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LOL. I let my brother use my account since he I told him that if he wants a quick response about anything to use city data. Sorry for the confusion. There will be a lot of conflicting posts if you read my history.
Number 1 rule: Make the decision, whatever it is, jointly with their daughter. If you fail to negotiate a "joint agreement" and stick to it, this issue will never, ever go away.
You're right. Right now we are deciding whether it should be full cut off or just a severely reduced contact.
I know people in here are saying the suck it up but I don't see how the logic as to how that would make us the bigger people? How would they even know that what they do gets to us? And this has gone beyond a few ethnic slurs and awkward moments, in the beginning it was physical altercations, the mother is a serial adulteress and I've had to watch myself several times in front of her, the sisters are emotional wrecks, there are probably hardcore drugs involved. I mean they may be a well off family but they're still messed up. My wife has dealt with their verbal bullying for years. They're just awful people.
Regardless of how crappy they are, I am sure my wife wants to keep some modicum of contact with her mother. But the problem is would that hurt her mother too much though that her own daughter is practically telling her that she doesn't want to be friends and please do not come visit us, to just keep it civil and see each other for Christmas. Bascially, that she wants as minimal contact as possible.
Hi all, if there are any married people in here I could use some advice. I am an ethnic Greek-American male who married a Southern belle from Texas. She comes from an upper middle class small town Texas family where they all dress like cowboys or clean cut country dudes for the most part. At first they didn't take that much of a liking to me, except for the dad, because I was too "ethnic", "metro" and not the ideal of what they wanted for her; tall (I'm 5'11!), blonde haired, blue eyed, cowboy, jock-ish, good ol' boy. Eventually they grew to like me and consider me a part of the family, but there is always that weird feeling that I will never be 100% unlike the other men that married into the family because they fit the bill more than I do. It seems like even though they work manual labor and never went to college they actually respect that more than going the "yuppie" route to them.
I married their daughter, went to a good college, and we moved to Los Angeles from Texas to work two pretty darn good jobs and are living a comfortable middle class life in LA. You would think that everything would be ok? But the mother came to visit with her sisters and it just felt awkward. It was as though our lives were just "cute" to them, they were sizing us up and wanted to see where I worked (they came into visit me while I was in a meeting!). I was shocked. They hated whenever I offered to pay for them and for some reason just wanted to believe that we were not doing as well as we said were doing on the phone, which is absurd because we told them we just live a decent middle class life in LA.
Point is, is it completely pointless to ever try to measure up to in laws? Especially conservative in laws that are a little racist? They say they love me, I am part of the family, all that jazz but a lot of it feels fake and as though they're treating my wife and I like kids. Maybe that is the way these Southern middle aged ladies talk? But it just seems like they treat the other good ol boys in the family a lot better because they feel they can cut loose and relate to them more is what I assuming.
At this point I am beyond caring what they think of me and my wife and I want to cut them off except for Christmas vacations. We ran away from the 'keeping up with the joneses' life in Texas, all the gossip, fake politeness and backstabbing that happens in the family. We're so much happier being away from all that.
Should we still keep trying to be accepted or should we just live our lives and totally cut them off. I mean we cannot handle the underhanded comments, the fake politeness, the flaunting of their wealth in front of us which we know they're over indebted, or how every other guy that comes into the family no matter how much of a dirtbag he turns out to be gets way better treatment right away.
Do I sense that you think you are better than the less educated men who married into the family? You really need to realize that if you live in town (My mother called it living on top of each other.), your life is not as good as theirs. That is a fact. In the country, the amount of land you have is much more important than the size of your house. And how big a person's house is and what they do for a living does not matter to most country people. Who you are is more important than what you have. Donald Trump would be an outcast where I come from. He says bad words. Not acceptable.
I find most towns or cities to be less desireable than the open spaces with clean air. We just got back from New Orleans where everybody thought was so great and I thought was the pits. The town stinks. It was loud, dirty and smelly. I hated it and could not wait to go back to my country home with only a little over an acre of land, but clean and fresh.
