ts44
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- May 31, 2009
- Messages
- 612
Here''s the background: My fiance and I just spent a weekend at his family''s cottage on a lake for Labor Day weekend. I have met his family before and spent time at the cottage before, but this was the first time seeing them since the engagement. It''s a very small cottage, but the lake and surrounding land is beautiful. We did have to sleep in a tent in the yard because there are only 2 bedrooms and a fold-out bed, and his mother and older sister and her family (husband, 2 young kids, 1 newborn) filled the rooms. I''m not much of a camper and find it pretty hard to sleep in a tent, but put on the happy face because there really is nowhere else to sleep. Well, I thought it was a lovely weekend with beautiful weather and I thought everybody was getting along just fine. Apparently, that was not the case at all.
A few days later I came home from work and stopped at my fiance''s place and found him crying. I asked what was wrong and he said it was nothing I needed to concern myself with but that he apologized for dragging me to the lake this weekend, and how he would never let his mother speak to me again and how awful the whole experience must have been for me. WHAT? We went back and forth on it for a bit and eventually it came out that his mother had written him not one, not two, but THREE very long emails about how I am wrong for him and our marriage would end in divorce. Her main points were as follows:
-I am going to be a horrible mother because I do not fawn over her 3 granchildren
-I am stuck-up and condescending, and treated her very coldly
-I refused to eat the food she provided for me
-My family feels superior to her, looks down on her, and she refuses to meet them now
This was a complete shock to me. I thought we had a good relationship up until this point. I want to write her a letter and address her concerns in the following way:
-I don''t pick up and play with the grandchildren 24/7 because I''m always hands-off with other people''s children, as I''m afraid of doing something wrong. I did watch over them, and even stopped the 1-yr old from walking into the lake when his father wasn''t watching him close enough. I think they''re cute kids, but they''re not mine, you know?
-I was a little standoffish this weekend because the Friday before we left I had to file a formal complaint against a co-worker for sexual harassment. I work in a very small office (~10 people) so it''s a big deal. I was shellshocked through the weekend and tried to not let it get to me but it did, I guess. Plus I was running on lack of sleep thanks to the tent thing.
-As for the food, they had some strudel and some donuts from a local grocery store there for snacks, and I mentioned off-handed to my fiance that I couldn''t eat them because they have trans-fat in them and isn''t it strange in this day and age that a grocery store would still offer items out of its bakery with trans-fats in them. I guess she overheard me. I did eat and profusely compliment every single home-made item that was placed in front of me, and honestly too because it was all delicious.
-She has never met my family. She asked me to describe my mother to her and I told her that my mother is a small business owner, gregarious, traveled, and fashionable, and a lot of fun to hang out with, and I also said I thought they would get along just fine. She took that definition and twisted it around to mean that my mother is so much more fashionable and interesting than her (she is a stay-at-home mom who raised 4 kids on her own and rarely traveled within her state, let alone outside of the US) that she looks down on her as some down-home frump and now refuses to meet her! My mother asks when she will come to visit every time I see her, I don''t know what to tell her now!
Do you think I should write the letter? I don''t even know if it''s worth it at this point to address...my fiance is upset, but he is sticking by me and now saying his mother must be insane, which makes me sad too. They had a good relationship prior to this and I don''t want to be the wedge between them, deserved or not! I also don''t want to write a letter and have it come off as some kind of excuse-filled pity party. I''m so confused.
She said in the emails that it was the "worst weekend of her life."
A few days later I came home from work and stopped at my fiance''s place and found him crying. I asked what was wrong and he said it was nothing I needed to concern myself with but that he apologized for dragging me to the lake this weekend, and how he would never let his mother speak to me again and how awful the whole experience must have been for me. WHAT? We went back and forth on it for a bit and eventually it came out that his mother had written him not one, not two, but THREE very long emails about how I am wrong for him and our marriage would end in divorce. Her main points were as follows:
-I am going to be a horrible mother because I do not fawn over her 3 granchildren
-I am stuck-up and condescending, and treated her very coldly
-I refused to eat the food she provided for me
-My family feels superior to her, looks down on her, and she refuses to meet them now
This was a complete shock to me. I thought we had a good relationship up until this point. I want to write her a letter and address her concerns in the following way:
-I don''t pick up and play with the grandchildren 24/7 because I''m always hands-off with other people''s children, as I''m afraid of doing something wrong. I did watch over them, and even stopped the 1-yr old from walking into the lake when his father wasn''t watching him close enough. I think they''re cute kids, but they''re not mine, you know?
-I was a little standoffish this weekend because the Friday before we left I had to file a formal complaint against a co-worker for sexual harassment. I work in a very small office (~10 people) so it''s a big deal. I was shellshocked through the weekend and tried to not let it get to me but it did, I guess. Plus I was running on lack of sleep thanks to the tent thing.
-As for the food, they had some strudel and some donuts from a local grocery store there for snacks, and I mentioned off-handed to my fiance that I couldn''t eat them because they have trans-fat in them and isn''t it strange in this day and age that a grocery store would still offer items out of its bakery with trans-fats in them. I guess she overheard me. I did eat and profusely compliment every single home-made item that was placed in front of me, and honestly too because it was all delicious.
-She has never met my family. She asked me to describe my mother to her and I told her that my mother is a small business owner, gregarious, traveled, and fashionable, and a lot of fun to hang out with, and I also said I thought they would get along just fine. She took that definition and twisted it around to mean that my mother is so much more fashionable and interesting than her (she is a stay-at-home mom who raised 4 kids on her own and rarely traveled within her state, let alone outside of the US) that she looks down on her as some down-home frump and now refuses to meet her! My mother asks when she will come to visit every time I see her, I don''t know what to tell her now!
Do you think I should write the letter? I don''t even know if it''s worth it at this point to address...my fiance is upset, but he is sticking by me and now saying his mother must be insane, which makes me sad too. They had a good relationship prior to this and I don''t want to be the wedge between them, deserved or not! I also don''t want to write a letter and have it come off as some kind of excuse-filled pity party. I''m so confused.
