How do you deal with unsupportive friends/family?

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.

dubird wrote: »

TheNerdyMonkey wrote: »

apeydawn423 wrote: »

As a mom I can understand her pain and frustration. She raised your partner in what she thought was the best way she could. Mom's like to think they know best for their child. Now, you and your partner are going a new route and she's probably feeling Sad and misunderstood!

I'm sure she's also feeling a bit pushed out as all us moms do when our children move on with their lives. I'd say you might try inviting her over more tell her you have a new recipe you'd like to try and you'd really really love her opinion on it. Get her involved in your lifestyle not by force but make her feel "needed" Moms really really REALLY want to be needed in their childs life. It's going to be Ok!

I totally get what you are saying, but any mother should be happy and proud to see their child doing better for themselves and taking care of their body (especially since his dad has heart problems and she works in a hospital so knows that a better diet could decrease her son's chance of heart problem as well) You should never shame your child for being knowledgeable. He doesn't act like a know it all or ever really talk about it unless she asks questions, which is rare. I am one of five kids, I was raised on junky, trashy food and even though my mom still eats junk and fully knows how bad it is for you, she doesn't judge us or make comments, she is happy and proud that I grew up and continue to learn and grow. She did her part and is a proud mother. She can't see why his mom acts this way. You should want your kids to do better than you did, you should want them to be smarter. His mom behaves like she wants him to be stuck under her wing and never able to grow and be an adult.
My generation has the world at our finger tips and can learn any time we want. I understand that is intimidating to some from her generation (not all, I know lots of older people who take advantage and continue learning too) My generation is very lucky to have so much knowledge and passion for health and fitness, we would be ignorant to ignore it.

If your fiance is as annoyed as you, then he needs to talk to her. If it was your mom, I'd say you should talk to her, but trying to intervene in what is essentially an argument between your SO and one of their parents could backfire spectacularly and you don't want to be in the middle of that. I'm not saying cut off contact, that needs to be your fiance's decision, but talk to him first. Work out a plan of what to do with her and if it means less time spent over there, then so be it. Cutting off all contact should be a last resort, so I hope it doesn't have to come to that, but if change needs to happen, you two are the ones that will have to do it.

Well said, I agree. He does need to talk to her and really get down to what the problem actually is.