How do you deal with unsupportive friends/family?

dubird wrote: »

Honestly? You're probably not going to change her mind about food. A lot of people associate gatherings and food, food being something that brings people together. If she asks you what you want for dinner when you go over there, give her some options and enjoy what she makes. You may have to do some adjusting to fit it into your calories for the day, but if you limit your portions, you should be ok.

Only suggestion I have is to be firm with your choices. You might also try inviting her over to your house and cooking for her. If she sees that what you're eating is fairly normal, she might back down some.

jemhh wrote: »

This is a bit of a head scratcher. I'm not sure why this is so upsetting.

Your MIL thinks you are vegan. How is that hurting you?

You visit your MIL and she asks you what you'd like for dinner. How is that hurting you?

It's not hurting us, it's hurting her for whatever reason. She seems to be getting more upset. Occasionally dropping hints that it's an inconvenience for her. It wasn't a problem the first few times, but by this point it's been over a year. We have been eating like this for more than two years. It seems like we are going to just stop accepting her dinner requests and let her know exactly why.

Zombella wrote: »

Is she one of those people who act like everything that you do is somehow against her? I would just tell her you aren't eating whatever junk she wants you to, explain why again once and that is that. If she is upset you can have her over and have her eat what you eat.

Spot on, she doesn't bluntly act that why but makes it very obvious that she likes the control. She also makes it obvious that she doesn't approve of her son since he turned 18. She says she supported all his decisions since then like it was a problem for her. We should have her over, show her what real food looks like.

Pinnacle_IAO wrote: »

I don't mean to sound unkind, but I cut ties with anybody not supportive of my goals in life.
There's no drama, but I just quietly start distancing myself.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Once I closed the door on a relationship, new, better doors opened.

We do to, I don't feel it's mean. If people are just going to be toxic and bring you down, then they have no business being a part of your life. We cut ties from a lot of people because they couldn't leave their teens behind them, we grew up, they stayed the same. If it were up to me, we would cut ties from her. We have distanced ourselves from her a lot already, but she's working real hard at making want to hibernate away from her.

seltzermint555 wrote: »

Maybe she is like my mom, who feels intimidated by "different" diets even though she wants to be supportive. She doesn't get it sometimes. For example we eat her homemade baked goods, knowing that she is a user of skim milk and Splenda/sugar blend and so on...but when she brings out a frozen aisle apple pie with 500 calories per slice and sky high sodium we usually pass, or split a piece. It doesn't make sense to her. And that's ok, really. It would be a lot to expect of her to always have our favorite foods on hand and eat exactly as we do. She's never gonna enjoy plain Greek yogurt with chopped up fruit and oats in it as much as her McDonald's yogurt parfait.

When she asks "what do you want to eat?" we usually ask her to make something we know is "innocent". We go to her place weekly for dinner and we often bring restaurant food of our choosing (which she likes everything so that works) and if she "cooks" more than 50% of the time we have large, loaded baked potatoes and my husband (who is pescetarian) brings his substitution for taco meat (TVP) and we bring a container of French onion dip we love, and leave her to the Velveeta cheese sauce and bacon pieces she prefers. We all eat broccoli on our potatoes and I'm fine with her low sodium taco meat...so everyone's happy. But if we told her "whatever you want to make" we would be eating boxed and canned food only, and a lot of things we didn't prefer to eat like Frito chili pies and boxed entrees with off the charts sodium and fat and so on.

I think you are right, I think she is intimidated by something different. She think's Minute Maid juices are healthy, she has no concept of healthy and I think it bothers her. If we brought food to her house, she would get offended and it would most likely worsen the situation. Maybe we should have her over to our place and cook sometime.

JaneiR36 wrote: »

Soooo you have different ideas on what's healthy and this frustrates you? (Not assuming, I'm legit asking) You could just tell her to cook whatever she wants since you don't even like what she cooks when she "inconveniences" herself to prepare what she thinks you might prefer. She's happy, but you weren't going to be happy eating her food anyway

Probably should have read some of my reply's to other commenters. I am not frustrated by her lack of health food knowledge, I couldn't care less. She is the only one causing issues. She wants us to come over for dinner all the time, and always asks us want we want and pretends to be up for anything. We usually suggest a dish she normally makes that better suits our eating habits. Then she makes comments about our diet as if it inconveniences her life. Please note, we don't go over there all the time, we go like two or three times a month when she asks. We aren't making her cook foods we eat, she is making food she normally cooks. It's not about her ability to cook, we are removing animals from our diet slowly, we don't want to eat food that contains animals for health and moral reasons. We can't invite her over because his parents are complete shut in's and don't like our apartment because we have different style than they do. We can't go out to eat because they are shut in's and don't want to go out. We can't bring food to her house because she get's offended. We can't kindly and happily suggest new foods because she get's offended. He dislikes his mothers behavior just as much as I do and like me doesn't get why she pretends to be okay but then makes nasty comments to us just being rude and disrespectful. I agree with the other commenter I think she want's to feel needed but this behavior is unacceptable, childish and really doesn't have to be this way. Instead of acting this way maybe she should try new healthy recipes then she could be the one telling us new stuff and be the "leader" again. I don't know, but I do know she is backing us into a corner with only hard choices to make none of which she will like. We can't tell her to cook whatever she want's because we aren't going to abandon our morals and put our bodies through that. The last time we ate whatever she made regardless of our diet, we both were so sick that night and the next day we had to call out of work. Our stomachs couldn't handle all the sodium and junk. We eat clean, she doesn't. I do really appreciate you responding to my thread, I appreciate everyone's comments. They helped me and my fiancé get a better look at what she may be thinking and feeling, thank you.