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Also, without reading the pages in between....OP you have MAJOR issues and your parents are not one of them. I feel sorry for them, too. I'm sure they aren't perfect, and we all know how parents can annoy us like no other, but you are a nutcase and need some anger management or maybe some meds.
You must have the luxury of a functional family. I didn't use the holiday to unload on my guests.....the situation arose and I'm not going to continue to backdown and digress. At 28 years old, I've had just about enough of my parents sh**. I'm about to disown them!
So you volunteer to keep them in your lives then complain about what they do and act like you were forced to have them in your home.
Make a decision what you want to do about this issue and follow through.
My family is a bunch of lunatics. You actually seem like one of the relatives (extended family) I've cut out of my life, OP. And trust me, I KNOW dysfunction. My father is a hardcore narcissist and my mother has strong narcissistic tendencies. At various points in my life, they have both put me through sheer hell. Yet, I'm close with my dad, and I've learned to deal with my mother in a controlled way.
Your problem is less your parents acting like brats and more that you are waaaaaaay too rigid and controlling.
1) Your mother is absolutely right to want the house to be locked up at night and for the doors to be locked when everyone is inside. It's just common sense, not city BS. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and our house was broken into numerous times. PARTICULARLY in rural areas, people feel emboldened to break in, especially if they are on drugs and your house is well shielded from the road. Heroin addicts were real popular in my area. The final time they tried to break in while we were sleeping, but we had thankfully gotten an alarm just days before and they were scared off. That was the last break-in. My childhood dog, like your Labrador, was not a breed that most people found menacing. You are delusional if you think just because you're in a rural area you can safely leave your house unlocked.
2) I'm sorry, but as long as a dog is even minimally housebroken, your house is not going to stink or be dirty after a brief visit from a woman with a single cattle dog. I grew up next to a kennel and there are currently 5 dogs in my house. I know pet messes, and dealing with smells related to the dogs has never been a problem in my house. Your Labrador is one of the stinkiest breeds there is, btw. Pet hair can be vacuumed up. Dog stink can be controlled very easily. You started a major fight with your family over things that are easily corrected and cleaned up. Have you heard of a SpotBot? $100 bucks and it will steam clean any mud spot out of your rug. I can't believe you don't have one since you're a neat freak with kids and a dog.
3) Your dad can't admit to wrong. Yeah, well welcome to the club. My mother actually had to be in fear for my life before she'd apologize to me for acting like a lunatic. (We had a blow-up when I questioned her decision over something. She started screaming and flinging insults without warning. I went to leave. She freaked out because it was late at night and she was worried about me driving on little sleep through the dark, deer-infested pine barrens. She literally had to think my death was a possibility in order to apologize for acting like a crazy, abusive nutjob.) I love my mother, but I have basically accepted her faults and put her at an appropriate emotional distance. She can act as poorly as she wants, but I've made it clear to her that I will cut ties if she presses past my boundaries. She is generally very well-behaved these days. Similarly, my father knows that I will shut down a conversation and leave/hang up the phone if it is over a divisive topic and he starts getting nasty.
Look, I get it. My mother ran me down and undermined me for years, and my father placed burdens on me that nearly broke me - seriously, cleaning up one of his messes drove me to a complete physical collapse. But working on myself helped me deal with my feelings and manage them better. I'm not trying to change them or to get them to comply with my wishes. I make my boundaries very clear and let go of the things I can't control, such as their behavior. I keep my expectations low and my emotional investment minimal.
Your expectation about your mother basically watching her every step with her dog was unreasonable. Either tell her the dog can't come (and maybe she can't come either then - oh well) or just accept there will be a little added mess and chaos in your house. Or better yet, keep a bucket of soapy water and wet rags by the door so she can wipe off hte dog's paws as some of my friends do. No big deal.
You are very invested in being right and having your parents conform to your ways. Give it up. It's not about "winning."
And I'll be blunt - I really could not give two craps about your relationship with your parents. They're adults; you're an adult. Anyone can walk away at any time. But you need to get a handle on this because you have children, and there is nothing worse than having a volatile, controlling and nitpicky parent. Maintain your current attitude and you're going to find your kids posting on here about how to deal with an overbearing and unpleasant father in a few years.
