure it will be frowned upon by MIL . Oh well .
Do what's good for you.
As abusive as my Mom was , at least she gave up driving on her own . She’s got one up on MIL . 🤭🤣
As difficult as my mother was, she, too, gave up driving on her own. (good thing I love to drive)
My DH used to call it
Driving Miss A*****
FYI , DH used her real name , it started with an A ………in case you were thinking something else . 🤔😄🤪😜
I confess. I'm embarrassed to admit. I never got my driving license. But let me explain. I always suffered from anxiety in one form or another and just the thought of being responsible for controlling a 4000 Ib. piece of machinery just raised my anxiety levels big time. I like to think I was considering my fellow mankind's safety by not getting behind the wheel. ;)
It appears that your mother liked be chauffered by Dad. I wonder if he really did not want her driving his car , or maybe it started out that way in the beginning 🤷♀️🤷♀️
She got her license around 40 actually, and drove back and forth to work, but if dad was home he always drove her, and after he retired she never drove again
As well, we are now a one phone family. His phone got smashed in the accident. We had a back up phone and it stopped working so we are going to go for a factory reset on it and hope it will work then.
Just to add to the fun, my phone which is the communal phone is connected to my hearing aids so when R dials wherever (he is making many calls these days). He has to switch it over to speaker or iphone and forgets to do that so I hear the greetings for the insurance companies etc. and sometimes even if he switches it over right, the phone automatically, in the middle of the conversation, switches over to my hearing aids. Great!!!
In the meanwhile, the condo owners have decided to remove some old trees at the back where people have stored vehicles, R has a truck there and a car and the car is not running but they have to be out of there by Friday. We don't get a lot of notice for these things.
On the good side, we had a great walk yesterday to a neighbourhood nearby, which has lovely big trees and well established gardens. The walk winds through a small park and went past a house with a large apple tree in front. Of course R picked one and gave me a bite which is all I can take these days (fodmaps issues) and I thought it was a very nice crisp, slightly tart but sweet enough, red skinned apple. The tree was full of them. He says he will go back and see if the owners will let him pick more. Apart from having the apples for him to eat we want some seeds to grow a tree from.
The downside of that is that the walk triggered my cfs/fm and my brain is on high alert/disorganization today. We'll see how the body reacts in the next few days. So I am taking a few more anti-inflammatories and hope to head it off at the pass. The weather is such lovely fall weather. I loved getting out and walking a bit rather than walking in the parkade, but I have to walk faster to keep up with R as he is tall and a lot of that is legs.
A couple of silver maple saplings in pots are stored in the back which now need be moved and planted at the lake lot along with the elm sapling on the balcony. I haven't been there for years and I really want to go with him this afternoon, so I am taking the chance.
Whine over for now. It helps to vent.
I will believe with you that you headed that darn cfs/fm off at the pass and you will be feeling top notch.
I have a long legged hubby and I so feel you on the speed walking it takes to keep up. 😬
Get R to take some zinc to shorten that cold.
May The Lord be with you both and touch your endeavors and your bodies.