What does honoring your parent really mean....

[dands]

Does honoring your parent mean allowing your mother in law to sit at your bed (your side) when she chats with her son. That means my room is off limits to me. How about, when she is invited to go out with us as a family (probaly twice a year do we get to out) sits on the front and i get the back. How about when we have bible studies ( we have only the use of my school desk) she moves all my school books withour care and there i am the next day wondering where everything is. How about taking her house under your name along with the debt only because she fears that her other daughter in law may take it from her other son.(The house on which we live now was under her youngest son until he married). How about her taking a loan $70k from your house and taking that money to her youngest house and building her self a little cottage attachment. That means increasing the value of that house and my husband debt keep increasing in his name. Yes, she pays for that portion of the loan but if anything happens to her we are responsible. And now she is sleeping at our house, sharing the room with my dd. No privacy, She wants to know everything. And she gets to leave to her cottage in the day. She only asked to come for a little while since her dog died about 8 months ago and went into depression, and high blood pressure but she is still here, now her cat died so i wonder how many more months. By the way her house is just 3 blocks away. As i am writing this, my hands are shaking because obviously i have issues. I fear of God's anger talking about this. I tell my husband how this makes me feel but i get nothing. He never talks to her and i just feel shafted. He really feels not to complain as a way to honor his mother. But what about me? Or am i just being selfish. Please rebuke me if i am wrong. I have no family or friends to ask about this and i got to say it has been buging me for years.

[mlgbug]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

 

i lived with my inlaws for 8 years. and i can offer is hugs. please hang in there, the rainbow will come. promise!

[joannqn]

:grouphug:

 

 

I have no answers. I've always wondered how you honor your father and mother when they aren't acting honorable.

[SproutMamaK]

You are not wrong.

 

Honouring your parents does NOT mean letting them do whatever they want with no regard for how it affects yourself and your children. Honouring your parents means that you, WHEN you talk to them about things, you are calm and not demeaning or rude. It means you don't shout obscenities at her as you kick her butt out the door. it doesn't mean that you let her walk all over you. this is you and your husband's home. THAT is an authority - actually, not an authority, a responsibility - bestowed to you by God. To neglect the responsibility you have to your family out of fear of upsetting his mother isn't what God would want.

 

Aside from that, I also believe that honouring your parents also means taht we have a responsibility to help them through unbecoming behaviour. Eg - if your MIL was going to go out to a classy restaurant and was dressed in tattered jeans and a T-shirt covered in stains and asked for your opinion, it wouldn't honour to say, "you look great, Ma. You should go." Honouring her would mean that, even though it might be difficult, you say, "You know, I'm not sure you'd be comfortable at the restaurant dressed like that. Why don't we help you find something else?" By the same token, if a parent's BEHAVIOUR is sinful or blatantly inappropriate, it is more honouring to them to (very kindly and sympathetically), point out the issue and help them correct the behaviour than it is to sweep it under the rug and pretend nothing is wrong.

 

JMHO!

[2cents]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

 

It is good to write it out. Whatever you do, always wait a little while before you respond if you're upset. I wish I had some really good advice but this is a tough one. :(

[Julie in CA]

Does honoring your parent mean allowing your mother in law to sit at your bed (your side) when she chats with her son. That means my room is off limits to me. How about, when she is invited to go out with us as a family (probaly twice a year do we get to out) sits on the front and i get the back. How about when we have bible studies ( we have only the use of my school desk) she moves all my school books withour care and there i am the next day wondering where everything is. How about taking her house under your name along with the debt only because she fears that her other daughter in law may take it from her other son.(The house on which we live now was under her youngest son until he married). How about her taking a loan $70k from your house and taking that money to her youngest house and building her self a little cottage attachment. That means increasing the value of that house and my husband debt keep increasing in his name. Yes, she pays for that portion of the loan but if anything happens to her we are responsible. And now she is sleeping at our house, sharing the room with my dd. No privacy, She wants to know everything. And she gets to leave to her cottage in the day. She only asked to come for a little while since her dog died about 8 months ago and went into depression, and high blood pressure but she is still here, now her cat died so i wonder how many more months. By the way her house is just 3 blocks away. As i am writing this, my hands are shaking because obviously i have issues. I fear of God's anger talking about this. I tell my husband how this makes me feel but i get nothing. He never talks to her and i just feel shafted. He really feels not to complain as a way to honor his mother. But what about me? Or am i just being selfish. Please rebuke me if i am wrong. I have no family or friends to ask about this and i got to say it has been buging me for years.

I'm so, so sorry. :grouphug:

Truthfully, this does not sound like an honoring parents problem, it sounds like a marriage problem. Whether or not your dh will go with you, if I were in your shoes, I'd seek some counseling. If you are a member of a church, start there in your search for help. If you are not a member of a church, it would be a good time to start searching for one that might suit your beliefs, and build a support system with them.

 

Again, I'm so sorry, and I'll be praying for you tonight.

 

(And, for the record, some of the things you're anxious about, I'd allow without a second thought, and others of those things, I'd definitely be discussing with dh or a counselor.)

[6packofun]

I'm sorry. Hugs to you. But this sounds like a "leave and cleave" issue of a husband who will not care for the woman who is *supposed* to be first in his life now. (Psst, that's YOU. :) )

[LauraGB]

You are not wrong to feel that way. I feel that to truly honor someone requires being honest. And you are honestly feeling pushed aside, stepped upon and used. If you (and your dh) intend to honor his mother, you need to be honest and set your limits. As the wife and matriarch of YOUR household, you need to be respectful by clearing up any boundry misconceptions MIL might have. Diplomatically and respectfully, of course.

To deny your feelings and yourself in your own home isn't honoring anyone - it's going through the motions, which is detrimental to everyone involved.

:grouphug:

[IsabelC]

I don't think honoring your MIL requires you to have totally collapsed boundaries where you feel put upon in your own home and she does whatever she fancies with no respect for you. As a respected elder in your family, she can expect more special consideration than 'garden variety' guests, and you might sometimes put yourself to some inconvenience to keep her happy. But you shouldn't be feeling as though you have to tell her every single thing, or as though you can't go in your bedroom when you want to. It might be a good idea to set aside some time to discuss the subject with your husband, just the two of you, so that you can agree on what boundaries to put in place (probably best to do this before you confront your MIL about anything, so as to avoid putting your dh on the spot).

[ChristusG]

I'm so sorry! A previous poster is right....this doesnt sound like a MIL problem. This sounds like a marriage problem. Your husband needs to be standing behind you and taking YOUR needs into account before his mothers. That's why the Bible instructs a man to LEAVE his parents and CLEAVE unto his wife. Hence, making your needs come first.

 

Honoring your parents does not mean letting them take advantage of you or treat you in a wrong manner. It means being respectful to them despite all of this, and still treating them with respect while sticking up for yourself.

[dands]

But i have told him how those thing plus others make me feel and what i would like. He only looks at me with a sorry look on his face and changes the subject. Talking to him will only make him angry at me and it will evolve to other issues and scalade to worse things. Talking to her, well lets just say she is only happy when i do not speak. If i do, i see the pointing finger at me and the yelling of my inconsideration. Believe me i have stood my ground in some issues about my kids that she did not talk to me for a month. Now, i have the "she has high blood pressure" guilt on me. The last thing i want is her dying on me of a heart attack. She has called the medics so many times already(not because of me).

[IsabelC]

So sorry that your husband doesn't feel able to stick up for you with his mother. To be honest, from what you're saying, it sounds as though you have been putting up with too much for too long. I realize that you have deeply held beliefs around honoring your parents, and possibly around obeying your husband as well. But think of it from the opposite perspective. If you keep on sucking it up, you are enabling them in their inappropriate and disrespectful treatment of you. If your husband or your MIL were to commit a crime, eg shoplifting, would you feel called to help them hide it from the police? Or would you feel it was your duty to help them stop doing it? If so, isn't it also right for you to help them stop disrespecting your needs? Looking at it in this way, is it possible that sticking up for yourself more, while they might not like it initially, would actually be helping them to improve? You don't have to be nasty or disrespectful. I'm not suggesting that you tell your MIL to #$ off, you old *&%$$! But you can respectfully say, "I am happy to accept a, b and c. I am not entirely happy about d and e but I am willing to compromise. However, x, y and z are harming me and I will not allow this to happen. Here is what I would like you to do". Hopefully if you take a gentle but firm approach with your husband, he will rethink things. He might simply be deferring to his mother on everything because that is the path of least resistance for him. Do you have a friend or relative you can phone or meet with for debriefs or peptalks? Maybe you could even consider professional support, if your husband can be persuaded to agree to it? I do hear you on how hard it can be with the emotional blackmail: my MIL is fond of reminding us of how she might not be around and this might be the last time we see her (she lives in another state and visits once or twice per year). But just because she is not well does not mean she gets to treat you like dirt.

Edited January 24, 2010 by Hotdrink

[LauraGB]

But i have told him how those thing plus others make me feel and what i would like. He only looks at me with a sorry look on his face and changes the subject. Talking to him will only make him angry at me and it will evolve to other issues and scalade to worse things. Talking to her, well lets just say she is only happy when i do not speak. If i do, i see the pointing finger at me and the yelling of my inconsideration. Believe me i have stood my ground in some issues about my kids that she did not talk to me for a month. Now, i have the "she has high blood pressure" guilt on me. The last thing i want is her dying on me of a heart attack. She has called the medics so many times already(not because of me).

