I attended a phone meeting today* that was discussing resentment. There is a quote that I love that I heard in one of my face to face meetings: "resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."
I really resent my in-laws. I am able to get along with most people and look away when people wrong me, but I can't stand these people. I was fine with them until I had my son, and now I hate that I need to share him with these people. Part of it is that they were raised [and raised their son] in a way that is very different from how I want to raise my child.
My mother-in-law is a passive aggressive nightmare who second guesses everything I say. She has given my lactose-intolerant child ice cream and told me that the doctors can't tell if a child has a problem with milk at this age. Well, I was the one dealing with the rashes and the diaper-consequences of that little gift. She will wake the baby and/or opt not to put the baby down at nap time if it suits her mood. She will opt not to feed the baby because it's a hassle. She will decide she doesn't want to change his diaper and instead of telling us he made a mess, will simply hold a stinky baby so she doesn't have to stop playing with him - and then leaves us to deal with the attendant diaper rash. And if I try to tell her that the baby is sleeping, she rolls her eyes at me. It is like dealing with a 13 year old child, not a grown woman. And while she is snippy and nasty to me, she behaves like a saint to my husband, so he doesn't understand why I get upset with her.
My father-in-law likes to harass me on a daily basis to tell me how my husband and I should live our lives. He wants my husband to quit his job [he is the primary income since I work part time to take care of the baby] and fiddle around with an unpaying, no benefits, lab project he has thought up - which experts in the field have already said will not work. But my father-in-law won't let it go. He believes this idea will make us rich. . . but my husband doesn't want to quit his job to prove to his father that this idea is a dead end [like the people he's approached have already told him]. And he calls me to tell me how to run my business. And how to manage my life. I don't like being told what to do, and all my polite attempts to tell him to mind his own business [and my less than polite attempts] have met a wall. I have had my husband approach him to no avail. My father-in-law believes he knows best, and says he is just "offering advice". I have taken the tactic of refusing to answer his phone calls, instead calling my husband at work and instructing him to call his father back to find out what he wants. Once more, he is much worse about this when he has me alone than when he is around my husband.
And they always tell us they want to help - but are angry if we don't give them a week of notice. Unfortunately, we don't usually know we're going to need help until the day of - and a day or two in advance if we're lucky. But when they want to see their grandchild, they call the day of and are put out and angry when we can't oblige them. Then, when we try to call and schedule visits with my son, they have odd excuses. Like - we can't come see the baby on Sunday because we are painting the hall on that day. They have no deadline on painting the hall - they can do it before or after a visit - but they decide that they have something to do so my son takes second fiddle. But when we have something to do, how dare we deny them access to their grandchild. It just is a lack of courtesy that drives me crazy.
I tell my husband that no matter how much I love him - and I do - his parents would have been a deal breaker had I gotten to know them better before the wedding.
But it isn't just when they are actively doing something wrong that I feel this outrage. I can't let it go. It just gnaws at me and gnaws at me all day. I hate that I'm trapped with these people and I find myself saying that they will die one of these days. I look forward to the day when they die and stop plaguing me. The rational part of my mind says I need to learn to cope with them because they are part of my life, but I just don't know how. I plead with my husband not to die, because I don't know how I would maintain a relationship between my son and his grandparents if I didn't have my husband there to prod me into seeing them. I want my son to have the best in life, and taking away two of his grandparents is not in that plan.
So tonight I'm going to stop praying for them to go away and start praying for God to relieve me of my resentment of my in-laws. Someone mentioned in the call that anger is the luxury of the normal man - something the addict cannot afford. I can't afford to keep harboring this anger at my in-laws. I need to let it go. So if anyone is reading this, any prayers you might want to offer up on my behalf that I let go of the resentment would be appreciated!
*For those who don't know, you can find phone and online meetings at The OA Website - these are a lifesaver since I can't always get out of the house to an in person meeting.
