<p>If your mother really doesn’t want to go, be kind to her and don’t go; give her the excuse she needs to hold her head high. Don’t make your mother feel guilty for not wanting to go. Remember that you’ll be talked about whether you’re there or not, so don’t let that influence you at all. Your sister and her daughter started this whole mess; let them dig themselves out of it.</p>
<p>I am all for “family harmony” but this one is so far out of key that there never will be harmony.</p>
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I agree and it is MUCH appreciated!</p>
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I think it’s likely that I would be the “sister” invite, but my sister would never, ever put strings on anything for her daughter.</p>
<p>Thanks, VH and zoos. No charge :)</p>
<p>I still think its up to what Zoos wants for Zoos. No way to win in the family tug of war-- either mom or sister or bridezila or someone will have an issue. But, that’s THEIR issue, not zoos’. IMO, if one is going to get gussied up ad go to the wedding, then heck, go to the reception, at least for a little while (though I didnt quite understand the transportation thing) and try to enjoy a little of the event, make small talk with a few guests, and then split. Bottom line, Zoos is gonna make herself nuts trying to figure out what the other people want, and regardless, its a no-win. So ultimately its high time she let herself be a little selfish in this family dynamic and do what she/hub want to do.</p>
<p>Whenever I go to a wedding, I always check out the groom’s side and the bride’s side(I am not religious, so I often get bored at the ceremony). I like to see the grandparents, parents, aunts/uncles, check out their clothes and makeups. If one side of family has very few guests, I always wonder why. At the end of wedding, it’s interesting to see which side of family gets most out of hand. In this case, I would wonder why no one from the bride’s side is there - kind of embarrassing, no?</p>
<p>Wow, JYM, you really are able to nail it all (especially in your posts of 131, 133 and 135), even tho we’re just all posting on a forum and have never met any of the parties involved physically. </p>
<p>ZM, I wish you the very best and hope you can make the choices that let YOU rest as easy as possible with your choices. I would hope that you can do something special with your mom and perhaps something with your mom & sister down the road. It sounds like that would be good for all of you. Sorry about all the drama you have experienced and will continue to have with bridezilla, but hopefully she will disappear off into her future and allow those wounds to better heal for you.</p>
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Thank you! I appreciate that more than you know. This whole exercise has been incredibly cathartic. As I’ve been thinking it through, several (maybe more than several) examples of vicious behavior by my niece that I haven’t exactly forgotten, but hadn’t thought about in years, have come to my mind and I’m once again amazed by her capacity for meanness.</p>
<p>Hey, zm, you were willing to give the mean girl “The Method” - what about all of your friends here? (Not that mashed potatoes are what I’m looking for these days, as a charter member of the “Weight loss for dummies” thread.)</p>
<p>That’s an awfully expensive stand mixer! They do go to a lot of trouble to zing you, don’t they?</p>
<p>jym’s insightful responses are the reason that I always feel vaguely uncomfortable meeting a psychologist or psychiatrist at a party.</p>
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I hadn’t even realized it until I typed it. Denial is also a river in NYC, apparently.</p>
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It’s incredibly generous to share those insights with strangers on a message board.</p>
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I’m happy to share. I haven’t given it to my kids because, frankly, they’d rather let me cook for them. I was going to give it to my niece because she, like me, truly appreciates potatoes.</p>
<p>ZM, you really do seem a very kind, decent and generous person. I am so sorry that you have had so much interaction with a family member who does not share these qualities. It really does not appear that she will share them, no matter what you do or do NOT do. In cases like these, you have to do what is right for YOU and let the chips fall where they will.</p>
<p>My D is incredibly insightful. She would come home from pre-school @ 3 years old & be able to accurately report how everyone in her pre-school class felt AND WHY. She still has that skill–partly sharp overservational skills, part empathy, part synthisizing all the data quickly and accurately. I have NEVER been able to hide anything from her & she has the most wonderful friends.</p>
<p>I am generally happy meeting whomever at any gathering (including therapists of all stripes)–guess I feel I’m an open book since I am very close to D & she’s been reading me & all of us all these years.</p>
<p>ZM, you WILL make a good choice that works for you and your mom and you WILL be satisfied with it.</p>
<p>You cannot remake your niece into the person you wish she were but only see her as she is and decide how and if you choose to interact with her and in what ways. That is all any of us can ever do. It does sound like your niece has way more problems currently and historically than most of us can imagine and it will likely continue despite anything you or anyone can do. Sadly, your choices will NOT affect this.</p>
<p>I would love to have it, because my boys love mashed potatoes. And I already have a stand mixer, a Kitchenaid, which I thought was a great one until I learned that there exists somewhere one that cost 3x as much!</p>
<p>Thanks, HImom and NYmomof2… I think 
I promise, nymom, the meters arent running at social events/parties and such. </p>
<p>My last platitude for now (have to run errands) is that if you don’t know what to do,Zoos, don’t do anything yet. Wait 'til you feel the same way about it 3 days in a row before deciding. Am assuming DH will go along with whatever you decide. </p>
