Meet the Family

Before I get in to the whole story about my arrogant in-laws, I will introduce them. I will also give you some of my own background. Although my family doesn't play much of a role in all this drama, sometimes I will need to refer to them. For instance, I may compare my in-laws' behavior with that of my own family's when they are in the same or similar situation. This way I can show you the contrast between where I came from and where I am now.

So, first off, I have two parents and two siblings. One sibling is single, has a successful career, and owns a home many states away. The other sibling is married with children and lives about an hour's drive away. My parents currently live about two towns away. My husband and I have no children. This is as much background as I'm laying out for now. I will tell you more as needed as I continue.

Now, for the in-laws. I have no father-in-law, only a mother-in-law. My husband has a brother and a sister. The brother is recently re-married and lives many states away. The sister lives with her husband, children, and her mother (my mother-in-law) a few towns away.

It is my sister-in-law and mother-in-law who I will most likely be talking about the most. Not only are they the most self-centered people I've ever known, they are incredibly meddlesome and presumptuous, but I am getting ahead of myself. I will lay out some evidence of all of this later.

When I first met my husband, he was very gentle and kind, smart and thoughtful, and fun to be around. We dated about once a week for quite a while until one day we decided that we should meet each other's families.

My first impression of his family was that most of them were similar to him. They were very soft spoken, polite, and had nothing but concern for making me comfortable in their home. His brother was the one who revealed the first signs of arrogance, but I didn't take it personally. He was simply haughty in how he spoke about the people he worked with and when he told me about some of his philosophies.

As I got more comfortable with the in-laws, I began expressing my views to the brother and had no trouble telling him when I thought he was expressing arrogance. Surprisingly, we developed a nice relationship. Our philosophies disagreed, but we could always discuss things fairly and he would readily admit when I overwhelmed him with an idea or when he realized he was wrong about something. And he made it quite easy for me to do the same in return. I found in short order that he was a person who, although raised in an arrogant environment, was not only willing, but desired, to change.

He recognized that his attitude ruined his first marriage and, to this day, he works on his behavior and readily apologizes if he slips back into his old mannerisms. And to his credit, I must say, he has changed a lot over the years. This is most likely because he lives far away from his family now and is not constantly influenced by them. You may not believe how a group of arrogant people can feed each other's arrogance. When you're elitist, and cut off from all normal people in the world, it's so easy to be judgmental--you get to be better than everybody else . . . in your own mind, at least. Now that the brother is out in the world experiencing people on his own without having his views filtered by his family's ideas, he is much more down to earth.

I never had any sort of debates with the mother and sister because they were always so quiet and didn't really do much of anything. In fact, they seemed very dependant on my husband (boyfriend at the time) for their own opinions. If you asked them the simplest thing, like "What kind of ice cream do you like?" they would turn to look at my husband and he would chime in and say, "blah-blah-blah is my favorite flavor" and they would reply, "Oh, yes. You're right. That is the best flavor." As if they weren't allowed to choose a unique flavor of their own.

At the time, it all seemed pretty natural and just a part of their personalities. I took it as them being laid back and not overly opinionated. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and I now know that it's not a lack of expressiveness. It's that they keep as much to themselves as possible. They are afraid of even the smallest of talk because they worry about revealing something . . . Secrets? Who knows.

When they moved into a new home, it was almost two years later when one of their close relatives contacted me to ask why they had changed their phone number. I was rather confused and said that they had moved almost two years previous, and the relatives were shocked! They had gotten weekly phone calls during all this time and no mention of a new home ever occured. They had even received mail during this time, and nothing was mentioned. Either my in-laws didn't use a return address or they were still using the old one.

When my in-laws found out that I passed on the new information to the relative, they weren't terribly upset, but they instructed me to simply take messages in the future if any one else called looking for them. No explanation was ever given, but we were still getting phone calls from close relatives up to four years after their move. We still get calls occasionally from more distant relatives. What's the big secret? Do they work for the FBI or CIA or something? It's crazy. Especially coming from people who constantly preach about the value of close families and how no one is as close as their family and they're just so much better than everybody else because of how close they are. If this is true, then I just have one question: How come they call their aunts and uncles every week, to stay in close touch, yet won't tell them that they are moving?

Unlike the relationship I have with my brother-in-law, where I can ask questions and freely debate, the situation with the sister-in-law and mother-in-law is quite different. My husband is adamant about not upsetting them in any way. Questioning them about even the most minor of things is like the same thing as threatening their lives. I might ask something like, "Do you like to go to tag sales?" And my husband will angrily jump in with "They've never been to a tag sale. Let's talk about yadda, yadda, yadda instead." So what? If they've never been to a tag sale, can't they just say so? I was simply trying to find something we might share in common, not interrogate them.

Before each visit to the in-laws, my husband used to give me a list of topics not to bring up. Some of the things made sense. Like, when he accidently broke his mother's windshield by fooling around, he told her that neighborhood kids who were playing baseball accidently hit the ball into the windshield. He didn't have to lie. Insurance covered the windshield entirely for free, plus we had the money to fix it even if insurance wouldn't cover it. He just didn't want to admit to the family that he was goofing around and broke it himself. Rather immature, I know, but I can understand his feeling ashamed.

But then there was the really weird things that I wasn't supposed to mention. "Don't tell them that we bought new living room lamps yet. I'd rather tell them next week" or "Let's not bring up the fact that we saw your parents last night. My mother doesn't need to know that." It eventually got to the point where I was afraid to talk about anything. Any little mundane fact being revealed would put my husband into near-painful hysterics. It was as if he might possibly be disowned if his family knew that he was listening to a new radio station or using a different mug at breakfast time. In fact, one time my husband became hysterical because I had bought a different brand of cleanser from the one his mother uses. He was actually angry at me. Then, he would act paranoid when his mother came over that she might see our different brand of cleanser under the sink.

When I questioned him about these things, and why they were so important, he couldn't or wouldn't give a satisfactory answer. He just says, "Trust me. I know my family better than you do. It's complicated. Just play along."

One day I emailed his sister at her work about some minor thing I can't even remember now. It might have been to confirm the time we were supposed to get together that evening or something like that. I wasn't spamming her. It was just one brief email. Well, when my husband found out, he told me if I had anything to ask his sister that I should ask him and he would ask her for me. Of course, I refused this and said it was crazy that I couldn't speak with her directly. And if she didn't want to talk to me she didn't have to, but she should say so herself. He said, "It's not that she doesn't want to talk to you. It's just that you put her job in jeopardy by sending an email to her." That was such a blatant lie, not only because he swaps emails with her often, but also because no one gets fired for emails received. Maybe for what they send, but not for what they receive. If that was the case, people could get their enemies fired just by spamming them all the time. Basically what it is, is that my husband wanted me to talk to his sister when he was around to hear what I was saying. To this day, more than a decade later, he still questions what is said between us if we happen to be alone together for more than five minutes.

I didn't understand any of this back then. And I don't understand it now. I have some theories. But I'm more perplexed than anything else . . .