Share Your Day
Options
Replies
-
AlexandraFindsHerself1971 wrote: »... Have to do this on occasion or the cat hair tumbleweeds achieve sentience behind the furniture ...
Oh, I love this, Alexandra. I'm terrified of how many sentient beings are living in the nooks and crannies of my place
(me wearing dark enough shades will extend their existence a while longer)
I hope the day goes smoothly for you and your boyfriend. And that someone puts together dinner while you are picking him up.2 -
Alex, I am so in awe of how all four of you (you, BF, GF and son) manage to co-habit with grace, kindness and mutual respect, ensuring that everyone's individual needs are met and accommodated. It is a masterclass in dignified, tolerant, supportive and respectful living. Kudos to all of you - and especially you for being the lynchpin that holds everything together.5
-
Isn't it amazing how, even after a whole year of trying to learn new behaviours, there's the temptation to revert back to old habits when under emotional stress?
I'm sitting here desperately trying to distract myself from eating everything in sight. The trigger is frustration and annoyance. MIL has been desperate to move to our small market town ever since we moved here in 2020, but it's a sought-after area and house prices are double those elsewhere in the county and still climbing fast (our house has more than doubled in value since we bought it 18 months ago). MIL has taken equity out of her current house to fund her compulsive spending, so her available budget would barely stretch to a starter home in an undesirable location. But she insists she not only wants to live in our town...but also within a 5 minute leisurely walk of its historic Georgian centre. We live a 9 minute walk from the centre and she says our house is too outlying....so you get the measure of how picky she is being. But she nags us constantly to find her something in the heart of the town, and constantly complains that she feels cut off and isolated in her current house, since it's in a hamlet without any nearby shops or infrastructure.
Yesterday, we were gifted a minor miracle. A house right in the centre of the town, right by the village green. It has a large driveway for three cars, two bedrooms, a lovely private walled garden that is completely un-overlooked. Well decorated throughout. No onward chain as the owner (a dear friend) is moving to sheltered accommodation. And offered to us privately, so that our friend would avoid agency fees. And - incredibly - in MIL's price range - in fact, £40,000 cheaper than the offer she's accepted on her current house. We were given first refusal at the bargain-basement rate due to the vendor being a friend - if we don't want it, she will put in with an agency at the going market rate.
We took MIL to view it today....it's a veritable gem, with one flaw - that it would need a completely new kitchen, which her £40,000 price differential would easily cover. But MIL has turned it down, because she insists she couldn't bear the current kitchen for the few months she'd have to wait while her replacement kitchen was being designed and built. And also because it's (freshly) carpeted throughout, and she wants hardwood floors - and she insists she needs them in place before she moves in because she can't live with the current carpets even for a few days because they're (and I quote) hideous.
We said she could stay with us while the floors are being laid - or even for the few months until the new kitchen is in place - but she says she needs the kitchen and floors in place on day one, so that she has zero disruption, which we've pointed out is unreasonable and impossible.
In that case you need to keep looking until you find something more suitable, she said.
I'm so frustrated I could scream!3 -
Perhaps the future response is that nothing that meets her standards has come on the market?3
-
Bella, that sounds maddening. I am so sorry.
The phrase I use a lot is that we may not have it all together, but together, we have it all.6 -
Bella: as I was laying down the options... I realize that I can do nothing but hug you.
Either she will have an incredibly quick change of mind (perhaps son talks with her directly without you present?) and figures out if this is really something she wants to do...
But I would, most certainly, be incredibly tempted to not continue to put any effort in trying to accommodate her during the next couple of years if she refuses to go ahead.... or to look into buying the place myself if I could swing it, if it sounds like the bargain it appears to be!
