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quick.. go buy a rather large suitcase...
put a bow on it and give it to her.
along with a Hallmark card.. "Have a nice trip"
best present you could give hubby

Last edited by macnuke (2005-07-10 9:49 am)

This is getting absurd Nanny.

She is trampling on your monetary value (devaluing the house and damaging your property contained within said house by smoke damage / smell)
She is worsening your husbands health (smoking near an asthmatic)
She is belligerent, has a track record of this sort of behavior, and overall sounds like someone who never grew up, never was discipliined for ANY of this bullsmurf behavior, and is generally a bad human being.

So she's your husbands mother. So smurfing what. That is YOUR house, those are YOUR possesions, she is required to live by YOUR rules. Whatever feelings of entitlement she has are completely unjustified.

YOU WILL HATE YOURSELF IF YOU DON'T ACT ON THIS. KICK HER ASS TO THE CURB.

Do NOT cope, do NOT compromise. She is NOT worth it, and if your husband can't deal with it, he may not be man enough to be a worthwhile husband. I dislike saying this, but dammit - it appears his Momma's boy complex in all this is a key part of the problem.

She has no right to be there, and YOU have every right to kick her ass to the curb. DO IT.

macnuke wrote:

just a thought on the healthcare side...
your hubby has a worsening asthma problem..
and wasn't there something about children in the house?
second hand smoke isn't good for developing lungs.

m

The children are nanny's employer's. She's a nanny, you see. He has a touch of asthma. MIL smokes one or two in the middle of the night. Nanny is currently renting an apartment, so she is not selling a house. (Right, Nanny?)

Some of you men are showing your machismo here. Too much already!  Yeah, yeah, if it were your mother, you'd kick her out on the street for your woman. That's how manly you men are!

Nanny is not the kind of person who could be married to a man who would do that to his mother. Nanny is handling this fine. I've been where she is:   being married to the loyal, compassionate son of a bitch.

Nanny's not going to pull a tantrum and say "It's either me or her." But she is letting hubby know  that  the person who has to do the kicking out must be he, not Nanny. Not he and Nanny. He.

MIL will never hate her son, even if he finds her a car to live in. MIL will never be Nanny's number 1 fan, even if she gives her the master suite in the new house. Nanny is the one who will be punished for the good deeds of taking his mom in. So she doesn't need to give his sibs and his mom reason to hate her for either leading the way to mom's eviction or being 50 percent of the eviction force.

If Nanny can continue to cope until they get the new house and MIL gets an apartment, great. She does not need, for justice's sake, to push MIL out or to push hubby to push MIL out. She needs, instead, for the sake of the sacred institutions of marriage and family, to somehow continue to show respect to a woman who doesn't deserve any and patience with a husband who is undoubtedly not finding this to be a whole lotta fun, but they are the two women he loves most.

Just as long as everybody knows that MIL's "visit"  is going to end ASAP and that hubby loves and likes and needs and wants Nanny more than his mom and that he and Nanny are a team who want the same thing.

It would be very unfortunate if this situation has to devolve into a family war. 

Hang in there, Nanny. This too will pass.

Move all of her smurf out on the front stoop, and then change the locks while she is away. Call the police if she makes a scene.

Yeah, read all of those pages. Can't offer you any advice that hasn't already been offered. Good luck with everything.

And if you pay for the plane ticket, I might know someone who could "help" you out.

macnuke wrote:

debbie
go back and read the thread and refresh your memory...
it isn't an apartment..
they are selling their house. which is rapidly being filled with smoke.
nanny has emptied butt cans with over 50 butts more than once. MIL chain smokes when she is awake.. 4 packs/day.
if it was an apartment, they could leave MIL puffing away and not look back.
MIL wants a fancy new car and has not the credit for it.
MIL WON"T go look for a place to live.
good nanny or not, my little kids would be in a smoke free home.. just as they have all their life.
and "just a touch" of asthma is way too much asthma.

sorry debb, i think your advise is for carpets only.. they get trampled anyway.

I went back and you're right, macnuke, about her selling the house. Somewhere -- I think when she was making a reference to the first time she met MIL -- I thought I'd been misreading, esp. since Nanny is talking about so fast a purchase of a new house. Which is why I question-marked Nanny about the renting. (I should have gone back and reread the initial post.)