<p>We should start another thread, akin to the “say it here” thread, where we list all the totally outrageous, whack-o things friends/relatives have done to or asked of us. Looks like several of us could fill that thread with our experiences alone. Some people are amazingly self-focused. I’ll give one example-- a cousin’s wife asked me to make a “reservation” with the funeral home when my mother was dying so it wouldn’t intervere with her daughter’s event that was scheduled for that upcomong weekend :eek: Then that same cousin and wife didnt bother to show up at my dad’s funeral (a 20 minute trainride away) but called to ask when “dinner” was that night (were sitting shivah) and then called and asked ME to pick them up at the train station (when I had a house full of mourners/guests). My DH actually went to get them !!! When they showed up, after stuffing their faces, she asked if she could have a silver antique that was in my parents living room, claiming she collected them! :eek: I let her have the item, because in the long run, I can sleep at night and she would have thought I was the one being selfish! These people never change. Its a matter of what the next issue will be. So for zoos, bridezilla will have some theatrical nastyness of some sort in the future. Its not a matter of if, but when. And her mom/your sister will be caught in the middle. I expect things will flare up when your mom (the grandma) needs additional assistance down the road. That has a way of bringing out the worst in many sibs :(</p>
<p>I imagine your nasty cousin/wife are somewhere in my neck of the woods, jym!</p>
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My very sweet husband is agitating to not go. He just can’t abide my niece and has not much use for my sister, either.</p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>
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Am I reading this to mean that she wanted your mother to die when it was convenient for this cousin’s wife?</p>
<p>The cousin/wife are in the City. They live only about 15 blocks from where my dad was in the hospital for about 10 days before he died. I called them- told them where we were. They were too busy to come visit, but said if I wanted to come up to their apt I could :eek:</p>
<p>Here’s a recent example, not from my family, but from a friend’s. D is graduating from a small girls’ school, girls in long white dresses carrying roses, choreographed processional of girls and faculty according to tradition of many years’ standing, solemn music. D’s aunt runs to end of column of graduates/faculty, where all are facing in, sticks her head into scene, calls out D’s name while wiggling fingers with thumbs stuck in ears. She apparently felt that the moment needed some lightening up.</p>
<p>Priceless, NYmom! We shouldnt derail this thread with the stories. Lets start another-- what should we call it? We can post these exact scenarios over there.</p>
<p>I’ll start a new thread, so as not to detract from OP ZM’s. It sounds like hers has more than enough drama to fill many, many more pages of posts. I’m calling it, “Folks From Another Planet.”</p>
<p>Did you actually receive a formal invitation or is this just coming from your sister verbally?</p>
<p>Have you tried to find you niece on facebook? If you’re not on it, it would be worth opening an account just to search for her. You can close the account later. I would try to find her and send her a private message, although I’m not sure what I would say. </p>
<p>I agree that ZM’s sister has enabled the daughter in many ways. Theirs is a dysfunctional relationship. But there may be more than meets the eye. The daughter may truly have been very difficult from a young age. We can’t be certain if the parents tried to get help for her or not. On one side of my family, there are six of us grandchildren, three of whom became mental health professionals. A fourth grandchild, developed a mental illness as a young adult – we’re not sure what type as he disappeared out of our lives for decades and we could only speculate based on bits on shreds of information. He should have gotten help before he was an adult and his parents did not take matters in hand. In a family brimming with people who had resources and advice to give, his parents took advantage of none of it. My aunt became something of a recluse as he continued to live at home. Last Thanksgiving, out of the blue and much to everyone’s shock, he accepted a standing invitation to Thanksgiving. It went well. We don’t know what changed. We do know that as his aging mother has had health issues, he is stepping up and caring for her in ways we didn’t expect. Did she fail him in some ways? I think so. But now I think that the constancy of her devotion may have also had some positive effect. Dealing with a child who has psychological problems is more challenging than can easily be understood and often costs the parents quite a bit in terms of their other relationships. I can see that ZM’s sister made some major mistakes, particularly in the handling of the Sweet 16, but I have to imagine she is ashamed of how her daughter is behaving and knows that she has completely lost control of the situation. It’s unclear to me why she is pushing so hard for ZM to come to the wedding. Clearly, it seems unimportant to the daughter. Is ZM’s sister afraid of being embarrassed for herself as to how it will look if ZM doesn’t show up? Who would this really be for?</p>
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Yes, thats exactly what she meant. Her in-laws, my aunt/uncle (mo’s bro and wife), were flying up from the south for their granddaughter’s event in the DC area, and was trying to figure out their flights to NY for the anticipated funeral withough missing their granddaughter’s event (my mom had been in the hospital for 5 weeks at that point and had had 3 surgeries). Sad part-- I DID call the funeral home to see what times were available. They thought I was a bit tetched, probably. And of course… those cousins (who lived in the DC area at that time) didnt come up for my mother’s funeral. Probably a good thing-- who knows what they would have tried to take with them at that time!</p>
<p>Nasty Relative Tricks?</p>