4 -
I agree - hugs to you Bella - and that last idea is intriguing, PAV, to just go ahead and buy the house. hhmmm.2
-
Assuming you could flip yours before any Fallout from world events if uncertain about future ability to cope! 🐱 I'm quite uncertain as to what will prove to be an inflation hedge 🤔🤔🐱🤔🐱🤔 I suspect that accounting Garfield probably has a better idea. XD😘3
-
We'd love to buy it as an investment but can't afford it. MIL has spent £497k against a £254k retirment income in the past decade, so we've had to bail her out more times than I can count, which means our own retirement nest egg is completely gone. She can't take any more equity out of her own house, and we're facing the prospect of needing to raise equity on our own home to cover any debts she amasses in the future. It's a frustrating situation. We have to pennypinch constantly to fund her extravagance, because she treats herself to the best of everything, then comes crying to us when she's threatened with foreclosure and the bailiffs. Saying no is very hard when the person begging for help is 82 years old, about to lose her home, and suffering from leukaemia. Her compulsive spending is a form of illness that is made so much worse by the unscrupulous marketing methods of the online shopping channels like QVC and TCM, which prey on vulnerable people like her. We've sought their help to try to prevent her accessing their channels, but they refuse to help because their entire ethos is about trying to persuade people to part with their money for stuff they really don't need. We don't have power of attorney to cancel her credit cards...and she has full cognitive capacity, so there's little we can do to curtail her financially ruinous behaviour. And she point blank refuses to move in with us, where we could at least try to limit her spending...so we're left with picking up the pieces. It's not an easy situation...5
-
Ok. This has almost got ME reaching for the Ben and Jerry's.
Be smarter than I would be in your situation. Be smarter.2 -
In the much easier to resolve department, you guys are aware how people who ask how to lose lots of weight with unrealistic speed are sometimes told to chop off a limb, or cut off a good chunk, or something?
Chubby is using me as her pillow currently because she is on double gabapentin and out like a light 'cause the side she is hiding from me has oozing symmetrical divets with little chunks of flesh missing!
That would be the idiot who ignored my yelling and trilled in frustration before diving into the Fraser River to go after a sea otter. Dog, dog paddling, in river, against sea otter.
I guess we're heading to the vet for extra shots in a few hours....
4 -
Bella, sometimes the child must become the parent. Sit MIL down along with all her children and tell her that what she is doing cannot go on. Be honest with what this is doing to your own future. Tough love ❤️.
I speak from experience here having been caregiver to my mother for many, many years. If after the intervention, she continues to behave badly you may have to allow her to fail with all the nasty consequences.4 -
Yooly, we've had countless interventions. Sat her down, given her stark warnings in clear, unequivocal layman's language about the impact of her spending on her financial security and its negative impact our own quality of life....it doesn't do a jot of good. She cries...curbs her spending for at most 48 hours...then the cycle recommences. My husband had to retire on health grounds when he was 34, so I worked extremely hard, long hours, lots of stress to create a large enough pension to ensure a comfortable retirement for us both. It's galling to say the least that we have to be super-thrifty to finance her life of luxury and extravagance. My only consolation is that debts die with the debtor, and we won't inherit the liabilities. Her house now belongs to the equity release company - she's allowed to move, but as soon as she dies the house reverts in full to the company. So we'll never get a penny back of the money we've used to bail her out. Thanks to her late husband she has a comfortable pension income of £25.4k per year (which is higher than the national average median full time salary) but spends literally double that sum.
I've been really blunt and said that she's effectively stealing her beloved son's future - his opportunities to travel, indulge his hobbies etc...which should hit home because she knows he lost his youth to 8 years of dialysis which started before he was 30...and she knows he has numerous health conditions that have impacted his life expectancy. She cries - says she's sorry - says she'll change....but the promises are broken as soon as they're spoken.
Her spending was always been out of control, but since the pandemic (which coincided with her leukaemia diagnosis) it's got sooo much worse. I would never have taken early retirement in May 2020 if I'd had an inkling of how bad it would be. She's used the pandemic as an excuse to wallow in self-pity, smothering her unhappiness and discontentment with constant spending.
