<p>Do you get to write a thank you note and tell her what you selected to use your gift card to buy? Lol</p>
<p>That is such a wonderfully passive-aggressive idea, I just love it. I will if she gives me any more s%#@!</p>
<p>My specialty: passive aggressive.</p>
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<p>Very good!</p>
<p>I skipped using “narcissistic” before, but until someone has dealt with this, they don’t know how tough it is. I think many posters skirted the fact that a lot of the crap isn’t just “rude” or surprising or come at the wrong moment. I believe sometimes it’s a mental/behavioral problem. </p>
<p>I hope the books (and web info) help you, tp. As my grandmother aged, this came out more and more and more. She could be charming and always found friends willing to put up with the equation. </p>
<p>Because it needs to be said, can I say: it’s not your fault.
Hugs.</p>
<p>Unfortunately this was my mother. She was self-absorbed and narcissistic. My favorite story:</p>
<p>When I was a junior in HS, I had a serious BF. He was a very nice fellow who wound up going to Princeton. That year, my older sister got married and BF’s cousin got married. My mother told me years later than she knew that BF and I had talked about eloping.</p>
<p>Me: “No, we didn’t. The subject never came up. We both planned on going to college.”</p>
<p>Mom: “Don’t lie to me, VeryHappy! I was there!”</p>
<p>This was 40 years ago, and to this day, I’m stunned. Just stunned.</p>
<p>My H would sometimes just lay the phone on his chest and continue reading when his mom would call.She never let up talking so an occasional grunt in the direction of the phone was all that was needed. The call would end and I’d say “So, what’s the news?” H: “Don’t know.”</p>
<p>*Unfortunately this was my mother. She was self-absorbed and narcissistic. My favorite story:</p>
<p>When I was a junior in HS, I had a serious BF. He was a very nice fellow who wound up going to Princeton. That year, my older sister got married and BF’s cousin got married. My mother told me years later than she knew that BF and I had talked about eloping.</p>
<p>Me: “No, we didn’t. The subject never came up. We both planned on going to college.”</p>
<p>Mom: “Don’t lie to me, VeryHappy! I was there!”</p>
<p>This was 40 years ago, and to this day, I’m stunned. Just stunned.*</p>
<p>I have had this sort of thing happen to me. I can only guess that the person had a very realistic dream at one point and really believes it happened. Most of us have little trouble differentiating between dreams and reality, but I wonder if some people (maybe those with mental disorders) can have a realistic dream and believe it.</p>
<p>(I guess your mom never did the “reality check” and figure out that if she “was there” then the convo didn’t likely ever happen. It would be very unlikely that you and BF would have been discussing a high school elopement in her presence (more than just some silly long-forgotten obvious joking). A rational person would be able to do this, but someone who has a disorder might not.)</p>
<p>When I met my mother in law, I had been invited to her house for dinner.
When I asked if I could help with anything, she said: " Well, you can scrub my bathroom floor if you want." </p>
<p>I had no idea what to say. I just sat down.
