Tired of being ignored!

[hopelessly_naive]

I'm going out of my mind here! My family has been very accepting of my fiance, they've thought of him and treated him as a member of the family before we were even engaged. His family is a different story.

 

I get along well with the majority of his family, but his mom is very cold, distant, and completely in denial about the engagement. Right before we got engaged both of his parents were pressuring him to see other girls, this was extreamly hard for me to deal with because we were ring shopping at the time (they were in the dark about that).

 

My fiance and I even tried to include his mother in setting up a perspective budget (she loves saving money and dealing with money), he thought it would bring her around. It didn't, she just asked in an annoyed tone who we were talking about, it didn't even occur to her that we were talking about ourselves. She changed the subject to a topic only her son and her could talk about as soon as we told her we were talking about ourselves.

 

I hate being with his family now, which is something I can't avoid. We're both still in college (we wont be when we're married) and live with our parents.

 

I love my fiance and I really do like his family. I know it's stupid but I feel like my fiance is letting her treat me like this and I'm really starting to resent him for it.

 

If I could somehow manage to gather enough courage to bluntly confront his mom I doubt it would go well. The style of debating in my house is extreamly different then the way they do that sort of thing in their house. Plus with the fact that I'm so emotional about this already I doubt I could hold back that emotion if I confronted her.

 

I guess to sum up (sorry I rambled) I understand that she's just a rather cold person, but to me it's insulting that she refuses to even speak about my engagment to her son. She hid it from her side of the family until my fiance revealed it to his aunt. I hate the idea of spending the rest of my life like this. I love my fiance more then anything, we're really good together. Why can't his mother just admit to the fact that we're engaged and in a year and a half we'll be married?

[lindya]

I guess to sum up (sorry I rambled) I understand that she's just a rather cold person, but to me it's insulting that she refuses to even speak about my engagment to her son. She hid it from her side of the family until my fiance revealed it to his aunt. I hate the idea of spending the rest of my life like this. I love my fiance more then anything, we're really good together. Why can't his mother just admit to the fact that we're engaged and in a year and a half we'll be married?

 

It sounds as though being cold and difficult is part of her personality, and something that would probably be an issue for whoever your fiance had got engaged to. You expressed disappointment that your fiance can't make her behave more reasonably towards you...but people's personalities seldom change - especially when they're older and set in their ways. There's probably little he can do that wouldn't result in the situation being worsened. Particularly if they're not a family who are used to dealing directly and effectively with conflict.

 

I would suggest that the sanest plan of action would involve finding ways to protect yourself emotionally from the more hurtful aspects of her behaviour. I'd be polite but fairly neutral to this woman. I think the number one thing to do is cultivate the art of relaxing in what sounds like very unrelaxing company (ie hers). That might involve going on autopilot a bit, and tuning out any unpleasantness she presents you with.

 

I'd also advise you against making excessive efforts to win her over. People like that will often take such efforts as a sign that they exert some kind of power over you, and that will often worsen rather than improve the way they treat you. It's not a power struggle - she can't stop her son from marrying you, and she can't stop the marriage from being a successful one unless you let her behaviour get to you to the extent that it affects your behaviour and your relationship with your fiance.

[che_jesse]

I have the same exact issues with my soon to be mother in law. The difference is that she keeps trying to set him up with other girls even after he learned of our plans.

 

I can just see it. 20 years form now, if the hag somehow manages to live that long she will be introducing him to girls at our 20 year wedding anniversary.

 

Some people are just nasty.

 

You have 4 options:

1) Demand your guy make her like you. But I gotta tell you, he cant.

 

2) Confront her about why shes such a bitch. This will reinforce why she does not like you, it wont help you any.

 

3) Just go through you life mostly half ignoring her and speaking only when you have to. Lots of people do it but its not fun and its stressfull.

 

4) Be nice, this is what I choose to do. Start by buying a Thank You card and write on it:

 

"From the bottom of my heart I wanted to thank you for:"

(Here list all of the things you love about your guy)

"Because you are his mother and you made him the man he is today. Thank you for giving me such a wonderful husband"

 

Then spend your years calling her every other Friday to "catch up", send Christmas cards, birthday cards, invite her over as much as you can, when you go to her house for dinner bring food. Good food, stuff that you obviously spent all day making.

 

She might grow to like or she might not, who cares, your being the good person and shes being the raving bitch.

[hopelessly_naive]

lindya - yes her personality is just fundamentally like that, and she survived an extreamly traumatic childhood so I spend half my time being angry and the other half feeling pity for her. I don't expect her to change her personality, I guess all I want is some sort of awknowledgment that I'm marrying her son, I don't need her blessing just for her to admit that it's actually happening.

 

che jesse - thank you, you're reply made me laugh out loud which is something i needed right now. Killing her with kindness is what I've been trying to do, hopefully it'll get easier as time goes on. But I feel bad for you that your future mother in-law still tries to set her son up even though you're engaged, that's the only thing that changed after my fiance proposed.

[che_jesse]

she survived an extreamly traumatic childhood so I spend half my time being angry and the other half feeling pity for her.

 

 

Oh my god, don't pity her. This really pisses me off, when people go around using **** like this as an excuse for that *******ish behavior.

 

If someone is really that much of an emotional cripple then they should not go out and start families.

 

I really really don't care about what happened in anyones childhood, they need to go out and deal with that ****, not make everyone else miserable because of it. The world is not here to be her punching bag, neither are you, and it is just wrong for her to treat you as such. Do not feel sorry for her, all it does is tell these kinds of people that there uncle touching them in the wrong place or whatever is a good enough excuse for them to be a dick.

 

People will want excuses will find them anywhere, if it was not this it would be something else.

[Walk]

I've found that learning how to become "deaf" to criticism's and harsh comments is a life saver.