In-laws irritating me

JayaJ · May 5, 2008

Dear ILites,

i am second time pregnant (10weeks). I find my hormones are raging as it happens during this time. i become more irritated these days. My in-laws are adding to it by asking and doing stupid things to rile me further!

Like for instance, my MIL calls me up every 2 days to find out how i am. Besides answerin i am fine, thank you, i dont have anyting to talk to her as i am not on that buddy-buddy terms with her. When i was lying down sick, she happend to call and when i told her i am sick and i need to rest as i have been vomiting, she asks how many times u have vomitted. i got pretty irritated.

sincei lost my dad recently, she will talk abt the loss EVERY time she calls which will make me more depressed.

Till we complete 3 months, we dont tell any1 abt the pregnancy - just to be cautious.
my MIL has told the whole town (looks like). i got a call from one of my buaji in Delhi, congratulating me. That upset me a lot.

again, couple of days ago, mil calls and makes me talk to a masseus there who tells me i shud b having the delivery at my mil's place else she will come to blore to be with me for the delivery. imagine! a masseus telling me what i should be doing......shes not even a distant relative or anything....i got pretty upset with MIL for making me hear all this. i cut the masseus short and told her will let her know my decision and hung up.

my mil calls after half hour and again asks abt my health.

my SIL calls after 1 hour to say they are buying a car and have booked it. i congratulated her, asked her which color, talked a bit abt her kids and her family.....then told her i was sleepy and wanted to go back to sleep.

My mil calls after half hour to say i didnt respond proporely to my SIL. that i should have expressed my joy more profusely. apparently, my MIL was standing near my SIL, when sil called to share the news and mil felt that i wasnt responding properly by hearing the one sided fone conversation. So, she wanted me to call SIL after some time and show more enthusiasm bcose its a BIG thing for SIL and everyone that they have booked a new car. she thinks that my SIL and BIL only go thru difficult times, that they face so much hardships in life, that my husband and i dont. She doesnt live with us so, she has started makng this distinction. anything my SIL and BIL achieve, its been thru hardship. I also bought a second hand car - not a new one like BIL and SIL but with my own hard earned money to ferry my daughter to and fro, during rainy times and the roads are bad near my house (which my in-laws have witnessed and experienced).....my husband and i struggle alone with a daughter bcose we both work, so any housework that needs ot be done, we have to juggle each other's time. Its secondary that we both have decided to work and hence need to bear the consequence.
But its not easy on us too. like we got our house painted, my hubby worked from home for 2 weeks and i worked from home for 2 weeks. whenever my daughter is sick, i take off from work. when my mom is not around to look after my daughter, i take off from work....abt 8 months ago, we went thru a really rought patch, financially. but we managed to pull thru. my MIL doesnt live with us, so she thinks its smooth sailing for us even though we kept her updated abt our lives.

This was the limit. i got pretty pissed off. i told her i am not doing any such thing and if she has any prob with it, too bad.
she got upset and said she wont advise me again on anyting. i told her good, please do that and hung up.

now the thing is, i cannot backanswer my in-laws though i did it this time in 6 years of marriage. But their behaviour is irritating me to no end these days.
Luckily, my husband is travelling and isnt aware of such things. but he will back me bcose he knows how mean his family has been to me.

I thot i had learned to handle my in-laws but looks like i have a long way to go...any tips any1?

JJ

SoaringSpirit · May 5, 2008

Dear Jaya,

Your irritation and frustration is totally understandable. Harmones during pregnancy and add to that the constant badgering from in-laws can drive one insane. You also had to deal with the tragedy of your Dad’s demise. It can be nothing but challenging for you right now.

You need to conserve your sanity at any cost. In this situation if your peace of mind is constantly disturbed, the negative impact to you will be far greater than the impact to anyone else.

My suggestion to you in all of this is that as long as your husband understands your position (more or less), focus on that and try to ignore the other people as much as possible. If you try to get into a diatribe with your in-laws (mil or sil) or if you start getting deeply affected by their behavior, your frustration will slowly start coming out on your husband and no matter how patient a man he may be, it will become a challenge for him to keep the right perspective. Men in general cannot take conflict for too long. They either totally cut themselves off (which to us means they become unsupportive) or they start looking at one party as the culprit. So please remember how this can manifest into a bigger issue for you if you don’t ignore mil and sil for sometime.

Dealing with them head-on may not be the best way right now because you may be more sensitive than usual, they may take more offence than usual and most importantly, it will play havoc on your physical and mental health. So just ignore their behavior for now as much as you can.

If your mil says something that you don’t want to do, tell her what you think (like you did about calling sil) , do what you think is right and after that don’t get agitated about her behavior. Expect her to be how she has been so far. Don’t think because you are pregnant suddenly things will change for the better. The moment you rescind to this fact, you will save yourself a lot of agony.

Avoid taking a few of her daily calls. If you have an answering machine, let her call go there. If you know it may be her call and you don’t feel like answering the call for the 5<SUP>th</SUP> time in the day, just don’t answer it. Sometimes avoiding and ignoring, is the best strategy. I feel this is what may work the best for you right now.

And please do not trouble yourself about thoughts such as why she thinks that only the bil and sil’s money is hard earned and why does she not see how hard you and hubby are working to keep things afloat etc. It will only cause you further aggravation. I can totally understand that such things do make us sad and mad at times but the focus should be on how to protect yourself from the aggravation and even if it does happen how to quickly get over it before it goes out of hand.

