Irritating Relation Get It Off Your Chest Thread.

HeidiHi

When my mother in law drives me nuts I can't complain to my husband, or kids or anybody who knows her, but it's bad to hang onto negative feelings so I need to let them out.

It would be rude to moan about her to anybody who knows her, but as you don't know her, and don't even know me, I can let rip can't I? :j

Every so often MIL will ring up and say

"Can I bring back that book / gadget / whatever Wotsit lent me in the morning? I'll just put it through the letterbox."

Sometimes she says that to the answering machine in which case she gets' no reply.

Sometimes she says it to my husband who will say

"No."

He'll say

"Don't come round in the morning. If it really can't wait until we see you in two days then I'll come and pick it up later."

So either she'll get no answer or a no.

(I'm "wotsit" by the way. I've been Wotsit since about 1984 when I had the temerity to complain about being addressed by the name of my husbands ex girlfriend from 8 or 9 years earlier.)

But that's by the bye.

So either she'll get no answer or an answer of no.

Either way, the household will be awakened at godforsaken o'clock the next morning by her banging the knocker and hollering through the letterbox.

When my husband goes down there in his underpants he'll see at least one grumpy faced neighbour framed in their doorway with a "!!!!!!?" on their face and their arms folded.

Every time she does it my husband is cold to her.

But she will still do the self same thing again a few weeks or months later and has been doing the self same thing for at least 25 years.

I have some questions I can't ask her any more, but which burn in my brain every time she does it:

1) If you're just going to put something through my letterbox, why ring to ask if it'll be ok? The postman doesn't.

2) If you're not in fact "Just going put it through the letterbox" why make a thing out of saying you are "Just going put it through the letterbox" ?

3) If you get no answer, or an answer of "No" to your question why do you do it anyway?

4) If you were going to do it anyway, no matter what anybody says or doesn't say, then why bother to ring and ask in the first place?

5) If you want to pay us a visit, why come round at godforsaken o'clock when experience must have taught you by now you are never ever welcomed with open arms?

Ok I feel better for having got that off my chest. Feel free to have a little bang on about exasperating relatives of your own.

marywooyeah

blimey that does sound bad! could you refuse to lend her something, then if she asks why say that it not only disturbs you every time she noisily drops it off but neighbours have complained to you too and you don't want to ruin your relationship with them.

when you say silly o clock, how early are we talking?

neverdespairgirl

Next time she calls you "wotsit", I'd be tempted to say, really sweetly, "My name's Jemima. But it is hard to remember names when you're getting on a bit, are you OK?"

*Louise*

I was going to say I couldn't really see the problem until you mentioned that a) it's really early and b) she makes a racket doing it

So yeah, I would be annoyed as well.

I would tell hubby to ignore her knocking and not answer at all - she would soon get the hint...maybe...either that or go rattle her letterbox at 6am on a Sunday morning

HeidiHi

marywooyeah wrote: »

blimey that does sound bad! could you refuse to lend her something, then if she asks why say that it not only disturbs you every time she noisily drops it off but neighbours have complained to you too and you don't want to ruin your relationship with them.

when you say silly o clock, how early are we talking?

Not horrifically early but "bad manners to wake people at " early like 8:00am on a weekend.

She knows I work nights. She knows my husband's schedule doesn't allow for enough sleep in the week so he catches up at weekends.

She'd scream bliddy murder if someone made the same racket on one of her neighbours doosteps after 9pm any night of the week.

The lending thing is just a pretext.

HeidiHi

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Next time she calls you "wotsit", I'd be tempted to say, really sweetly, "My name's Jemima. But it is hard to remember names when you're getting on a bit, are you OK?"

I did that almost verbatim for the first ten or fifteen years. As did my husband, first with the ex girlfriend's name and then with "wotsit" but she hasn't shown any capacity to change.

The scariest thing is she was younger than me now when I first knew her. Am I going to be like that??? :eek:

marywooyeah

I'd ask if you can borrow something off her, then drop it round noisily at 6am. then when she moans say "see how you like it"!

seriously, don't lend her anything anymore if it is just a pretext, isn't she a bit old to be playing silly games?

HeidiHi

*Louise* wrote: »

I was going to say I couldn't really see the problem until you mentioned that a) it's really early and b) she makes a racket doing it

So yeah, I would be annoyed as well.

I would tell hubby to ignore her knocking and not answer at all - she would soon get the hint...maybe...either that or go rattle her letterbox at 6am on a Sunday morning

She'd be thrilled. Because she needs less and less sleep these days, and because she's fast asleep by 9pm every night she's up at 4:00am and bored witless by 6:00am.

If you ignore her knocking she gets louder and louder and eventually either she gets visibly distressed, and or someone calls the police.

I know this because she did it once when I was naked and in the middle of dying my hair and I had to run past the glass front door in the altogether, grab a not really big enough towel and go out there just as the panda car drew up alongside.

My hair colour did not come out well.

Because there was a crisis I came back really late from work once at about 8:45am and I couldn't believe how loud she was in the street. If people have their bedroom windows open it would drive them batty.

If this was a new thing I'd think she was going senile but she's been doing it for decades.

Something about people not being in or not answering the door makes her crazy.

If we're ever out when she calls she just naturally assumes that we were deliberately hiding and refusing to answer the door to her.

No amount of showing her that you can't see who it is from inside the house without them being able to see you will convince her.

HeidiHi

marywooyeah wrote: »

I'd ask if you can borrow something off her, then drop it round noisily at 6am. then when she moans say "see how you like it"!

seriously, don't lend her anything anymore if it is just a pretext, isn't she a bit old to be playing silly games?

She really is too old for this nonsense. My husband banned me from letting her borrow anything for a while, gving her my old magazines, or letting her have my catalogues at her house, but if she gets it into her head to do it, she'll turn up to ask a question or to ask to borrow something or to drop off something random for no apparent reason.

Sometimes I think the phonecall is "advance warning" to her. She's told the answering machine that she's coming so she thinks we should all be up and ready to receive company.

I (and we) have tried talking to her about it many times but she just plays dumb and talks no sense.

Sometimes the message says "I hope you'll be in because otherwise I might put it through the wrong door" which my husband gets really angry about and interprets as a veiled threat. If she says that on the answering machine he goes round there and demands it that she puts it in his hand that night even if it's late.

He hardly ever gets angry about anything, but that'll do it.

marywooyeah

it's good that he gets angry too rather than telling you to calm down and making out like she's not doing anything wrong - far too many men put their mums on a pedestal!
sounds like she's really lonely - can you palm her off to some early morning OAP coffee meeting or something?

*Louise*

OMG....she is crackers....:eek: