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Geez, this woman....
Dear Carolyn: I am a widow with an only child. I have spent Christmas with my son and his now-wife for the past three years. My son recently told me they would be “putting me up” in a “lovely hotel” this Christmas. Read, “You can’t stay with us!” I know this is coming from my daughter-in-law, who overreacted to a minor incident last Christmas.
I had found papers in the guest room desk that indicated: 1. My daughter-in-law is the recipient of a trust fund. (She never told me!!!) 2. The year before they married, she was in the hospital for a serious illness. (She never told me that, either!) The next morning at breakfast, I confronted her about hiding important information from me. She was unnecessarily upset and said I was snooping. I said if you don’t want guests to see papers, you shouldn’t leave them in the guest room! My son sided with her. Eventually, that blew over, and we had an okay Christmas.
After my son told me that I had to stay in a hotel, my daughter-in-law sent a fake-nice email saying she was looking forward to seeing me and was sure I would enjoy the hotel with its “festive holiday decorations.” They are footing the bill; I’m sure she can afford it with her trust fund.
I feel mistreated. I am furious at my son for taking sides against me and at her for manipulating my son into making me stay at a hotel. How can I get him to stand up to his wife? Doesn’t a widow deserve to stay at her only son’s home to celebrate Christmas with him?
— There IS Room at the Inn
There IS Room at the Inn: Great, I get to shout this one over violins. And to hit all the ways you overstepped, I’ll need 12 verses and five. golden. rings.
He took her side because you snooped. You opened a desk and read private things. Then you mistook things as your business that were plainly not, then spun them into personal offense. Then you pounced at breakfast, where a more respectful and forgiving posture after some thought — or better yet, never — would have served everyone better, you especially. Then you presumed to blame the victim for your lapse in manners and judgment. And lest you accuse me of piling on, I’ll call this a backhanded credit to you: You forgot the cardinal rule of a child’s marriage, that you and he are no longer the primary family unit. They are each other’s.
Meaning your son learned from his parents to support his wife. I should say, that was after you closed off the options available to him that were better for you. Had you instead apologized promptly and in full, then you might still have the guest room. Or if you hadn’t blamed her for storing papers too close to your eyeballs. (A sign she trusted you, by the way.) Or if you had used the past year to reflect humbly on your own actions instead of saying, with breathtaking dismissiveness, that she “overreacted” “unnecessarily” to this “minor” encroachment. Or if you didn’t stoop to cheap shots about her trust fund. You’ve got ornaments, lady. I take no pleasure in siding against a “widow with an only child” who just wants to “celebrate Christmas with him.” But the violins can’t mask self-serving excuses.
So I’m assigning you homework. Say to a mirror: “I want to celebrate Christmas with them.” Repeat till it clicks. Then prove it. Admit, “I behaved badly.” Her email was a gift. I recommend you accept it, because you vs. “them” = hotel.
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I had found papers in the guest room desk that indicated: 1. My daughter-in-law is the recipient of a trust fund. (She never told me!!!) 2. The year before they married, she was in the hospital for a serious illness. (She never told me that, either!) The next morning at breakfast, I confronted her about hiding important information from me. She was unnecessarily upset and said I was snooping. I said if you don’t want guests to see papers, you shouldn’t leave them in the guest room! My son sided with her. Eventually, that blew over, and we had an okay Christmas.
After my son told me that I had to stay in a hotel, my daughter-in-law sent a fake-nice email saying she was looking forward to seeing me and was sure I would enjoy the hotel with its “festive holiday decorations.” They are footing the bill; I’m sure she can afford it with her trust fund.
I feel mistreated. I am furious at my son for taking sides against me and at her for manipulating my son into making me stay at a hotel. How can I get him to stand up to his wife? Doesn’t a widow deserve to stay at her only son’s home to celebrate Christmas with him?
— There IS Room at the Inn
There IS Room at the Inn: Great, I get to shout this one over violins. And to hit all the ways you overstepped, I’ll need 12 verses and five. golden. rings.
He took her side because you snooped. You opened a desk and read private things. Then you mistook things as your business that were plainly not, then spun them into personal offense. Then you pounced at breakfast, where a more respectful and forgiving posture after some thought — or better yet, never — would have served everyone better, you especially. Then you presumed to blame the victim for your lapse in manners and judgment. And lest you accuse me of piling on, I’ll call this a backhanded credit to you: You forgot the cardinal rule of a child’s marriage, that you and he are no longer the primary family unit. They are each other’s.
Meaning your son learned from his parents to support his wife. I should say, that was after you closed off the options available to him that were better for you. Had you instead apologized promptly and in full, then you might still have the guest room. Or if you hadn’t blamed her for storing papers too close to your eyeballs. (A sign she trusted you, by the way.) Or if you had used the past year to reflect humbly on your own actions instead of saying, with breathtaking dismissiveness, that she “overreacted” “unnecessarily” to this “minor” encroachment. Or if you didn’t stoop to cheap shots about her trust fund. You’ve got ornaments, lady. I take no pleasure in siding against a “widow with an only child” who just wants to “celebrate Christmas with him.” But the violins can’t mask self-serving excuses.