I think she's the reason why I feel that beauty is a curse. My pet theory is that beautiful people are so lauded in their youth that the praise and admiration turns their heads and ruins them for the rest of their lives. They feel they're better than everyone else, and deserve the best of everything. They feel it's their right to be surrounded by beauty - to live in beautiful houses, in beautiful settings, and drive beautiful cars, and wear beautiful clothes, and fabulous jewels, and sumptuous perfumes. MIL spends a fortune on her house and garden...drives a Mercedes sports car...squanders thousands of pounds a year on trying to hold onto the vestiges of her youthful beauty - if you offered her a £250 pot of face cream made of powdered bull's pizzle and yak vomit and said it would make her look 10 years younger she'd be the first in line to buy half a dozen pots.
It's a life sentence...3 -
First off Bella, I am so so sorry you are dealing with that. I can't even imagine the stress that your MIL is causing you and your family. It is easy for me to say that maybe you do need to just let her fail. I understand it will be hard, but she is an adult and you can not risk your own safety and comfort to keep bailing her out. She knows she can get away with what she does because she has in the past. Maybe it is time to put your foot down and tell her enough is enough. Again, easy for me to say since it is not my family, but as an outsider that is my view.
Sorry I was gone... again... I went to the Curiosities and Oddities Expo on Saturday morning and that drained me mentally for the rest of the day and most of Sunday. I did get the closet finished and took the 3 giants bags of clothes to be donated. It felt so good to get that done. I still need to do some organizing in there, but it's functional and not nearly as chaotic as it once was so I call it a win.
Then Sunday I had another panic attack/break down due to noise. It wasn't even THAT bad and lasted only a few minutes, but it was enough to send my brain into a spiral. So my late afternoon/evening was shot.
Which actually brings me to yesterday. I was speaking to my therapist about how I was watching a young lady on TikTok who has autism explain why she wore noise canceling headphones all the time. The way she described her reaction to noise was exactly like how it feels when I have problems with it. It's like my brain gets overwhelmed and can't process anything during that time. We then spoke about some other problems I have like my "mild OCD", issues with emotional regulation, problems reading social cues or body language, reliance on daily routine, problems with change, social anxiety, and more. And a lot of pieces fell into place. So we now have a working diagnosis of autism. High functioning and I have had to come up with a lot of coping mechanisms over the years so it wasn't clear until the noise issues started again.
Now the question is... do I work on getting an actual diagnosis? As a 40 year old woman, it wouldn't be easy to do. Even my therapist admits that. She just doesn't feel comfortable giving me a 100% diagnosis herself because it is not an area she is as experienced in, even though medically she could do so based off of her degree and education. And would it even change that much to have an actual diagnosis? I already take meds that help with my anxiety and I am already doing therapy monthly that has been focused on the same problems just from a different direction. So I don't know. More doctor appointments means more money and my budget is already tight.
I just don't know.4 -
So, no second, third or hundredth chances for MIL. Crying is easy. Having your things repossessed is harder! And yes you will be perceived as the bad guy. It’s kind of like a toddler throwing tantrums in the candy store.
My own mother was a master manipulator. I had to learn to say NO that’s not how it’s going to be. She would bad mouth hubby and me to relatives and friends when she couldn’t get her way. There were weeks of crying and not speaking which was hard considering that she lived in our home.
The trauma of dealing with a geriatric teenager went on for over 30 years! Not to mention we were also raising our son. There was a bad period When we had two teenagers (mom and son) competing for attention and discipline at the same time. Son turned into a fine responsible adult. Mom not so much.
I learned that there are lines that couldn’t be crossed for our and her own good. It’s surprising that many people told me (after she passed away at age 96) how much they sympathized with our having to deal with such a difficult person. Mom had all her faculties so this was not senility- just a need to demand and control.
We loved and cared for mom trying to make her happy but couldn’t let her unreasonable demands go on. Eventually she learned but was always testing the boundaries! Hubby was a saint to put up with this while providing her a roof over her head and all financial support. Mom died never saying thank you or expressing any concern for our sacrifices. She felt it was her due.
