I truly wish you could choose your inlaws. You get to choose who you want to marry, why can’t you choose the family you’re marrying into? Seriously!
When I first met Eddie and we started to talk about our families, he always said he isn’t super close with his parents as they are very different from him and he feels like they don’t approve of a lot of the ways he chooses to live life. I didn’t fully grasp his words until the first time I met them. It was only a quick half hour meet and greet at their house, but I sat there quietly on the couch and listened to his Mom judging the sh** out of women and men who had chosen to do the early start for the marathon that had taken place that morning in their town. “What is the point of doing the race if you can’t do it in the allocated amount of time and instead are out on the course for 6 hours because you aren’t capable of finishing under the 5 hour cut off time.” Is what she said. I sat there stunned that she, a woman with her own battle to lose some weight and recover from a bad knee, couldn’t see why people would do whatever they could in order to conquer something challenging in their lives. Something they never thought they would be able to do before. Just because a woman is 250 pounds and doing the race, it doesn’t mean that she hasn’t already lost a ton of weight and this race was the goal she kept in mind during her entire weight loss. But his mom sat there and judged these people. This was my first warning sign. It wasn’t long before they started judging their own son right to his face. “Edward’s resume is stacked with lies just to get the job he isn’t even qualified for. He’ll never get it.” 3 years since that comment and he has done absolutely everything they doubted him on…and then some. “Edward you’re getting fat. Maybe you should focus more on losing weight than your career.” There are just so many things they have judged him on which only has driven him further and further away from them. But he still makes the effort to keep them involved in his life. He tries hard, but when he decides to stop for a bit to see if they will make contact with him and share the effort of the communication, he will receive a passive aggressive text from his dad saying “mother wonders why she never hears from you anymore.” Well how about “mother” picks up her damn phone and calls or texts him for once??
This weekend took the cake though. Every year our entire extended family goes to a new city and takes part in a running race there. Every year we invite his parents to join us at the big family dinner the evening after the race. Every year I question whether they truly want to be there or if they are coming out of obligation because we invited them. They come and sit there and don’t make any effort with my family, despite everyone being super friendly to them. My Dad makes effort to talk to them and they blow him off. I don’t know why. I will never understand. During dinner this time, after we were all done eating, his dad leans over to Eddie and says “Edward, you need to cut back on the amount of carbs you eat. It’s not good for you.” All because Eddie and I shared a spinach dip with bread for the dipping as an appetizer. A rare carb indulgence for us. Eddie just recently lost 30 pounds in 2.5 months all because he cut down carbs and started portion controlling and working out with a trainer. Apparently those 30 pounds were not enough for his father and instead of praising him on it he felt the need to belittle it and attack him for one meal. ONE MEAL!!! It blew my mind when I heard that he said this to him. Every time Eddie sees them it’s an opportunity for them to attack his weight or appearance somehow. Eddie has a younger brother who they can’t say enough good things about. Meanwhile this brother is a lifer in university. He’s gone back to live with them in their hoarding style house. He never bathes. He doesn’t make any effort with Eddie, despite Eddie’s attempts with him. He has no job. He has major mental illness that he doesn’t get help for. He has no drive or passion for anything. But he is their pride and joy. Eddie is almost like the son they never wanted but are stuck with. The only positive to come from this is that it has reinforced Eddie’s drive in life to never be like them. To work hard at his career, despite them disagreeing with it. To be the parent that they never were to him. But the craziest part about it all is that he wants to make a lot of money and his intention with some of that money is to buy his parents a home and assist them in opening up a small cafe (his mom loves baking) if they are interested in it. I don’t know if this is to give his parents a big F you by proving that he has amounted to be something they said he wouldn’t or what. But whenever he says what he wants to do I just quietly support it even though I don’t understand it.
I wasn’t going to get started on it, but it feels good to be writing about this and letting it all out so I will say this too. I have no idea what they think the role of being a grandparent is. They have been around Hunter four times since he was born. Four times in 14 months. I get that they live in a different city and visits aren’t aplenty, but there is technology out there to make it so that he sees their faces more often. He facetimes my mom just about every second day. He just watches her as she makes faces at him or sings songs to him. He can’t talk to her. But weeks can go by before he sees her in real life and there is never any hesitation from him to be with her because he knows her still from those phone conversations. But this weekend Eddie’s parents commented about how Hunter doesn’t really know them because he isn’t around them that often. Ok…fair enough comment to make….so why not work on that while he’s in their town? It doesn’t seem like rocket science to me on how you make a relationship work. We went for coffee with them on the Saturday. Hunter crawled around the quiet cafe and played with toys on the floor. His dad stayed sitting at the table talking about pretentious things and his mom spent most of her time talking to the woman who owns the cafe. All the while Hunter is hanging out behind her. All it would have taken was one of them playing with his truck with him for 5 minutes to instill the memory in his brain and create that connection. Neither of them asked to hold him. Neither of them asked if they could feed him his snack. Nothing. It was like he was barely there. On Sunday at the dinner they made the comment again about how he doesn’t really know them. Once dinner was over Hunter was walking (with help) everywhere in a quiet corner of the restaurant with my sister. They were playing and climbing on things and having a great time. My mom eventually took over with hanging out and walking Hunter around. Eddie’s parents? They ate their dinner, said their a-hole comments to Eddie, didn’t make any effort with anyone else, and then they left. They left without saying goodbye to me. They left without even trying to hang out with Hunter. This is after I asked his dad if he wanted to hold him, he begrudgingly said ok to it, and then Hunter started crying the moment he was in his arms. Hunter loves people and will get held by almost everyone. Clearly he was not a fan of the person he doesn’t even know is his grandfather. But why the heck did they not get off of their asses and spend time with him? Did they just sit there and judge/be envious of his relationship with his Aunt and his other grandparent and not realize that those relationships were formed by effort? Or do they think that they only happened just because they happen to live closer to him? Blows my mind. We went to briefly see them before we headed back home and Hunter was sort of ok with his grandma holding him, but the moment his grandpa went to hold him he started crying and reaching back for his daddy. Meanwhile Eddie’s douchebag brother made comments about Hunter being apprehensive about them all. Well no shit Sherlock! Wouldn’t you be apprehensive too if someone you don’t know was in your face? And then they make comments about how, next year when we come for the run, they can watch Hunter while we race. Uhm….no? Not until you can show that you’re making more of an effort to know him. And not until I know that you can take care of him and follow the rules I give you. Not march to the beat of your own drum.
Don’t even get me started on his dad referring to last Christmas as being a “huge disaster”. This was the Christmas where we invited them to join our family tradition with my side of the family. Where we bought them nice gifts. We cooked them a nice breakfast and an even more amazing, huge turkey dinner. What did they do? Snuck out of my parent’s apartment right after dinner was over. Didn’t thank my dad for hosting them. Barely said goodbye to my mom. We are racking our brains to figure out why the heck they think it was a huge disaster. What did we miss from the amazing day that they saw? I swear the day is going to come where his parents are going to say something that annoys or offends me and my response will be to gather up my son and walk out the door. I don’t have to put up with shit like that. Calling an event put on by my family a “huge disaster” when it wasn’t? Not showing any fucking (sorry for the language. I’m pissed about this) appreciation for the fact that we allowed them to join in our celebration? I hold the power to leave and show you that shit like that won’t be tolerated.
Two people have never gotten on my nerves or made me as angry as my husband’s parents. But I have no choice but to tolerate them as long as he does.
Where Is My Glow? 