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My inlaws are very aggressive with the holidays. I have given them 4 years of thanksgiving and christmases. They talked about it endlessly that I skipped the first year when I was still healing from my c-section. This year I skipped thanksgiving with them. My son and I stayed with my mom and my husband left after we ate to go check on his parents.
I hate leaving my mom even though she isn't in to the holidays at all and would of been okay with me making a salad for thanksgiving instead of a full dinner. We live in the same building as her and she watches my 6 yr old after school and anytime there is a emergency. They are extremely close and my mother in law gets very upset by that.
She has demanded that he come over for the night and I said no. She has cancer and can barley care for herself and in on pain pills most of the day.
We are going for christmas but I don't want to she talks about how she is going to die all the time and how no one loves her. She says mean and passive aggressive things to her children which often start big arguments between the siblings or her.
She also has a tendency to pit her grandchildren against each other. She goes on about how smart and amazing my son is which might seem nice but she doesn't in front of her other grandkids all in the same age range in a condescending way.
For example: "Thank you so much for reading me that story"
To other child "Have you learned to read yet, why not you are a few month older than so and so"
Then goes on small rant about how their mother is not fit because their child wasn't reading. I think it is causing a rift between my son and his cousins.I have never been around a more volatile person. The list of bad habits goes on and on.
I wish I could cut this tradition off but my husband talk the talk but never follows through. I know she is ill so he feels guilty but she wasn't ill all this time.
Go for a set amount of time as often as you can so she can spend time with your child when the others are not around.
That should calm some of the snide remarks and fussing by the others.
I try my best but she guilts my husband. Calls him all the time and if he doesn't answer she will call me or even my mother.
Last week she demanded to see my son and so he picked him up early from school then picked her up from chemo to take her home. Even though she can receive free rides from chemo home she demands that his brother or him do it. My child then comes home sick and vomiting for the 8th time because she continues to secretly feed "his favorite mac and cheese" that has eggs in it. He is allergic to eggs. Also send him home with sword and gun toys (the toy is actually unsafe not that its a weapon) after I have repeatedly told her i don't like it she send the same exact toy. Now i just take and throw it away.
I have spoken to my husband and he has agreed no to take him out of school for that again. My son sees her probably 8 times a year she doesn't live far but I cost me two tolls one for 7.50 and another 14 dollar toll just to visit. Plus, I don't want to go.
Dear lord. Good luck...and I don't mean with the MIL. I mean with your husband. My MIL sounds like yours. At the end of the day, I realized that yes, MIL was annoying as hell but what was really bothering me was not her but how my husband handled himself w.r. to her. Once my husband started to see her for who she was and began to change his behaviors I was ok with being around MIL.
Use the excuse that your son might bring home germs from school and make her sick, since chemo weakens the immune system. Tell her you're staying away for her health. Get her a tablet so she can Skype with him and let them "visit" that way.
When I used to go to my mother's house for the holidays, I would always get a migraine and have to leave after an hour and a half. That was as long as I could stand to be in her stuffy house full of cat hair. Sometimes I'd really get the migraine, other times I'd just say I had one. That was always my exit strategy for holiday visits. You should work out some strategy to limit your visit. Also, if there are conflicts with her comparing the kids to each other, take some recent movies for the kids to watch and they will ignore the grandmother and just watch the movie. If she complains that they're not paying attention to her, just say, "Aw, look how much fun they're having," or something like that.
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