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Just backtracking here. But you have had an antipathy towards your son's spouse from the time she was his girlfriend. You've started nitpicking threads on how she talks like a baby, how you resented having to fly to their wedding despite their paying the fare, how you were going to cut your family out of your will, and now how you you don't want to go visit your family because they don't want to spend time with you. You point out how, whenever you entered a room where your daughter-in-law is, she gets up and leaves.
This is the problem with posts such as this. They are always framed from the perspective of the OP, with the details being methodically arranged in the poster's favor. However, based on the things you've written in the past, I'm not terribly sure that you're a picnic to be with in the first place. So, reading between the lines, if your DIL is avoiding you, I can hardly blame her.
So here's an idea. Go visit your family and try actually enjoying their company instead of sitting there in quiet sanctimony, ticking off their flaws. I mean, heck, you aren't even going with them to dinner all at once, instead meting out your presence individually. What's more, dispense with the passive-aggressive language. Quit playing the martyr here and voice your needs. If you're coming to town for a visit, say that you want to spend time with your children, not stew at home while they dash off to their jobs and the whatnot.
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 08-28-2018 at 10:10 AM..
Our children are in their thirties and they are busy with their lives. If I want to see them, I have to make the effort. Even when we do, they seem to have little interest in visiting with us. On the cell phones constantly, of course.
I am sad about this, as we enjoy their company and used to think they enjoyed ours.
Not so. We are an obligation now.
Live your life. Keep in touch. Stop off on your way to some place you want to visit or need to go. See your grandbaby. Love up on your sons and daughters-in-laws and keep moving.
I comfort myself that we raised our children to be independent and self-sufficient, and they are. Mission accomplished. They love us, they just don't enjoy spending all that much time with us.
So be it.
It frees me up to do some of the things I put off while raising them.
I would encourage you to pat yourself on the back for raising such fine sons and find ways to meet your emotional needs for the time being.
They'll likely come around. Men in their forties usually realize how much family means to them.
^^ my husband is in this situation. His four kids spare zero time for him. We made the latest effort, a 2500 mile (one way) road trip to see them and they didn't seem particularly interested, save for his youngest and most loyal daughter.
He said he would not do it again, that if any of them wanted to see him, they would be making the effort next time.
I don't blame him. My son is busy pounding out a wonderful living and has little time for me. But I raised him to be fiercely independent, so I expect it from him.
^^ my husband is in this situation. His four kids spare zero time for him. We made the latest effort, a 2500 mile (one way) road trip to see them and they didn't seem particularly interested, save for his youngest and most loyal daughter.
He said he would not do it again, that if any of them wanted to see him, they would be making the effort next time.
I don't blame him. My son is busy pounding out a wonderful living and has little time for me. But I raised him to be fiercely independent, so I expect it from him.
there is something to this, I absolutely identify with and support adults being fiercely independent and that is how I raised my three sons. and I get to give myself the same grace. when there are adults in relationship, it goes both ways, each person has to do what brings them joy, dignity, respect.
I know there are some readers of this thread who will feel some of us are unfairly, unnecessarily piling on our criticism of the OP. But my wife and I have had to deal with a demanding, selfish, judgemental mother in our lives. We know she weaves fabrications of our supposed mistreatment of her to other people to get sympathy, because some people have told us what she has said, and some of those very people have acknowledged they know how she is and to take her stories with a grain of salt. However, to "get along" with her, they don't call her out on this, and unfortunately that just validates her belief that everyone sympathizes with her. If some of these people did start giving her a reality check, it might make things better for us. So the greater responsibility as I see it is to avoid making things worse for the adult children by making this woman feel her victim-complex has been validated, as too many well-meaning but misguided posters did for most of this thread.
I know there are some readers of this thread who will feel some of us are unfairly, unnecessarily piling on our criticism of the OP. But my wife and I have had to deal with a demanding, selfish, judgemental mother in our lives. We know she weaves fabrications of our supposed mistreatment of her to other people to get sympathy, because some people have told us what she has said, and some of those very people have acknowledged they know how she is and to take her stories with a grain of salt. However, to "get along" with her, they don't call her out on this, and unfortunately that just validates her belief that everyone sympathizes with her. If some of these people did start giving her a reality check, it might make things better for us. So the greater responsibility as I see it is to avoid making things worse for the adult children by making this woman feel her victim-complex has been validated, as too many well-meaning but misguided posters did for most of this thread.
No, you have very patiently tried to point out things the OP needs to consider, all of which she conveniently ignores.
I suspected early on that she was not the innocent victim she had claimed to be and so declined to waste any more time trying to help her. As context has proven, she has had an active hand in creating the situation she finds herself in today.
Thread closed pending moderation for having veered so off topic.
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