(no subject)
I just wanted to journal about some recent events that are eating away at me. Sometimes, my husband's family is so messed up it's incredible.
Where do I start? I guess I'll begin with what's happening with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. Actually, I'll have to start with Brenna's dance studio and their Christmas show. In August, the dance studio called and asked if she would be in their Christmas show. It's not a recital - it's a semi-professional show that they put on. People buy tickets to see it - not like a recital where everyone in the audience has a child who's involved. Many people who went were there just for entertainment, not because they knew someone in it. They only ask the better dance students to be involved, so it was an honor for her to be chosen. They started practicing in September. In October, we found out that they were going to start selling tickets. The day that they were going to have a ticket lottery for the studio parents (to give them first pick) was the same day/time as my husband's company picnic. We had already RSVPed to the picnic (which was at a location an hour away!) and couldn't get out of it. I was stressed out about getting good tickets, though they said you could also purchase them through the website. The Friday morning before the ticket lottery (Sat), I noticed the website was already up, and that you could purchase tickets. I figured I should get a jump on ordering them, because this way we'd be first in line after the ticket lottery was held, at least. I called my parents, and they wanted to go. I sent a text to my MIL, because I figured she'd want to go. I also thought maybe my SIL and her girls would want to go (or maybe one of the girls with MIL). About 2.5 hours passed, and I hadn't heard from my MIL. I wanted to go ahead and order tickets, so I called my husband and discussed what to do with him. I told him that my idea was to just go ahead and order our tickets now. If MIL wanted to go, she could buy in a group with SIL, or if she wanted to go by herself, she could buy a single ticket and sit in Ada's seat (we'd put her on someone's lap). We thought that was a good solution, so we went ahead and ordered. Well, MIL flipped out. She was convinced we were leaving her out on purpose; nevermind that she hadn't responded to my text until 3.5 hours after I sent it. It was all about how she was at work so how could she be expected to respond, which is valid. I tried to point out to her that I wasn't sure when/if she would respond after that much time had passed. Then my husband said to just go ahead and order an extra ticket for her, so I did. I ordered another, single ticket and emailed them to ask that it be put together with our earlier order. Shortly after I did this, MIL posts to my facebook profile about how she was hurt by not being included with the "family tickets." I deleted the comment (keep in mind that MIL is a marriage and family therapist - HA!). I sent her a private message telling her that it was inappropriate to post the comment. She defended herself by saying she was just airing her feelings. I then had to explain (to a THERAPIST) that it was not appropriate to do this in a public forum, where all of the people on my friends list could read it. She needed to email me privately or send a private message (duh). We then exchanged a few messages in private on facebook. I told her during this exchange that we'd purchased an extra ticket, and if for some reason it wasn't seated by the rest of us, she could sit in Ada's seat. After we exchanged several private messages, she leaves off by saying that next time we needed to have better communication and telling me that I should have texted her when I originally found out about the ticket sales (I found out only a few days before the ticket lottery - we were in Disneyland at the time - so excuse me if I didn't have time to think about texting her to let her know. We were staying with my parents while we were in California, and I forgot to tell them about it, also. Things were hectic.)My husband also called her and tried to ameliorate the situation. He told her we had a ticket for her and that we didn't intend to leave her out, etc. I thought it was all settled. In fact, when we picked up our tickets, they had put us all together, like I'd requested (though we probably ended up sitting further back because of it). Well, a couple days before the show (Dec. 12), my husband had been trying to get ahold of MIL and for some reason wasn't able to. We were trying to figure out if she was coming over and driving with us or what the plan was. He tried and tried and couldn't get in touch with her. Finally, on the day of the show, while I was at the location with Brenna (they had 2 show times plus rehearsal, so we were there from 10am until 10pm that day), I find out that MIL is NOT going. It turns out she had a retirement party to go to, so she said she couldn't make it. She then has the audacity to tell my husband that she didn't know we had bought a ticket for her so it wasn't her fault. The thing that makes me really angry is that she could probably have made it to one of the show times if she had really wanted to (there was a 3pm show). About a week after the show, we got a note in the mail with a check for the ticket. The note said, and I quote, "Here's a check for the ticket I didnt know I had." Can you believe that? What a passive agressive, nasty statement. Then, just to give her the benefit of the doubt, I looked up our private message exchange on Facebook - yep, there it was in black and white - where I had told her that we bought an extra ticket for her. She claimed Brandon never told her also, but he swears he called her (and I am 99% sure he did). A couple days after sending this note, MIL calls my husband and tells him she'd like to come over on Christmas, that his sister was going to her new boyfriend's house for Christmas (keep in mind this meant we wouldn't see her or my nieces and that they went to his family's house in New Mexico for Thanksgiving). I thought she had a lot of nerve wanting to come over for Christmas and acting like she hadn't just crapped all over us.
I'll have to continue the saga with sister-in-law in another post.