In short, for things that you know will have a direct unavoidable impact on you (like mil coming and staying with you), speak up and take the lead in straightening those matters. Like your other post about not wanting mil for the first few months post pregnancy. Yes, in that case you will have to do something. May be plan to be at your parents place (even though they live in the same city) and let your mil know that this is your plan. Don’t give-in there ‘cos it may cause long term damaging impact to you and everyone involved.

As for the things where it is a matter of dealing for a few minutes on the phone, don’t worry yourself much about it. Avoid too many conversations if you can. If you cannot avoid, just talk and know that you will hear something that could cause your aggravation. So tell yourself not to think about it much after the conversation is over. Immediately do something that makes you feel better, think about how the good things like hubby being supportive etc.

Jaya, your health (mental and physical) is of utmost importance right now. Don’t compromise on that at all. You have to make an effort to do keep yourself happy and sane. We work hard for so many things in life. We take up so many challenges and overcome them. Maintaining our sanity and our happiness at all times is the biggest challenge most of us women face. We must not neglect it. So don’t feel guilty about doing things that may make you feel better. Be easy on yourself. As long as we do not step on people’s toes and are mostly reasonable, it is perfectly fine (and needed) that we take care of ourself in every way.

This forum and all of us here are your sounding boards, your venting place, your friends, your shoulder to lean on and anything else you’d like us to be. So ask us for what you want us be on a particular day and I can assure you that you will not be disappointed.

Take care and best wishes.
SS

JayaJ · May 6, 2008

Dear SS,

thank you for your encouraging words and advice. I can count on your reply even if no one else bothers replying.

I know i must be calm and maintain my sanity during these times. These are small things but oh so irritating!

Yes, thats wat i have decided to do from hereon - just ignore them.
And i will definitely have a say in mil coming down. I will make it clear i am not in any condition to do seva for her and i would b going to my mom's place soon.

this is the difference between a mother and mil. A mother showers love and knows what we want during these times, she wud me most understanding and put up with our irritation with a smile. A mil is just the opposite.

Anyways, thank you once again and i will heed your advice.

JJ

SoaringSpirit · May 7, 2008

Jaya,

I am confident you will sail through this. You seem to have a positive and an "active" attitude. By active I mean an attitude that is sometimes needed to take charge of things and veer them in the direction they ought to go. I think you have that. So you will be in good shape dear.

Vent out here as much and as often you like. Don't keep it bottled inside.

Have a great day.
SS

Sheetha · May 7, 2008

Jaya,

Congratulations on your pregnancy.

I am really sorry to hear that your MIL has such little understanding. It amazes me how ignorant some people can be sometimes about what goes on around them and how much hardship they are causing to others.

I really commend you and your husband on how you both are dealing with your own family's obstacles successfully and not dumping it on everyone around you. Not everyone is that mature.

Please be brave. Try not to expect your MIL to act like a normal good person. That way your expectations will be closer to reality. This will not sting as much as expecting good behaviour and receiving horrible behaviour.

Your health and the baby's health are the most important right now. Take care of yourself and your baby. We are all praying for you. I am sure you will be successful in tackling this MIL created obstacle too.

JayaJ · May 7, 2008

Dear Sheetha and SS,

Thank you both for your word of advice and support.

Yes, i need to be calm and handle things a lil more sanely.

Thank god of IL - atleast there is a place where i can vent my frustration.

The latest development is that my husband is travelling and on my advice decided to stop enroute to Blore in Delhi.
There is some property issue for which my Mil wants my hubby's signature and so i suggested that he stop there, finish all the legalities and then come home.

We had told mil to make all the arrangements (talking to the legal bodies, etc) so that it shouldnt take more than 1 day keeping in mind my body condition and my daughter who is missing her dad acutely.

Now, my mil has found out 2 days in advance that the legal bodies are not working today and didnt bother to tell my husband. He found out only after landing there.
If he had known earlier, he could have rerouted his flight and come home to us by now and my daughter who has not been eating well, would be joyous.

But no, mil didnt tell. i dunno why. Anyways, i believe in the saying 'you reap what you sow'. things that go around will come around.

thanks for hearing me out. i am sure you all have your own share of probs too and here i am just going on and on about mine. apologies.

take care
JJ

Traveller · May 8, 2008

Take care.. Jaya. No need to apologise in IL... we are all here to hear out and if possible give some tips I'm due to deliver in few weeks our second baby and I can vouch for how much stress affects your own health. Even though we live far away from my in-laws, even over phone they create some confusion or the other. Every year at this time we make a trip back home but this time my husband cancelled his plans because of my situation here. But they kind of emotionally stress him out asking him if he'll come next month etc., i try to keep my cool but sometimes it really goes beyond limit. I cannot imagine how difficult it will be for you staying in same city, country... i mean by that they can just take a train or flight and land anytime.

just ignore and take care of your daughter and yourself. by experience i have learnt if we lie down even one morning there's nobody to even get us a cup of coffee. we've to take of our health to care for our family.

Latha

Ria2006 · May 8, 2008

Jaya

As traveller said, you dont need to apologise. I can only imagine the stress you are in. And I have read in other post that you are nursing a grief also. Be easy one yourself dear..

Things will happen as they have to. You need to care less for them at this point. Keep pampering yourself .

Hang in there.
ria

JayaJ · May 12, 2008

Dear Latha and Ria,

THank you for your support. Mayb i am right now in a condition to get hyper about minor issues, that must b why its affecting me so much.

Anyways, i will have to condition myself to remain calm and serene.

Thanks once again.

JJ