As to the 50 cigarette butts "more than once" -- I didn't see a reference to that. Nanny said she found about 50 butts in the bathroom garbage can. That's 2 1/2 packs worth. Over how long did she accumulate that stash, and did she smoke them all in the house? Does it matter?

I don't know. If I am feeling a little sympathy/pity for this horrible MIL. Nanny is the one with the power here, not MIL. The MIL seems to have less than nothing: no home, no husband, no future, no self-respect, no money, no credit, no healthy lung.. She has a shred of dignity or pride, clearly. And this is definitely not the time for her to give up smoking, even though it would solve many problems. One of you called the MIL "evil." Pitiful, selfish? Undoubtedly. But to call her evil because she smokes and is down on her luck and failed at just about everything and gets on Nanny's nerves? Isn't that hyperbole? If MIL had the ex-husband sent to jail on false charges of beating her, then that was an evil act. But if she is truly evil, then why do Nanny and the rest of the family have anything to do with her at all? I think she's desperate, but can we judge her as "evil"?

Nanny has to be kind. But Nanny's husband has to be strong and wise and supportive of Nanny while Nanny tries to be kind and not taken advantage of beyond her capacity. It's a delicate balance. Nanny will regret it if she is too harsh on MIL. Any harshness, if there must be harshness at all, must come from hubby, not Nanny. On that point I am not confused.

When I went to AlAnon meetings when married to my ex-husband a zillion years ago, the best advice I ever got came from an alcoholic: "Not everybody belongs in your life."  MIL does not belong in Nanny's life, clearly. But I have found that even though some people need to be in your physical presence, you can still exclude them from your life. Nanny needs to get though this rough patch by telling her husband that MIL may have to be in their home until they move, but that she is not allowed in Nanny's life.

I was "there" for my very difficult mother for the last 11 years of her life. For the first 9 and a half years of that time, she pissed me and my husband off plenty -- and I hated her and we both thought she was evil. I had a lot to forgive her for. My siblings just walked away. I provided all their food, clothes, home repairs for nine and a half years even though she lived 100 miles away. After she was put on appropriate anti-depressive and anti-psychotic drugs in the nursing home and a childhood friend of hers began to write to me, I finally got to understand her. I am really, really glad that my husband and I were always kind and did what we had to do (let ourselves get trampled a bit) for this pitiful but difficult woman. By the time she died, very happily at age 91, I had found a way to love her.

I like happy endings. I want that not just for Nanny and hubby but also for the very upsetting, dumbass MIL. I don't want Nanny to kick her out on the street, even though I definitely don't think she should go into the new house.

BTW: $164K for a 2300 sq. ft. house is terrific!  We have 2300 sq. feet, which as a NYC native, I consider a mansion. Good luck on the house. And please have a happy ending for everyone, Nanny.

Last edited by debbiedowner (2005-07-11 8:21 am)

....and Mother in Law free! My husband asked her last night if she would mind checking our DVR while we're gone to make sure it doesn't fill up.  A normal response would be, "free rent, free food, haven't kicked me out on my ass... sounds fine!" Instead, bitch, bitch, bitch. 

MIL aside, I'm excited about moving! It's still an area with some of the cheapest $$$ per square foot ratios but it's a college town LOADED with shopping, restaurants, and all within walking distance of where we're looking.  The neighborhoods still manage to feel rural.  WooHOO!

debbiedowner wrote:

Just as long as everybody knows that MIL's "visit"  is going to end ASAP and that hubby loves and likes and needs and wants Nanny more than his mom and that he and Nanny are a team who want the same thing.

Your assuming that the husband will keep his foot firm and leave mom behind as he and nanny move in the new house. As we don't know yet, this we will find out when it's time to move.

debbiedowner wrote:

It would be very unfortunate if this situation has to devolve into a family war.

Too late, it already has, it's just that Nanny and the MIL are fighting in the shadows, poisoning each other slowly with get on your nerve gas, and mind napalms.

Buy the house and kick her old ass out! I will even fly out there and help you get her out faster. :evil grin:

nannyandnutro wrote:

can't live in Murfreesboro

glad it's working out that way.
but for the record....
I couldn't live anyplace I can't pronounce either Murfreesboro???
Hell, I live on a road named Choupique and I can pronounce that.

Last edited by macnuke (2005-07-12 9:58 am)

Smurf!

Hah! Way to go!