Should I Bring This Up In Couple's Therapy?

In a moment of weakness, I allowed myself to be convinced to visit The Devil.

I should explain that my husband (The Anti-Christ?) and I have had our share of issues, but in a recent attempt to promote marital harmony, I agreed to accompany him and our children to the house of The Devil. I hemmed and hawed and made excuses and placed conditions, but in the end, I relented.

Big. Fucking. Mistake.

I should have known the evening was destined to end disastrously when my husband (The Anti-Christ?) and I had the following conversation on the drive over:

A-C: Well, your mom probably hates me.

DDIL: No, my mom loves you like a son, even though you've done some shitty things. Because, you know, she's, like, normal and wants the best for us. Unlike some other mother I know who hates me even though I've never done a thing wrong to her, ever.*

A-C: My mom doesn't hate you, she thinks you hate her.

DDIL: No comment.

So, I sat, being eaten alive by demon mosquitoes in The Devil's backyard, and watched my children splash happily in The Devil's pool and listened to The Devil recount her week's activities of shopping, yoga, British television programming, new prescription medications and earlier that day, lunch with a friend of her's and the friend's daughters. Of course, my husband, being a dutiful and attentive minion son asked how she enjoyed her lunch, which she must have interpreted as "Hey, mom, can you tell us about your lunch and find a way to piss off DDIL while you're at it?"

So, she spends the next 15 minutes telling us how all she heard the entire time at lunch from the friend's daughters was how "hot" A-C was. How he's so good-looking, he could be a model. How nobody would believe he's married, with children. Of course, The Devil thought it necessary to add:

"I don't think DDIL knows how lucky she is, with such a hot-looking husband!"

Meaning what? I'm such a fucking ugly dog-face that I should be grateful she allowed her "hot" son to have sex with me multiple times? I'm really not a jealous person, but the fact that I know she said these things to get under my skin infuriates me. And it infuriates me because I know she said these things knowing that it could create discord for us, at a time when we're already struggling to keep our marriage and family together. And it infuriates me that I let her infuriate me.

I held my tongue and tried to not let on that she accomplished her goal. I bit my lip when she insisted we stay for dinner. I swallowed the bile that rose to my mouth when she licked her fingers after dinner while complaining about not being able to lose any weight. I resisted making any snide comments when The Devil lamented her daughter's poor choice in boyfriends. And I kept my thoughts to myself when my husband (The Anti-Christ?) mentioned that night that I seemed upset. All for the sake of marital harmony.

And because I'm afraid if I mention it, my husband (The Anti-Christ?) may, with good intentions, tell his mother that her comments were inappropriate. And I'd rather have every last ounce of blood in my body drained by those demon mosquitoes than give her that satisfaction.

Live and learn, I guess. Learn to avoid The Devil like the bloated, white-haired, drunken plague.



*Not counting creating this blog, of course, because as far as I know, The Devil and my husband (The Anti-Christ?) are none the wiser.

But At Least She's Not A Nigger, Right, Ma?

Reader, Chatterbox Sara, shares more of her MIL with us. Read her other posts HERE.


Directly after meeting my future in-laws for the first time, as in, when they called to let us know they got home safely, N put MIL on speaker phone again and here's a snippet of the conversation, where MIL basically calls me a heifer.

N: I'm glad you guys made it home ok. Did you have a good time here?

MIL: It was nice. The food was soooo good that you two made. (Insert a long paragraph where she obsessed over my daughter and started crying about having to leave her.)

N interrupts the drama: I'm glad you see why I love them so much. I assume you guys like Sara and are ok with all this then?

MIL: Well, I didn't say that I particularly like Sara. I'm just so in love with her daughter. I guess if she makes you happy, I can overlook somethings.

N: Uhh, like what? I didn't see her do or say anything that should make you not like her.

MIL: It's just that she's so large. You always dated much smaller girls and I really liked that because that meant you would always have a wife who's thin and pretty.

N: Sara's not big, ma! I don't even think she's a size 8, plus she did just have a baby 5 months ago.

MIL: I'm just saying she could be smaller and prettier is all! I just don't think you'll be happy with a larger woman. I mean, fat people never get thinner, they just get fatter. I would know. What if in ten years, you don't find her attractive at all, then you'd have to get a divorce!

N: I happen to not have a problem with her size or looks, CLEARLY, since I'm dating her and would like to marry her eventually.

MIL: Well, I guess not everyone wants a thin or pretty wife. Just make sure that your choice really makes you happy.

N hung up on her then. They had several more fights over how inappropriate that was and then for a year straight she would make these smirking comments about how thiiiiiiiiiin I was and how greeeeeeeeeeeeeeat I looked. Ugh. Anytime we went out to eat, I would always order salads and water, and comment on how many calories or fat grams whatever she ate probably had. Mama didn't raise no coward! I guess, at least this time she wasn't being racist is a plus?

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Psycho Tree

"Agog" sent me this email. I hope sharing this helped a bit.



I made the mistake of marrying some woman's only child. I did not know at the time that he was a swirling cauldron of mother-hate. I innocently bred with him. I had three children with him before it became unavoidably obvious that his mother-hate therapy consisted in abusing ME.

Meanwhile, she helpfully called me from across town to inform me that my child "smelled yesterday and she needs to be put on the potty." Helpful advice like that. Or that my child needed to be taken outside to play. (When there was 4 inches of ice on the ground and it was 5 degrees out.) Eventually, life with Psycho got so bad I tried to confide in HatedMother. Her words: "I don't know, and I don't want to know. It's not my problem." When he left me, HatedMother moved in with him to clean his toilets and help him raise my children 48 percent of the time. He had ignored the kids for almost 10 years and maybe needed someone to tell him when to put them on the potty. I dunno. Seeing how he had the attention span of a goldfish when it came to anything that required actual work, HatedMother helped him keep my sweet precious children away from my love and discipline for 48 percent of the time for the past 10 years. In the past few years, she started to notice that Psycho is crazier than a betsy bug and mean as a snake. And that my previously-dear children have changed and now act and sound and treat her a lot like, well, Psycho. Go figure. Then she began to call ME and complain about how horrible Psycho and the Cherubs were. Look, woman! You don't get to help ruin my children and now tell me that they suck!

Sometimes, she kind of hints that she'd like to live with me when her son threatens to throw her out on the street. Like hell.

Oh, she still refers to me as her DIL.