I feel emotionally blackmailed

[ItsGrimUpNorth]

We've just had in laws, my parents, my brothers, their wives and kids for three days over Christmas. We had fun. It was hard work but we all enjoyed it. I was thinking it was how Christmasses should be.

My in laws, my dad and brothers stayed in a hotel as our house isn't big enough but were with us all day, every day from Christmas Eve to the end of Boxing Day. We had a good time.

My in laws found out that we are in their town in January as I'm going up for my friend's 40th birthday party. And I've arranged to visit my other brother who wasn't able to visit at Christmas. We're in town for one night only and I thought we'd stay with my mum for that one night and visit my brother on the Sunday after the party before we head home.

My mil is apparently "distraught" that we won't have time to visit her. We're actually seeing her and fil two weeks later - staying for the weekend in her house - and again two weeks after that, they're coming to visit us and other friends for the weekend.

My fil has sent me an email saying mil is getting in a tizzy that she won't be seeing us that weekend and because she's ill - gets very vexed and angry about stuff - can we please fit her in? But if we fit her in, it'll mean less time with my brother and his family who I've not seen for months, it'll all be rushed etc. I feel really quite hacked off at his nerve frankly especially after this past week.

I'm tired of fil telling me how "ill" mil is and making it our responsibility to keep her happy by calling her as often as possible, sending photos all the time etc. It's making me feel like unless we do what she wants, she'll just get ill and upset.

Is this right? She's 58, good physical health now, doesn't work, doesn't do anything really.

I can see this getting worse and worse as he retires next year and they start to look for us to keep them busy and entertained. We see them on average every six weeks for a weekend.

I want to nip it in the bud. What's the best way to do this?

It's your H's job to sort this out. Not yours. She is his mother. You are not being unreasonable by not visiting her this time, you have other plans and other commitments.

Even if I didn't have other plans and commitments, I still wouldn't visit them. I've seen quite enough of them for a few weeks!

I think you're all right - I need to put my foot down and say enough. We see plenty of them and she needs to get a life of her own. That's the problem, you see, she does nothing, has nothing to keep her busy and gets very very worked up - to the point of hysteria - over minor things like this and stuff like how much money her nephew spends on concert tickets and cars.

Her own daughter avoids her as much as possible. I kind of see why now but of course, we can't do that.

I dread fil's retirement. I really do because the guilt tripping will intensify as he'll be with her the whole time and will be under pressure from her the whole time.

I can't stress strongly enough how you cannot change her behaviour, you can only change yours.

Keep your responses short and polite and STICK TO YOUR GUNS.

I agree in theory it's your husband's responsibility but that's no help if, in reality, he is not ready or can't take the lead. I think going on and on at him to take control will just stress you more - and again you can't change his behaviour, only your own.

What you can do is try to remain calm, remind yourself over and over you are being perfectly reasonable, you are not a bad person etc when you have to say no to this sort of request (well demand).

As I said in this thread earlier, I really do understand and although things are so much better with my mother, I can't pretend the feelings of guilt/anger do not raise their ugly heads a fair amount. But because I now respond succintly, calmly but kindly I feel in control.

Also someone suggested that you give her a list of what you will be doing during your visit so that she can see you are busy . . . I wouldn't do that as then you are giving her the opportunity to say "well you don't need to be at that persons house for that long so cut that visit short and come and see us instead".

It's none of their business what you are doing with each part of your day so don't give her the power of knowing that information as she will only use the it for more emotional blackmail. I can completely understand the guilt thing and that is a nightmare, I used to suffer so much with guilt but it takes practice to get used to the idea that you have to do what is best for you . . . whilst taking other peoples feelings into consideration. Taking their feelings ito consideration isn't the same as doing what they want you to do all the time and giving in to emotional blackmail.

ALso FIL doesn't have to helplessly pass all her stress on to you surely? Is he reasonable - can you have a chat privately with him?
He does need to stop enabling all this hysteria.

You do not have to explain every little detail-and if you try to she will probably try to get you to change something.

Tell them there is not enough time & you are seeing them a couple of weeks later.

Tell FIL to get help as he is not coping with her & you cannot jump to every whim of hers.

Sounds like you already see a lot of them.

You shouldn't even begin to explain yourself and your decisions to them. You are after all a grown up. I don't understand why they think they can tell you who to visit and when? It's disrespectful and controlling.

Be firm.

Don't apologise and don't explain....you don't have to....your life is your own to organise as you see fit.

Say 'I'm afraid we will not be able to visit on this occasion, but we're really looking forward to seeing you two weeks later'

Leave it at that. If she goes into meltdown then that's up to her. Her choice entirely. She doesn't own you, and has no right to try and dictate your actions.