Wish I had asked if we were eating in there.</p>
<p>^with comments like that, you sometimes don’t know if they’re trying to be funny.</p>
<p>I know this is the MIL thread, but after my MIL died, we would have FIL over for Thanksgiving. He’d sit on the couch and talk to H while I cooked and cleaned and served. It’s once a year - - he’s frail – no big deal. But as I came through the living room to clear away coffee cups and dessert plates, he’d look at me and say “do you do windows?”</p>
<p>Hilarious, right?</p>
<p>^omg, that’s an old joke- I used to hear versions of that around older relatives, about any woman. She’s a great [whatever.] Yeah, but does she do windows?</p>
<p>My grandmother got so that any contact with my brother was reported as “he’s angling for money.”<br>
He could say, we’re going camping; I’m just going to read tonight; an old college friend called me: anything was angling for money.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids, thanks for that validation. It has really bothered me all these years. And yes, she did have some sort of disorder; it became much worse in her later years.</p>
<p>My MIL would never eat any food I cooked. She wouldn’t even put any on her plate and move it around so it looked like ahe ate some. She would just sit there with an empty plate. </p>
<p>One time my husband put some pasta on her plate. I guess she figured it would be too rude to not take a bite, so instead she took a small taste and immediately spit it out into her napkin, then emptied her plate into the person’s next to her.</p>
<p>I kid you not. And in case anyone’s wondering, I have a very clean house. Much cleaner than hers.</p>
<p>I posted early on in this thread. My mil is strange but appears normal compared to others described in this thread! Thanks for sharing and helping me keep things in perspective.</p>
<p>WAIT!! TPTShorty…you got a GIFT from your MIL? Except for some earring that were stolen (really nice earrings that I was the contact person to help her get the earrings. Remember Jews can always get things wholesale/a deal/they have that business all sewn up) I have never received a gift from my in laws. Not a card nor a call.</p>
<p>And as for angling for money: My husband asked me to call his mother to tell her about a recent vacation. Husband was VERY busy at work. And until this call I made it my business to call her once a week. She was lonely and I would let her talk.</p>
<p>Well, I said “How are you?” and she started screaming at me that I was a “conniving k…”. and that I should never call her again. I waited until my husband got home. He called his mother who verified everything that I told him that had happened. My husband blew: told her that I was doing him a favor because he knew that she would have been interested in the trip and he didn’t have time to call. He then said that she owed me an apology big time.</p>
<p>A day later she did call…and did apologize. But that was in April…haven’t called her yet.</p>
<p>This thread is a great release!</p>
<p>My MIL wouldn’t come see my daughter, her first granddaughter, because we didn’t name her after my MIL. She did the same when my 2 sons were born, because we didn’t name them after FIL. Meanwhile, her daughter had 2 sons not named after FIL, but that was OK.</p>
<p>INLaws used to have parties in the '60’s where FIL would walk around with a tape recorder asking people to talk, so that 40 years later they could make their children listen to it over and over. MIL once yelled at my 2 year old son for making noise during one of these funfests.</p>
<p>ellebud, I don’t think you’re obligated to call her back – ever.</p>
<p>I’m not calling…ever.</p>
<p>…and I do feel guilty occasionally. But then I remember and not so much.</p>
<p>I think I’ve shared this on some other thread.</p>
<p>When I was pregnant with my second child (her second grandchild), MIL’s daughter got engaged. They then booked the wedding for three days after my due date. MIL then spent the rest of my pregnancy asking me if the doctor had changed my due date yet. At the rehearsal dinner, one day after the due date, she came up to me and gushed about how happy she was I was there. I made it to the wedding. The next day she calls DH and tells him I need to have a girl (we didn’t know what we were having) because she will be unable to make the bris (circumcision on the 8th day) because – wait for it – she is leaving on a six-week cruise in six days. So my daughter ended up being born six days late (three days after the wedding). The next day she shows up at the hospital – and this is a well-off woman who just threw a lavish wedding – with one of the floral centerpieces from the table. The flowers were four days old and wilting and she brightly said, “Recognize these?” And a golf ball for my two-year-old. She stopped by our house for a brief visit the day before she left on her cruise. The house was a mess, dishes piled up in the sink. She looked around and launched into a story of how her own mother always came over and cleaned up and cooked, how her own mother always had her kitchen knife in her purse ready to chop food wherever she went. On and on. Then she said, “But, that’s not me.” And flounced out to her cruise. I burst into tears. My own mother was long-dead, so hearing how great hers was compounded with the fact she had no intention of following in her steps just did me in at the time. </p>
<p>But, she thinks I walk on water which makes me a lot luckier than a lot of you.</p>
<p>mimk: I can’t raise you…but my mil told me how welcoming fil’s family was to her. Although it was a secret…they were Jewish and she was not Jewish. And they lovingly accepted her…</p>
<p>I was still being polite back then…Now, “Too bad that you didn’t learn from them.”</p>
<p>I am glad that you walk on water in her eyes. You, based on many years of reading what you have to say, do.</p>