rachels.haven's Journal

rachels.haven

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11/27 Wednesday
Last night I left my animals in my cow friend's care to make the yearly pilgrimage to PA with the spouse and all my kids to survive Thanksgiving in the house of my mother in law who has unmanaged OCD issues. We'll be home soon. I miss my goats.
 

rachels.haven

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Leaving tomorrow afternoon. Today is "cousins play while MIL tells people to eat leftovers while simultaneously tells people they're eating too much and portion controls people out of eating the leftovers while putting containers of leftover food away as fast as it's set down" day. This is not my first rodeo. I have canned food upstairs for me. I also know to put food on a paper towel and get out of the kitchen while she's out of the room. Poor husband gets fat shamed every time (he's not heavy). He takes it and I'm not sure he cares. He doesn't get to eat much here though. FIL suggested they make more potatoes to use up their old potatoes and so people can eat as much as they want. MIL didn't like that idea. So we all evaporated to avoid being in the middle of or accessory to a fight.

I prefer to do Thanksgiving myself at my place. In TN I'd host. I come from a large family. My mother quit Thanksgiving long ago due to depression issues (beyond making her mother's stuffing recipe every year, we made that an achievable tradition) so I've been doing whole thanksgiving dinners myself since I was about 14. It does not stress me out to cook a multi part Thanksgiving and I don't mind making a lot of food and letting people eat. I'm not allowed by MIL to use the kitchen stuff or cook here, even using spoons gets me "looks", but DH needs to go visit his family to feel grounded so we travel. Family doesn't always keep and even if everyone lives for a long time and never changes it will not be enough for the family members if you know what I mean.
 
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farmerjan

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My sympathies... Might be time to rethink things next year. Your "goat sitter" will not be available... (and make sure sitter understands why.... gives you time to become better friends...) and you have decided to host Thanksgiving at your house. DH is going to have to figure it out... he cannot drive all that distance with 3 small boys while you stay home... and he really shouldn't be driving it anyway right????

I don't know... can't you visit when it is not a "holiday" that is centered around food? At least that would stop some of that... Or at least something that is like 4th of July or some time when being outside allows more "freedom/flexibility" ?

God Bless You and your ability to deal with it...
 

Baymule

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My ex-mil was a witch. She once went TWO YEARS without speaking a word directly to me. This included in laws coming for the weekend and us going to their house, holidays, you name it. She spoke to everyone but me. I bought her pearl earrings for Christmas one time and she threw her arms around her son, thanking him. He told her to thank me, that I had bought them for her. She clamped her mouth shut, swelled up and walked off. A more spiteful, hateful woman never lived. We finally became friends after I divorced her POS son, he remarried, and she figured out I wasn’t so bad after all. If you looked in the dictionary for a definition of nuclear attack personality disorder, there would be a picture of her.

Count your blessings. Your MIL is weird with her own problems but at least she isn’t openly, actively hating you for breathing and out to get you.

Song…… Ding dong the witch is dead, wicked witch..,…
 
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