Oh I TOTALLY get where you're coming from, OP. I have serious issues with my family. I am so stressed when my parents visit. It's INSANE. I really look for things to do so I don't have to be around them. They will come for the weekend and my mother brings no less than 5 or 6 bags. We don't have a guest room and we live in a very small house so their bags have to stay in our living room where they sleep on the couch.We have dogs and they climb all over the bags. This mess stresses me out.
Us having dogs is NOTHING new! We've had dogs for 15 years!! Every single time she comes here, she brings food in her bags and leaves it in the living room. Of course, the dogs are looking for the food. Then she complains they're on her bags....ummm yeah they're DOGS and you're hiding food on them!
She also LOVES to snack on my couch!!! OMG!!!! The crumbs everywhere make me bat sh!! crazy! Of course the dogs climb on her and the couch because they want the crumbs. UGH Then she complains about them over and over....
She also thinks she's going to eat and drink in my vehicle. We only drink water in vehicle. We do NOT eat in my vehicle. There's absolutely no trash in my vehicle. There's nothing in my vehicle except for the manual, registration/insurance card, wires for phone/iPod, ice scrapper, mini snow shovel, and reusable shopping bags. Seriously, that's all I keep in my vehicle. Even the dogs have blankets they are on where they are buckled in.
My parents haven't been here in over a year and I have zero interest to have them stay with us again. It's far too stressful. There are far too many messes to deal with.
I don't act like this in other people's homes when I stay. I keep my stuff contained. I'll even leave things in my vehicle so I'm not messy. I certainly don't eat wherever I feel like!
I feel for you OP! I really do. I totally know where you're coming from! It's not just you. We all don't have picture perfect, tv families. Some of us are related to psychos and devils.
Somebody's wound just a bit tight. "Hate" is a very strong word, and I don't hate anyone, least of all my very own wonderfully dysfunctional family. I think most people have parents who can get under their skin a bit when they stay together, but I think that blowing up like that is a little over the top since they would be leaving again in a couple days anyway. My parents are both dead now. My mom died far too soon at 65 and I would do anything to have another Thanksgiving with her. My dad pretty much abandoned us when we were little, and I don't even hate him at all.
Well put. Hate is a strong word. That said, life is short; if your parents make you miserable then do as you see fit. It's your life to live, not theirs. No one can force you to interact or communicate with your family. However, know that you someday may regret such action. There are many out there who trade a limb for one more hour with loved ones long gone (as the poster above respectfully pointed out).
I sometimes get annoyed with my own family, and yes they (well we) are a bit of a dysfunctional lot. But I cherish every day because I never know when they will be gone.
I side 100% with the original poster, and honestly can't believe some of the responses I've read.
(1) Dogs. I'm somewhat not fond of dogs myself, insomuch that in fact I'm not letting them in the house I don't care if it gets down to 20'F. (There are dog houses with hay and incandescent light bulbs for that sort of thing.) To me the original poster is trying to halfway compromise by saying "OK, you can have your dog in the house, so long as you keep it under control." That's more than fair.
I mean really, what's with these people who can't live 2 minutes without their stinking dog? It's ridiculous. Quite frankly, to paraphrase Melvin Udall {As Good As It Gets}, people who worship their dogs ought to shampoo my {leg area}. You take your dog to someone ELSE'S house, you make it comfortable for THEM. Otherwise, Fiddo and their silly owner can stay home. Period.
(2) Locking the doors. I live in the boonies, and yes, people being paranoid about a break-in in a rural are in fact being paranoid. Of course anything can happen anywhere, but the original poster's perspective to me is really refreshing; the fear that people in rural areas have sometimes with respect to the possibility of a break-in is right up there with "chicken little syndrome." I lived in the city, too--trust me, after living in a large city for 10 years, any complaining rural people do about "all the crime 'round here" just earns a dismissive laugh and an "oh please" rebuttal from me. They don't have a CLUE.
(3) The mother deliberately shaking the fur loose out of spite--that was absolutely wrong. She was basically saying "up you and your feelings," in this person's own house. You don't do that. You're a visitor. Yes a host should be a gracious and a reasonable host, but if the host doesn't care for dogs, they don't care for dogs (or other people's dogs, whatever). If it were me, she wouldn't even be allowed to have the dog in the house at all.
My family is a bunch of lunatics. You actually seem like one of the relatives (extended family) I've cut out of my life, OP. And trust me, I KNOW dysfunction. My father is a hardcore narcissist and my mother has strong narcissistic tendencies. At various points in my life, they have both put me through sheer hell. Yet, I'm close with my dad, and I've learned to deal with my mother in a controlled way.