So I’m assigning you homework. Say to a mirror: “I want to celebrate Christmas with them.” Repeat till it clicks. Then prove it. Admit, “I behaved badly.” Her email was a gift. I recommend you accept it, because you vs. “them” = hotel.
Link
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1. Snoop shamelessly and then never speak a word
2. Put the papers down and not look at them again
3. Give the papers to Son and DIL and say "Oh, I accidentally caught a glance but it looks like the sort of thing you want to keep private"
The fact that LW a. snooped b. decided that she had a right to this information c. confronted DIL about it (!) d. is still sulking a year later (!!!!) and e. has the gall to be "insulted" that they're paying for her to stay in a hotel is just fucking wild to me.
Next year, I hope Son and DIL give themselves the gift of going low-contact with this woman.
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If there was a desk in the guest room, I'm guessing it also doubles as a home office. So, y'know, a perfectly reasonable place to store important papers. LW needs to get over herself.
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Sending her to a hotel is the kind compromise from them. They could have disinvited her altogether.
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I can often find it in my heart to muster up sympathy for kind of overbearing relatives who have not clocked how their relationship with their kid has changed but hooOOOOOOOOooooooo boy this one holy wow batman
Just because she married your kid doesn't mean you're entitled to every detail of her life and background LW! Long hospital stays can often be very painful to discuss (my mom was in the hospital for an entire summer almost a decade ago and I'll still cry if I talk about it too much - and I wasn't even the one in the fucking hospital) and like
that hospital stay was BEFORE LW WAS IN HER LIFE
LW needs to remove head from ass and shape up or she might not even get treated to a hotel next Christmas.
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No, I don't think it was. It was before the marriage, but only one year before the marriage and given that LW refers to her as her son's "now-wife" I suspect they were together much longer than that.
And I'm not sure that it was a lengthy stay either. That could be read as a short stay that simply happened about twelve months before the wedding day.
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Still, I wouldn't expect a serious girlfriend or even a fiance to tell Schrodinger's mother in law that she was in the hospital, whether the stay was short or long. I don't even know that I'd feel her BOYFRIEND was entitled to know all the details of her hospital stay unless she felt like sharing.
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Still, I wouldn't expect a serious girlfriend or even a fiance to tell Schrodinger's mother in law that she was in the hospital, whether the stay was short or long.
I mean... if they're in a serious relationship headed towards marriage I might think it's a little odd that they didn't tell her... but given how this woman apparently asks I actually completely get it, so.
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<3 Carolyn <3
I would almost say that this was a parody, with the DIL writing in as “her MIL,” because it lays out the bad behavior so clearly — but, unfortunately, I have the kind of mother who once pulled a photo of myself with a close female friend from under my couch and then confronted me over it “making me look like a lesbian”… erk.
So, I have personal proof that this kind of snoopiness and self-righteousness absolutely exists in the world!
The LW is very lucky that she’s invited to Christmas at all, and if she doesn’t get over herself, she may find herself wishing for the hotel in future years.
I can’t believe that she took the opportunity to make a dig about the trust fund in the letter where she’s justifying her snooping and refusal to mind her own business as being completely innocent!!
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I think the "but I am a widow and I deserve to be with my CHILD" thing is a dead giveaway: she has never processed that "my home" and "my child's home" are no longer synonymous. Even if he wasn't married! He is an adult now. He lives in a different place than you. His things are not your things. You don't get to just go into his things at will--whether they're material goods or confidences with people close to him. He is not you.
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LW sounds like someone who fell into this trap. Does she have no other relatives she could visit? Does she have no friends, maybe other widows who are lonely at Christmas and would love to have someone to spend time with? Does she have no volunteer work that needs help on Christmas Day?
I could see the annoyance if "stay in a hotel" meant "I spent a lot of money to travel here only to see my son for an hour a day", but if she's spending the days with her son and DIL, then who cares that she's sleeping in a hotel rather than a guest room?
LW, your son is still willing to have you over for Christmas after you behaved like an entitled asshole. The fact that you're visiting and staying in a hotel rather than being told "don't come for Christmas at all" may well be your son standing up for you! Get over yourself.
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Ah yes, the good old “I get to be openly upset, but my target has to stay perfectly calm or else they’re being unreasonable. I’m the only one who has a right to feel and express things.”
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Similarly, if you see something in someone else’s house, even if it was left in a space that’s temporarily “yours” (just as those emails are left mistakenly in my inbox), it’s still not your business. It’s boggling that LW doesn’t get that at all.
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So basically, anything DIL does (like leave some papers in a drawer) is a gigantic huge deal that is taken in the worst way possible, but anything LW does (like go ballistic over the papers) is a "minor incident."
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