The Garden Fence - help and support in tough times

mardatha

Maybe a wee kick is the only way I know to show empathy and support ginny. ;)aren't I a kind gentle wee soul...but I suppose it does get us moving and back on our way again! And maybe a punch on the nose of the next medic who bugs you would make you feel much better, although I dunno about the arm
Sending vibes for the new hoose today xx.

VJsmum

Mar, will you send a kick down to the mother in law.

She arrives today for the new year and I've never known anyone with the ability she has to pour freezing cold water over any festivities. i think the word "martyr" was coined for her. I am fond of her (repeats, i am, I AM fond of her....) but she is tough to be around.

Anyways, best smile painted on for a few days and forced jollity to commence.

If that doesn't work, there's always drink...:beer:

Softstuff

VJsmum wrote: »

Mar, will you send a kick down to the mother in law.

She arrives today for the new year and I've never known anyone with the ability she has to pour freezing cold water over any festivities. i think the word "martyr" was coined for her. I am fond of her (repeats, i am, I AM fond of her....) but she is tough to be around.

Anyways, best smile painted on for a few days and forced jollity to commence.

If that doesn't work, there's always drink...:beer:

Vjsmum, she should go spend some time with the lady we had at Christmas!

We were having a particularly friendly conversation when she leaned in, grabbed my MIL by the arm and said, with an evil grin, "you know the worst thing that ever happened to me i hospital. ....".

3 espresso martinis (large ones with no measures), a glass of wine and an irish coffee and I said to my MIL, "I feel way too sober right now!"

Wishing you the best of luck xxx

VJsmum

Examples have been

"I don't suppose i will ever come here again"
"Tomorrow i have to go home and be all by myself again"
"I might be dead tomorrow"
"It's not home - it's that place where I live"

And the best, the BEST was after a relative (a cousin) had sadly died a while before and we had gone on holiday

"Isn't it sad that we are having so much fun and Keith is dead.."

:rotfl:

elona

My Mum used to do the "You'll be sorry when I'm gone and they are carrying the coffin down the stairs!"

Before I could stop myself I retorted "No they won't, you'll stop them halfway down and tell them they're not doing it right!" After a stunned moment - she laughed.

Not being evil, honest as this was twenty years before she died!!!

I don't suppose it ever occurs to people that when they are a permanent rain cloud on everyone's parade that they are less likely to have visitors, invitations etc. so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that they have brought on themselves.

Just getting ready for a shopping trip with two youngest dds who are staying for a few days. Have told them if I ever start doing a guilt/ misery trip to shoot me!

mardatha

My son's MIL is one of them. She came to my son's at new year once and in every pause in the conversation started talking about her dead DIL.. her illness/suffering/hospital stays/ death. One by one the people in the room drifted slowly out to the kitchen and left us with her. I invented earache and came home lol

Caterina

Isn't it such a pity that our older relatives sometimes have to be so negative at all costs, distancing the very people who love them the most? I am realising with great sadness that I should WANT to be with my mother when I am ill, or anytime for the matter, but she makes it so very difficult for me.

Only last night I had 38 degrees fever and felt really battered. As I excused myself from the table because I was rather poorly, I realised that I hadn't made the honey and lemon mix that my mother had suggested, and which now I would really benefit from because of the increasing cough.

As I asked DH to make it for me she cut through, saying there is no need to make that dramatic face (that was my fever face, I wasn't making any special one) and that she would make it, without the need to bother DH, and went banging on about how long she had suggested it and after all this time finally I was seeing sense or something in that vein. I just blocked her in my head and went to bed.

My sister, who has moved to Sardinia to stay near her, told me that she can only stand her in very small doses. We both suspect that she is so lonely because she is such a difficult and insensitive person.

She is full of love and care - in her own way - but what a dreadful shame that she has to be so spiky that her own children feel like staying away for the most part.

I knew it was a massive mistake to come here for Christmas but she sounded so happy and enthusiastic, I could not turn down the invite in spite of all my instincts screaming "don't do it!". I am so very sad when I think that she could have us near her so much more if she only stopped making our lives a misery when we are around her. I know I will miss her when she's gone but above all I will forever miss the tender, gentle, smiling comforting mother that I have never had.

She is the reason why I left a very comfortable home (in economic terms) age 15.

juliettet

My ex MIL was horrible. On my first visit to Glasgow she cornered him in the kitchen and loudly asked him why he could not get a girl from 'round here'. Never put me off the place though. 30 years later still here it is now my home. (Ditched him though)!

nursemaggie

Oh Elona that's brilliant. Maybe everyone else should try something like that. Mine could be miserable and I was responsible for the world's ills but she was never as bad as any of these.

Hard_Up_Hester

My MIL told her son that our baby couldn't be his as the baby had blue eyes, FIL had blue eyes too, so I'm not sure how she worked that one out.