Emotional Support from my Parents

I was at my parents last night. My Mom has too much curiosity about my MIL's house.

Sister in law thankfully inherits the white elephant. Hubbie has been going and helping her clean out when he gets a chance. I am fine with that as long as he doesn't bring anything home with him (which he does, but that's not the issue here). She is recently separated, and is unable to get help from her hubbie or anyone else.

I was telling my parents some of the things that hubbie is doing to help her. My Dad kept saying that SIL inherited everything, she should have to do it, that my hubbie shold not have to. I told him that SIL is not demanding anything out of him, that she needs help and it's perfectly OK with me if he helps her as long as that is what he wants to do.

All those years of my Mom mostly and my Dad to some extent taking up for MIL/hubbie when hubbie was expected to go above and beyond the call. "Well, she's his Mother....." "She has a hard life......"

She had a hard life because she sat on her butt doing nothing.

Now SIL really needs some help. She is in her mid-50s and alone. She has to figure out what to do with all of that big mess that MIL made, and they think he shouldn't help her.

I suppose this post ended up being more about my parents than my MIL. But to me, an ongoing part of the IL problem was that they never were supportive of me being hurt when DH was enabling MIL. That made me feel more alone (until I found all of you). But now when he is helping someone who needs it, they think he shouldn't.

Part of it is that my parents are always obsessing over who gets what and who was treated unfairly when someone dies. They believe that my hubbie was treated badly because SIL inherited. Me, I think that SIL was treated badly by getting stuck with it and hubbie finally got a blessing.

I do think that they are just now starting to realize what I have been through for the last 23 years.

Finally, Validation from Mom

When at my parents yesterday, my Mom was asking about the after the funeral luncheon for MIL. I happened to ask Mom why she did not go.

But an invitation was issued at graveside for EVERYONE to attend. I kind of expected her to show. I did not say anything to her at the funeral like "are you coming?" I did not want her there because she is always trying to get me to "make nice" with the ILs and I was not up to the pressure of Mom's hounding me to be the bigger person and being around the ILs at the same time. In fact, my Mom was the most stressful thing about MIL's funeral.

But to the topic of this post. My Mom often says "I feel sorry for JB....", "I like JB", "She probably just (fill in blank as excuse for JB's bad behavior)", "JB has had a hard life", "You need to suck it up, I put up with a lot from my ILs for your Dad", etc.

Sunday, Mom asked me about the dinner. When I answered her, I threw in "why didn't you go?" Not that I wanted her to and not that I asked her. I expected her to say that it was because she didn't get a personal invite.

I loved her unexpected answer. Mom said, "I am not comfortable around your hubbie's family." Of course, I took the chance to say "ME NEITHER."

We take every little bit of validation we can get from the normally unsupportive.

But of course, she isn't comfortable around them. If they weren't my in-laws, she'd talk worse about them than I do -- seeing as how Mom has her nose in the air and ILs are white trash. She did not say why she wasn't comfortable, but I already know.

Finally A Little Support from Mom!

My Mom is rarely supportive of my problems dealing with JB. Whenever I would tell her of a problem, she would say something like "well she probably just..... " "I feel sorry for her....." "I'm sure she has it bad...."

I had lunch with Mom and Dad today. They were asking all kinds of questions about what is going to happen to haunted house. Mom admitted that she has never been to JB's house except around the time of my wedding (that would be twice in 1986). I talked to her about the condition of the place. She said several things that indicate that she understands.

First, that with the house in that kind of condition, it is good that hubbie did not spend the money to add the master suite onto the bottom floor that JB was begging for. That it would have been worth the money to get a modular.

I didn't even tell her all of it! I told her about the shower in the kitchen, the plywood insert that replaced the former patio door with a regular door cut out of the plywood, about the funny stairs and the low ceiling, the fixture-less bathroom.

Second, she called it a white elephant after I gave partial description of it, and agreed that it is best that he did not inherit.

We even talked about any possible value to the land. Which now is negligable. Mom thought it might have commercial value. But no, there is some valuable land around there, but it's the land on the highway. She's one lot off of the highway, so it's residential. Dad pointed out that it's also off the end of a runway and next to a train track. Maybe 20 or 30 years from now, it could have some development value, but right now, it's too far off the highway to be valuable commercial, too close to the highway for residential value (notwithstanding the train track and the runway). The land probably is not worth the cost of buldozing the place. They agreed that sitting between commercial property and the runway and the airport is probably not high dollar.

It is less of a feeling of exhaustion to have them agree with me this once. My parents have so often took the other side in JB/FIL issues that it just added to the toll that the whole situation took on me.

(Thank you JB for one thing ... for not burdening my hubbie with that white elephant.)
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