Troubled relationship with mother-in-law
*10/10/06*
I feel like I’ve been scrambling to get things done and not making much headway. I found the office mac disk and so got it loaded and e-mail set up. It took all day. And I haven’t even gone through the tutorial, as has been one of my goals. I did finally get a list of chores drawn up that I can use some help with for Connor to choose from.
I’m a little brought down; that’s sort of traditional this time of year because it means obligatory proximity with Darlene. So next week kind of lingers like a cloud; she’s coming to grandparent’s day at the school and then we’re celebrating her birthday. And this is part of what’s a little weird for me. When I got home from the beach on Sunday I saw that Gary had gotten her a birthday card. It’s really sugary, about how much he values her. There’s 3 pages of such verse, ending with “If only you could know how very wonderful it’s been To have your special love to turn to time and time again–If only you could know how much you’ve given, you could see Just why you’re loved the special way that only you could be” Ewwwwww, ICK. In addition, today in the mail came some sort of card addressed to him from her. I can faintly see through the envelope her handwriting densely crowding a page of it. So I’m walking past it every time I go by the front door.
I called and left her a message last Sunday to invite her to grandparent’s day with my folks, then to dinner afterward. I called on a Sunday so I could be sure to just leave a message and not have to speak too long to her. She called back a couple days later and left a message, to ‘accept’ the invitation. Her voice sounded warm, as if it came from a place of high regard. So I felt a little more warmly toward her, since I could see she was trying. I probably should have called her back, especially to return the gesture of good will. I figured I’d call her on her birthday (then not have to do it twice).
I guess the treating with good will is sort of the agreed-upon frame of reference. I can’t ignore the frame of reference that intrudes with its reality: the ‘good will’ frame of reference is belied by the fact of the rarity of seeing her. Because if the good will frame were true, if relations were like a normal family relationship I wouldn’t be timing my calls to her to be sure she’d not be there so I could leave a message instead of talk directly to her. We’d be making plans to celebrate her birthday ON her birthday, instead of just on the 20th when my folks can be here. I wouldn’t dread her presence at this end-of-year flurry of birthdays/thanksgiving/christmas. I’d have followed up on the times she’s said, “We have to get together for lunch…” The truth is that I don’t see her any more than I have to, and it seems like that must be totally obvious–it’s been going on long enough that it can’t be attributed to just being ‘busy’ from moving…it seems obvious that it must be because of choice: I *choose* to not see her; if it were otherwise we’d see much more of her, and I’d see more of her. I imagine that Gary’s seeing her and talking to her quite a lot more than he tells me about.
Still, we don’t see her very much, though she’s kind of out there as a potential presence. I wonder if Gary is troubled at all by the fact that we’re all not seeing each other more. Or if he’s just shoving that on a back burner. Dealing with it by not thinking about it. I wonder if someday he’ll feel guilty about that and blame me.
For me it’s just a little confusing to have the agreed-upon frame of reference be so at odds with reality. It really is as if I were to encounter her somewhere in public with her completely naked and be maintaining an agreed-upon reality that she has all her clothes on. I feel weird when reality is different from what we’re pretending it is; I feel like I have to be careful of my behavior so that the words and behavior that are appropriate to the REAL reality don’t bleed over into the agreed-upon reality. I’m not used to this; generally my relationships with people are appropriate to what seems like a genuinely shared consensus. But I guess since we’re not going to be dealing with this directly, it’s probably the best we can do. When together we act with good will, and ignore the fact that I don’t care to seek out her company unless I have to. We can pretend that I’m ‘just so busy’ and that prevents more contact. (A sort of similar situation exists, I suppose with x…where the agreement is that we’re two pals; though I for one am aware–with waxing and waning acuity–of some potential and sexual undercurrent…but since it is not really available for discussion I’ll never know if it’s just in my head or not, but we’ll operate from the place of being pals. I get uncomfortable when sometimes it seems that our circumstances may be a little closer to the implicit reality–like going somewhere with him and his son being almost date-like).
So I will be honest and say that I have mixed feelings about this card Gary has gotten from her addressed only to him, and this birthday card he’s gotten for her. I asked if we were to all sign it, and he said yes, but that he ‘wanted to write something on it’, then ‘maybe I’ll just run it by’. There is this continued charged area around this whole relationship with Gary and his mother and me. I felt it much more acutely in the past…a little less so now, but I still feel the ghosts of it. It’s easier for me to resolve to just accept it; that she really has his allegiance when it comes down to being in a moment and needing to make a choice. I suppose part of accepting it is an implicit intention still toward opening myself sexually to the possibility of other partners. Just accepting this as part of the terms of our being married, and therefore meeting my intimacy needs elsewhere. But I still have some lingering feelings of…I don’t know if it’s territoriality or not; the feeling that she’s encroaching on an area that should be off limits to her, and that he’s allowing, if not actually encouraging it. It used to be a much more painful feeling, and I guess I’m afraid if I push on it too hard it will become more painful again.
As usual, the presence of a feeling inside becomes less troubling when I can describe it. I guess that’s the “staying in your Adult” aspect of it described in Transactional Analysis.
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