 

Ah. Being manipulative is part of being mentally ill (whether she's always been that way or is becoming so during the aging process). If your dh is supporting her, at the cost of strain on his marriage, it may be out of misguided respect or guilt placed upon him at an early age. You need to hold on to yourself - you are being manipulated here. You are not being selfish or disrespectful. You need to know it and keep your head, regardless of what you choose to do so you don't come down with the rest.

 

Again :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

[dands]

Hotdrink- well put. (((breathing Heavily)))

[Parrothead]

Ah. Being manipulative is part of being mentally ill (whether she's always been that way or is becoming so during the aging process). If your dh is supporting her, at the cost of strain on his marriage, it may be out of misguided respect or guilt placed upon him at an early age. You need to hold on to yourself - you are being manipulated here. You are not being selfish or disrespectful. You need to know it and keep your head, regardless of what you choose to do so you don't come down with the rest.

 

Again :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

:iagree: Your MIL needs professional help.

[lllll]

I had/have a mil very similar to yours. And dh was also reluctant to act - partly from fear of her, partly because she was a master at dangling 'rewards' in front of him (money, things, beach vacations, praise, ego building talks, etc.). None of this behavior is honoring to anyone - you, your dc, your dh, your mil, no one.

 

In hindsight, a few of the things which helped were:

 

- I focused on protecting our dc. I couldn't wait for dh to 'wake up' and protect us from this woman, who, btw, would likely never change (and hasn't, after 30 years). Dc were young and susceptible. If I hadn't done it, it wouldn't have been done at all. I've never regretted that decision. If your dh is unable to act responsibly, for whatEVER reason, then your dc are depending on you. You're next in line.

 

- I kept my nose clean. I didn't give her the ammunition she was CONSTANTLY seeking. She would do and say cruel things to me (and 2 of our ds's) in an attempt to goad me into getting angry and blowing up at her so she could run to dh and point her finger at me to distract dh from her own behavior. I always treated her respectfully, no matter what she did or said. I did intervene when it involved dc, and I would do things like turn and walk away if she began cursing at me (which was always when dh was out of the room); but I tried to act in a way such that I could look back years later and have no regrets for anything I did or said to this woman. And 30 years later, I can honestly say that I have no regrets about how I treated her.

 

- I prayed for protection constantly for me and my dc. Biblically, dh is the protector, but since the reality was that dh was NOT protecting us, I turned to the Lord and prayed using different Psalms. In the end, the Lord had mercy on me and our dc and protected us in many unexpected ways. Never stop praying.

 

- I found ways to vent my frustrations. I would write about things. I would talk to select people from church. I would talk to a counselor. The counselor helped me understand the big picture of what was going on; but the counselor's approach was more of a tit-for-tat thing. If mil did this, counselor would advise me to do that. Until, finally, the counselor just blurted out in frustration one day that this woman was a "master manipulator". Trying to 'outsmart' mil was not the answer - which is what counseling ended up being in my case.

 

- I kept dh informed, whether he wanted to be or not. When mil did/said inappropriate things, I told dh, in a very matter-of-fact tone, and left it sitting in front of him. I put the ball back in his court. He might not have wanted to hear or believe it, but I refused to live in his fantasy world. Keeping dh informed held him accountable - like it or not.

 

And that's all I can remember right now. It all looks so simple and neat in black and white print. It wasn't. There was much anguish and many tears and a lot of anger. But in the end, the Lord worked it out. Dh finally changed our phone number to an unlisted number. When he didn't give mil the phone number, she got furious and cut off all contact with us. Even her own son.

 

Anyway, I know your situation is different; but, maybe there are a few things here which could help you.

Edited January 24, 2010 by ksva

[SonshineLearner]

She needs to get some time of mortgage insurance in case she dies... her house is paid off... at the very least..... hugs for the rest. Sorry.... Maybe I'd be checking out the cottage if I were you:-)

[RoughCollie]

I'd take the extra bed out of DD's room, take it apart, hide it.

 

I'd get a lock with a key, which key I would wear on a chain around my neck, for the bedroom door.

 

I'd beat her to the car so I'd get the front seat. Or I would insist upon driving.

 

And, if my MIL and my DH ganged up on me, I would go visit someone, anyone, until the situation was handled by DH.

 

Just because I would do this, though, doesn't mean you should. This is an unhealthy situation, in my view, and I would not stick around for more abuse.