Just be yourself and stop worrying what they think of it and stop comparing yourself to others. But think of your wife's feelings and just accept and be polite. Some day they may find that they like you but you have to stop the idea to compete. That is never good. Just be friendly and loving.
Do I sense that you think you are better than the less educated men who married into the family? You really need to realize that if you live in town (My mother called it living on top of each other.), your life is not as good as theirs. That is a fact. In the country, the amount of land you have is much more important than the size of your house. And how big a person's house is and what they do for a living does not matter to most country people. Who you are is more important than what you have. Donald Trump would be an outcast where I come from. He says bad words. Not acceptable.
I find most towns or cities to be less desireable than the open spaces with clean air. We just got back from New Orleans where everybody thought was so great and I thought was the pits. The town stinks. It was loud, dirty and smelly. I hated it and could not wait to go back to my country home with only a little over an acre of land, but clean and fresh.
Just be yourself and stop worrying what they think of it and stop comparing yourself to others. But think of your wife's feelings and just accept and be polite. Some day they may find that they like you but you have to stop the idea to compete. That is never good. Just be friendly and loving.
I know that they think the open air country is better and not even having a penthouse suite in Manhattan or a gorgeous condo in LA is desirable. That's just the way they think and I've accepted that. The point was that they were acting a bit materialistic on this last trip. As though they thought they needed to prove to us that they still have money. It was weird and we didn't like it.
My wife's feelings are that she wants to severely limit her contact with them, wants to unfriend them on Facebook because they always spy on us and only see them for Xmas. But she doesn't want to hurt her mom that bad either. She just wants to let her know that they cannot be friends and they're not allowed to visit her.
I know about cars and can do minimal routine stuff; change spark plugs, flat tires, oil change, etc. Funny thing is the mother swore she saw a Barracuda on the road and I told her it was a 69 Camaro, she kept saying no, no it's a barracuda like I didn't know what I was talking about, but her other sisters looked at the car and said I was right, it was a Camaro. I mean to just not even take my word over it. LOL.
When you said Texas did you actually mean Iowa? Because I think we must have the same mother-in-law.
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So I guess in comparison to the men they know who barrell race and fix homes, I guess I am overall a "yuppie".
Being something of a cowboy myself, I consider barrel racing a woman's sport. Men who barrel race are pretty much wannabe cowboys who have failed at calf roping, steer wrestling, and bronc riding. Or who are too scared to try. JMHO, of course.
Thank you! I've been wanting to hear the truth for so long because they are so closed off to revealing any bit of their true feelings about me. My wife has always gotten denials about any misplaced feelings or that they really love me, yada yada, but actions speak way louder than words and the treatment the other men get is world's apart from the treatment we get.
Now why wouldn't they trust me considering their daughter is in love with me, loves our relationship and is happier than ever. She is the one that is more open about resenting them and their over whelming traditional lifestyle they forced on all the daughters.
So in essense, they will never really admit that I am the best choice for her? What's funny is that in the mothers more vulnerable moments (when she is a bit tipsy) she admits to me how attractive and intelligent I am and it feels genuine. But when you put it all together, I still wouldn't be the ideal. It is as though there is this traditional cultural boundary they cannot break through. Outside of those vulnerable moments, all of the other compliments seem fake. But it's almost as if they want to really love me, but this thing is in the way.
So that is why I decided to reach out in here to Southern middle aged moms to just get the darn truth so I won't be all awkward and insecure around the family trying to figure them out. It seems like they are just not direct people at all.
And why would grandkids make things worse?! I was under the impression that would make things better?
Those children will be their grandchildren and you are not bringing them up the way they would. That can get really sticky.
And please stop with these labels. We are all just people. Who wants to be called a Southern middle-aged Mom. Southern ladies will never be either middle-aged or old.
When in New Orleans I was going into the resort and about a 20 something held the door for me. I said something like "Grandma is slow and old." He said, "But you are still pretty." He became my best friend with that statement. I loved him for it and I have noticed that men of all ages appreciate it when you bother to look your best.
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