Robin'sBrood :
I asked my 13 year old if he wanted to go and he already had plans with his friends so we won't be attending this year. I guess my frustration today is really with my mother who will make me feel guilty for not making my son go to the party... I'm just venting in advance.
"make me feel guilty" is probably what that's about. I have a mother in law who'd call the day of or the day before each holiday then complain to her friends and gossip that I never bring the kids over to her. All through the year when I'd try to visit with the kids she'd have "other, more important things to do". I heard it through an old friend who sometimes works at a "women's club" my mother in law attends luncheons at. I think it was her game plan, to make demands that we "honor" her with visits on the holidays then gossip and whine that we'd refuse to visit her when in fact we had already planned other places to be, as she NEVER accepted our offers of visits through the year.
She has always been strange and unfriendly, DH says she's never been nice to anybody so I shouldn't feel special that she's weird to me, too. A few years ago she yelled at me in public, "I resent everything you've done to my son!" and when she was done and stormed off, a stranger who was sitting closeby put an arm around me and said," boy, that woman hates you."
So, my feeling is that your cousin probably doesn't care much about you, based on her behavior with the last minute invites. Either she doesn't really expect you to make it but somebody's making her send you an invite, or she's trying to prove to others that you're being bad to her by not honoring her kid's birthday. Some people are just strange socially. That's the way it happened for me.
I have completely given up on trying to get along with my mother in law. We're happier for it, nobody around here needs her tension or stress. Somebody told me that's OK to do, as we NEVER have to accept behavior that's unacceptable, even from family.
I asked my 13 year old if he wanted to go and he already had plans with his friends so we won't be attending this year. I guess my frustration today is really with my mother who will make me feel guilty for not making my son go to the party... I'm just venting in advance.
"make me feel guilty" is probably what that's about. I have a mother in law who'd call the day of or the day before each holiday then complain to her friends and gossip that I never bring the kids over to her. All through the year when I'd try to visit with the kids she'd have "other, more important things to do". I heard it through an old friend who sometimes works at a "women's club" my mother in law attends luncheons at. I think it was her game plan, to make demands that we "honor" her with visits on the holidays then gossip and whine that we'd refuse to visit her when in fact we had already planned other places to be, as she NEVER accepted our offers of visits through the year.
She has always been strange and unfriendly, DH says she's never been nice to anybody so I shouldn't feel special that she's weird to me, too. A few years ago she yelled at me in public, "I resent everything you've done to my son!" and when she was done and stormed off, a stranger who was sitting closeby put an arm around me and said," boy, that woman hates you."
So, my feeling is that your cousin probably doesn't care much about you, based on her behavior with the last minute invites. Either she doesn't really expect you to make it but somebody's making her send you an invite, or she's trying to prove to others that you're being bad to her by not honoring her kid's birthday. Some people are just strange socially. That's the way it happened for me.
I have completely given up on trying to get along with my mother in law. We're happier for it, nobody around here needs her tension or stress. Somebody told me that's OK to do, as we NEVER have to accept behavior that's unacceptable, even from family.