[Peela]

I'd take the extra bed out of DD's room, take it apart, hide it.

 

I'd get a lock with a key, which key I would wear on a chain around my neck, for the bedroom door.

 

I'd beat her to the car so I'd get the front seat. Or I would insist upon driving.

 

And, if my MIL and my DH ganged up on me, I would go visit someone, anyone, until the situation was handled by DH.

 

Just because I would do this, though, doesn't mean you should. This is an unhealthy situation, in my view, and I would not stick around for more abuse.

 

:iagree:

I think you need to realise first that you are not being unreasonable in feeling what you are feeling.

And 2nd, that its ok to do something about it. Would you want your own children putting up with that, or would you want them to take care of themselves? You are not less than anyone,and honouring parents doesn't mean being subservient to them and making yourself less imprtant than them.

 

I am finding that the more I live my own truth my with husband, stand up for what I believe, stand my ground even though he disagrees, and live my own life the way I feel God would want me to- without compromise, with healthy boundaries, shining in my own light- amazingly, my husband changes and loves me more, and life supports me. Its hard at first, but so worth it.

If no one else will stand up for you, you have to do it for yourself. But life gets better, I assure you.

[BeckyFL]

This makes me just want to pray PLEASE PLEASE God help me to be a great mil who respects her daugthers-in-law and is sensitive to all of these issues! I don't know why your mil sees none of this and I do think I would pray the dh would decide to sit down and gently have a talk.

[JVA]

May I recommend the Boundaries books? They're very helpful about exactly what you're going through and YES- your husband needs to 'man- up' and keep his mom in line. He's disrespecting YOU. I wish I could give you a hug and I'm sorry you're going through this. We have a difficult person in our extended family and this book gave me a guideline for how to respond to her.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-When-Take-Control-Your/dp/0310247454/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264360200&sr=1-1

[dands]

She needs to get some time of mortgage insurance in case she dies... her house is paid off... at the very least..... hugs for the rest. Sorry.... Maybe I'd be checking out the cottage if I were you:-)

 

Cottage is pretty much an attachment to her younger sons house. It belongs to him and his wife since is part of their house. The loan for it came from our house under my husbands name. Nothing is on my name so i have no right to anything. And honestly i don't want it.

 

My husband has come a long way of seeing the truth of things, i just keep praying that the Lord shows him more.

 

We do not fit in this house so my husband has told her that as soon as the Lord makes way out of this pickle, we are out of here. If only you heard all the manipulative fears that she comes up with to make him stay. But my husband is standing. However, he wants her to come with us too. So far she had declined the invitation but i do not hold my breath.

[QueenCat]

However, he wants her to come with us too. So far she had declined the invitation but i do not hold my breath.

 

That should be a JOINT decision, between you and your husband. If you are not both in agreement to her living with you, then he has no right to invite her to do so. Just like you do not have the right to invite a family member to live with you without his agreement. Both must agree, or it will be too much stress on the marriage. In your case, it already is.... there is NO reason for her not to go back to her cottage NOW. Give her a few weeks notice, and stand by it. Show your husband this thread. You have been more than kind to him so it might help.

[coffeefreak]

Does honoring your parent mean allowing your mother in law to sit at your bed (your side) when she chats with her son. That means my room is off limits to me. How about, when she is invited to go out with us as a family (probaly twice a year do we get to out) sits on the front and i get the back. How about when we have bible studies ( we have only the use of my school desk) she moves all my school books withour care and there i am the next day wondering where everything is. How about taking her house under your name along with the debt only because she fears that her other daughter in law may take it from her other son.(The house on which we live now was under her youngest son until he married). How about her taking a loan $70k from your house and taking that money to her youngest house and building her self a little cottage attachment. That means increasing the value of that house and my husband debt keep increasing in his name. Yes, she pays for that portion of the loan but if anything happens to her we are responsible. And now she is sleeping at our house, sharing the room with my dd. No privacy, She wants to know everything. And she gets to leave to her cottage in the day. She only asked to come for a little while since her dog died about 8 months ago and went into depression, and high blood pressure but she is still here, now her cat died so i wonder how many more months. By the way her house is just 3 blocks away. As i am writing this, my hands are shaking because obviously i have issues. I fear of God's anger talking about this. I tell my husband how this makes me feel but i get nothing. He never talks to her and i just feel shafted. He really feels not to complain as a way to honor his mother. But what about me? Or am i just being selfish. Please rebuke me if i am wrong. I have no family or friends to ask about this and i got to say it has been buging me for years.

 

:grouphug:

NO!!!! Honor means respect. You are to leave and cleave. I am so sorry this is happening to you.

Dorinda