Weddingbee boards

I had a wonderful chat with my mom over the weekend, and I started to feel a little bad that my MIL doesn't have the same with her son or really with me. (See my profile - my husband would rather I stay away from his family.)

SO, honestly, out of the goodness of my heart I wrote a nice, very cordial email full of questions about how they are doing, keeping us in the background so that she would have plenty of opportunity to tell me all about herself.

I got an email back that was nice, and asked a lot of questions about us. So, since it was my turn again and I was FEELING happy that I got a pleasant reply, I wrote back an even NICER email, full of happy wishes for them and compliments and yadda yadda.

I just received the most CURT, abrasive reply, without an ounce of joy in it in response to my answers to her questions. Every answer I gave to her question was met with annoyance. Immediately, I thought - why did I bother? Why why why did I bother? And I can't talk to my husband about it, because a) he'll be upset that I bothered and b) he'll just say something like "See, that's why I don't email her."

Why can't I learn? It's so hard to come from a loving family and ... adapt to being with a shitty one. I just hate the up and down bipolar roller coaster - sometimes I think it's an intentional bait-and-switch.

@allisonc: I don't want to think that people are that devious. I just hate that I do something out of the goodness of my heart, because I feel sorry for her and I want to give her joy and she makes it totally not worth it.

Does anyone else have an unpredictable MIL?

I understand what you are saying. While I do for the most part get along with FI's family, they are weird to me a little. I care about them a lot, but they are just really different from my family. My family is a joking family. If we pick on you, we like you, haha. My Fi's family is not like that. I can't joke with Fi's mother because she is super emotional, and won't get that it's a joke, and I'm just teasing, but I do this with my own family all the time, and we laugh about it. So it's weird going into a family that isn't like my own also. I'm sorry that your MIL was rude to you. I hope everything works out.

@SoonToBeMrs.Kiss: Your situation is actually the opposite of mine! I can't seem to adapt to my FIL's family (my MIL and FIL are no longer married) because they are the joking family and my family NEVER joked or teased. Teasing was being made fun of and was a serious offense in my family, so... my new family teases me like crazy and I try hard to get into it, but my feelings always get hurt eventually.

Which makes me sad, because I feel like "the heavy."

Could you explain that sort of teasing atmosphere for me? I have the hardest time understanding teasing like the kind families do. Why would someone point out a flaw or something odd for the group to laugh and mock if you have no intentions of causing pain? How could it not cause pain? The person on the end of the joke would have to be completely accepting of that flaw in order to be ok with the joke, but from what I've noticed, the person who's joking will have a bigger laugh if they choose something that isn't fully accepted.

It's the other way around here. My family hates him and all they do around me is either talk bad about him or complain about something or other. I don't talk to them much.

It's never ending souce of confusion.

My DH told my MIL that we may go visit where they live ( a THREE DAY DRIVE - yes, you read right) over the holidays. She has not seen him since our wedding a year ago.

Instead of being over the moon, like my mom was, she said "Good, you can take care of this crap you left here when you moved."

o . m . g .

How could you be so cold to your OWN son? After he would be making such a HUGE sacrifice to see you? Clearly, he's planning to spend the minimum amount of time with her as possible and if we do see her we won't go to her home and we'll go someplace "neutral." However, not a day later, she talked to him and starting acting really nice.

But he doesn't trust her. She's up to something, he says. WHO CAN TELL WITH THESE PEOPLE?!