in-law noun
1.A relative by marriage
(IN-LAW) This term is used to define how you are related to your spouse's family and relatives. It is most commonly used to describe your relationship to your spouse's immediate family. That is, his/her parents and siblings.
The above is Webster's definition of "in-law". You want to know my definition of in-law? In-law; Person or persons that come along with your spouse whether you like it or not, pains in the ass and/or a source of constant aggravation. Can also be someone who blames you for EVERYTHING.
Now some people are blessed with great in-laws and others are not so lucky. Due to the fact that my husband's parents are divorced, I have a great separation of one's I love and one's that I could do without. I have teetered back and forth about blogging this. Obviously in the end I decided I don't care if the wrong person reads this. Seriously? How much more trouble could this get me into???? I am going to go with none.
Before I go any further, I want to give you my feelings about gossip. I wouldn't go so far as to say I am a gossiper. In fact, I am tight lipped about things people in trust with me. After all, I wouldn't appreciate if I told someone a deep, dark secret thinking they were trustworthy only to discover they told anyone and everyone who would listen. Now if I get some juicy gossip that has nothing to do with my inner circle, I might spill - not "might", its very likely I will. Just being honest here people! Seriously, it is something most of us struggle with. On the other side of the gossip coin, somehow, someway, if you talk about me it WILL get back to me. I am not sure if this is because people want me to know or what. I am not sure why anyone would want me to know they wanted to be my enemy. I would be the first to admit you are either in or out with me and there is no real in between. If you are in, I would give you the shirt off my back, my last nickle, be there through whatever life throws at you. If you are out, lets just say it's pretty damn cold out there and leave it at that. I make no bones about it! This is just how I am, in my family we refer to it as being "Staten" and it's so much better for you to be on a Statens' good side.
It has never been a secret that my mother-in-law and I have a pretty rocky relationship. Scott calls it a mutual "hate-hate relationship". It all started when Scott and I began making out our guest list for our wedding. Who could know that inviting Scott's step mom would pose such a threat to the day? To all of us level headed people it would only seem natural to do so. There problems aren't my problems and surely they could put their issues aside for an afternoon, right? In the end it turned out okay but it wasn't without it's drama. Fast forward 16 years.....we are sitting at my daughters' dance recital, waiting for it to begin. My Mom was talking to my Grandma and pointed out my father-in-law and his wife to her and (BAM!) my mother-in-law is immediately pissed. She gets up seconds before the curtain lifted and left! This incident is just one of many over my 18 years of marriage.
Most recently, I threw a 40th Birthday Party for Scott at his Dad's land (which is another sore subject with the mil). Since everyone (except my mil) is on the Internet these days, I sent out invites via Facebook and told Scott to invite his mother as soon as humanly possible. I knew that if someone in her family saw it before her and said something to her, my ass would be grass! Have you figured out where this is going yet? Oh yeah, it gets back to me pretty quickly that she is pissed at me and apparently had lots to say about Scott's party to everyone but me. The kicker to the whole thing is she wasn't even going to be here anyway.
Last weekend, I got a phone call from a very good, unrelated friend of mine who said she had a very interesting conversation at a family dinner about me. Now my friend has no reason to fabricate anything, nor would she ever. In fact, she had no real prior knowledge about more than half of the things which were conveyed to her. Nor would she have made the connection unless it was pointed out as it was.
*FYI - I am not using names to protect the innocent*
Apparently, someone in my friend's family is very good friends with my mother-in-law. She asked my friend if she knew me and when she confirmed, she proceeded to spew my mother-in-law's version of wrong doings by me all over her! What the HELLO Kitty???? Before I proceed, my mother-in-law has every right to bitch about me to her family, her friends or whoever she wants. If they blindly choose to believe it all as the gospel, that is their business. Where I draw the line and put up a mine field is when YOUR friend tries to convince MY friend that I am at fault for everything and I am an awful, terrible person. This is my response to all the things that were said about me via the friend, in no particular order with my own special twist.
1. Your friend does NOT know me therefore, has NO right to talk about me based on YOUR embellished version of things.
2. Your friend stated that she HAD to go on vacation with you because YOU weren't invited to your son's party. Truth, you WERE invited but you CHOOSE to go on vacation the week of your son's birthday. Nevermind, we all know that you can't just call and ask to stay at the beach house on such short notice.
3. Your friend stated we had our last child to "save" our marriage. Are you kidding me? The only thing our marriage needs saving from is YOU! Furthermore, the last thing I would do is intentionally bring a child into this world to "save" anything. Hell, I had three other kids! As if that wasn't warning enough that children don't save anything (including Scott's hard earned money). Furthermore, your precious son isn't being held captive here - just saying!
4. Apparently you paint me as this horrible bitch of a person to anyone who will listen. I am tired of you bad mouthing me. You simply don't like me because I don't allow you to manipulate me into doing what you want and include EVERYONE to events - Get over yourself. You aren't the only one with feelings.
5. I don't care what YOUR friends think of me, I don't care what YOUR family thinks of me and I certainly do NOT care what YOU think of me! I never had a fighting chance anyway.
6. The one and only thing your friend got right about me is that I am either your best friend or your worst enemy. I guess you picked the later.
There are many things I could go on and on about but I am going to take my own advice and build a bridge, which we all know you aren't capable of. I will no longer even consider taking any responsibility for your hurt feelings where I am concerned (Sort of like you don't consider the feelings of all but one of your grandchildren). You go on portraying me as the Wicked Witch of the West and I will gladly ride that broom.
Sincerely,
The Queen of Sick of You Running Your Mouth
*Disclaimer - These are my feelings and if it sounded like I am angry, I am.