Athijade, perhaps just having an answer for the noise anxiety may be helpful?3 -
Bella - hugs to you. This is the hardest thing in the world. As with Yooly, I went through it with my mom. To the point where she called the police on me. There were more moments of extreme discontent than I can mention. She has been gone for awhile now and I'm too happy that those memories are fading to leave only the more positive ones to try to remember them. But what you have written sounds so very familiar.
Brings me back to the words of my disordered eating councillor - that so many of her clients/patients are people who expend an incredible amount of energy caring for others. That comes up over and over in my interactions on MFP. (I'm kinda thinking of you here too, PAV).
@Athijade - I can't help but think/hope this is/could be a good thing? This world, life, is so very challenging. There are so many unwritten but seemingly understood rules. Having more insights into ourself might make it easier to understand how to navigate?
When you described your response to noise, I thought of autism, because I'm swimming in those waters myself with the fellow I'm seeing. The pieces fell into place for me a few weeks ago, and WOW everything shifted. Contradictions suddenly stopped being contradictions. I'm doing all the reading I can and am so thankful for the information available and the understanding it brings me. I'm uncertain if he knows - he must - someone in his fifties with a solid family background many in medicine could not have flown under the radar. He is also very aware of what he needs to maintain his equilibrium. This is not a conversation we have had, not sure how to or whether I should approach it, but in the meantime considering his rules and responses through the lens of autism has certainly been illuminating!
I believe that autism is now considered a spectrum that includes everyone. With that thought in mind it seems easier to consider how it might affect your life without having an official diagnosis. Any which way you decide to move forward, I hope this breakthrough makes things easier in the future.4 -
I know I must be somewhere unofficially on the spectrum. Noise makes me crazy and agitated. Any kind of unwanted noise! And I need time alone daily. I retreat to the spare room and happily read or sew without needing to speak for hours.
I detest idle chatter - people who natter on just to fill silence or hear the sound of their own voice.3 -
I agree that all of us are on the spectrum to some degree. My mom almost certainly had (undiagnosed) Asperger's as she displayed many of the more common characteristics, which led to several involuntary stays in psychiatric facilities during less enlightened times. One of my sisters was diagnosed with Asperger's just before Christmas, because both she and her husband were tested alongside their 15 y/o daughter Martha, who was displaying some very challenging behaviours. Martha has just received a formal diagnosis of Pathological Demand Avoidance which is a particularly challenging form of autism.
I've never been tested but I recognise that I share some of my mom's challenging behaviours. I'm highly introverted and avoid most forms of socialising or intimacy with all but a very very few people. I have a shameful history of withdrawing from friendships without any cause or warning and then cutting all ties ruthlessly. I neglect the few friends I do have to a dreadful degree, and actively avoid fostering new relationships. I have anxiety loops, obsessive rituals and I'm very prone to catastrophising.
Clearly I'm not a very nice person.6 -
Bella_Figura wrote: »Clearly I'm not a very nice person.
And yet, we all love our very lovable Garfield!
Also: it is worthwhile hearing narrative we are not **used** to hearing because of how we may have grown up... and I dare you to say it ain't so most lovable Garfield!
I mean... I'm a terrible person too! .... ya know.... I am wondering what sort of autism spectrum I'm in... going to hit that PDA questionnaire now as I am typing on MFP instead off...4 -
Well, Eldest Son got diagnosed with autism at 7 years old. Eldest Son is JUST LIKE my father. So we all looked at my dad, who was in his sixties when Son was born, and said, "AHHH!" in sudden comprehension.
And as the genetic link between the two of them, I looked at myself and realized, "Yep, me too."
In my family of origin, we have a lot of anxiety and autism, and it means that people are pretty tolerant of enthusiasms and monologues and of people needing to go be quiet somewhere else now.
One of the things I love about this house is that it is NOT open concept. The four of us living here can each be in our own space and do our own thing in peace.6