Your problem is less your parents acting like brats and more that you are waaaaaaay too rigid and controlling.
1) Your mother is absolutely right to want the house to be locked up at night and for the doors to be locked when everyone is inside. It's just common sense, not city BS. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and our house was broken into numerous times. PARTICULARLY in rural areas, people feel emboldened to break in, especially if they are on drugs and your house is well shielded from the road. Heroin addicts were real popular in my area. The final time they tried to break in while we were sleeping, but we had thankfully gotten an alarm just days before and they were scared off. That was the last break-in. My childhood dog, like your Labrador, was not a breed that most people found menacing. You are delusional if you think just because you're in a rural area you can safely leave your house unlocked.
2) I'm sorry, but as long as a dog is even minimally housebroken, your house is not going to stink or be dirty after a brief visit from a woman with a single cattle dog. I grew up next to a kennel and there are currently 5 dogs in my house. I know pet messes, and dealing with smells related to the dogs has never been a problem in my house. Your Labrador is one of the stinkiest breeds there is, btw. Pet hair can be vacuumed up. Dog stink can be controlled very easily. You started a major fight with your family over things that are easily corrected and cleaned up. Have you heard of a SpotBot? $100 bucks and it will steam clean any mud spot out of your rug. I can't believe you don't have one since you're a neat freak with kids and a dog.
3) Your dad can't admit to wrong. Yeah, well welcome to the club. My mother actually had to be in fear for my life before she'd apologize to me for acting like a lunatic. (We had a blow-up when I questioned her decision over something. She started screaming and flinging insults without warning. I went to leave. She freaked out because it was late at night and she was worried about me driving on little sleep through the dark, deer-infested pine barrens. She literally had to think my death was a possibility in order to apologize for acting like a crazy, abusive nutjob.) I love my mother, but I have basically accepted her faults and put her at an appropriate emotional distance. She can act as poorly as she wants, but I've made it clear to her that I will cut ties if she presses past my boundaries. She is generally very well-behaved these days. Similarly, my father knows that I will shut down a conversation and leave/hang up the phone if it is over a divisive topic and he starts getting nasty.
Look, I get it. My mother ran me down and undermined me for years, and my father placed burdens on me that nearly broke me - seriously, cleaning up one of his messes drove me to a complete physical collapse. But working on myself helped me deal with my feelings and manage them better. I'm not trying to change them or to get them to comply with my wishes. I make my boundaries very clear and let go of the things I can't control, such as their behavior. I keep my expectations low and my emotional investment minimal.
Your expectation about your mother basically watching her every step with her dog was unreasonable. Either tell her the dog can't come (and maybe she can't come either then - oh well) or just accept there will be a little added mess and chaos in your house. Or better yet, keep a bucket of soapy water and wet rags by the door so she can wipe off hte dog's paws as some of my friends do. No big deal.
You are very invested in being right and having your parents conform to your ways. Give it up. It's not about "winning."
And I'll be blunt - I really could not give two craps about your relationship with your parents. They're adults; you're an adult. Anyone can walk away at any time. But you need to get a handle on this because you have children, and there is nothing worse than having a volatile, controlling and nitpicky parent. Maintain your current attitude and you're going to find your kids posting on here about how to deal with an overbearing and unpleasant father in a few years.
I was willing to indulge that nonsense. He really lost me when he used the word "retarded" to describe culture.
I can only imagine how "pleasant" it is to stay at his home or interact with such a rigid, overbearing personality.
I agree with you here, he said city culture is retarded. I don't live in a big city and I wouldn't even say a things like that. Even if I don't like big city living, I still know there is plenty culture in every big city of the world.
Also, I don't agree with how he handled things, he could have done a better job in trying to control his emotions for that day. I would not have given her the benefit of knowing she was getting to me, and most of it sound a little petty. Sounds like an overreaction to the things that was going on, and I would not disown my parents over small things like that.
Don't sound like they were they worst parents in the world, especially if they didn't abuse you in anyway, and provided you with the things you needed in life. They are not perfect people and probably dealing with things from their childhood as well. Don't sound anything that you can't work out with them, I'm sure many people out there would love to swap parents with you if that's all you have to deal with.
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