My mother-in-law is walking to the Rathaus (a rather telling name for a town hall, isn't it? Rat house?), accompanied by my son. She has some unfinished business there regarding her status as a resident of our village and our house. Each time you move, you have to register your new residence and all household members with the local Rathaus. For specific purposes, my mother-in-law, who really lives in Greece, got my husband to register her as a resident of our household.
A few weeks ago, my husband un-registered her because of our impending emigration. But now, she's over there, tending to her own business, (for once not making my husband do it for her), and what it involves specifically I'm not sure. No one in our community knows yet that we're leaving, for reasons of my husband's own, and there some concern MoL will let something slip while she's at the rat house... oops, I mean Rathaus.
So, MoL has been here since Saturday. Things have been going fairly smoothly, I suppose. I've gone out of my way to be accomodating and to at least meet her somewhere between what she wishes I were and what I am. I'm gratified that for once she knows her place as a guest and doesn't walk around here with the attitude that it all belongs to her. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that she's no longer an official member of our household. It might also have to do with the dramatic parting between her and my husband last February and that she no longer has the hold on him that she used to. And it might even have something to do with a certain amount of drama and line-drawing between me and her, as well. Or maybe I'm simply being territorial, but I don't think that's entirely it, either. You have to witness it to understand it.
I did notice that, starting on day one, she speaks low to my husband when I'm out of the room, diving headlong into her campaign to convince my husband that moving is a bad idea. She either thinks that I can't hear, or that I don't understand. She's said a few disparaging things about me, as usual, centering around my feeble German skills (though not as feeble as she likes to think), comparing me with how when she was as a fresh immigrant from Greece at age 17 or 18. In some ways, she's right, in others she's being unfair. She sees me as the prime mover behind our emigration, and she's right in the sense that, if her son hadn't married me he wouldn't be doing this. But it's a decision we've come to together.
Sunday, I could tell that my husband was beginning to feel a bit strained by his mother's murmurings, and Sunday night, he asked when she's leaving. He'd told me earlier that day that she'd said she was going to stay a week, at first, but now it's indeterminate. It's indicative of her narcissitic nature to constantly change her plans, as if they don't affect anyone else. It's very straining on everyone around her, and my husband has had plenty of experience with this type of behavior from her, even before I came on the scene.
This morning, my husband left for work and I prepared breakfast for her and my son. I ignored the fact that, just as I got out of the shower and was towelling off, MoL walked right into the bathroom without knocking to wash her hands. If I hadn't heard her coming and had a hunch she might "forget" to knock, and jumped back into the tub behind the shower curtain, she would have gotten quite an eyeful. Part of me wonders how much her neglect was passive aggression, and how much of it was her thoughtlessly assuming that I might not mind another person just walking into the bathroom while I'm butt-naked. I left it for another day, in the event she does it again.
While we ate, she very defensively broached the subject of our leaving. I have the utmost sympathy for her, and a certain amount of empathy, too, because I've been living in the position of complete separation from my family for seven years with absolutely zero support on this side of the Atlantic. I know how my mother has felt being separated from her eldest daughter (the more stable one, to boot) and her only grandchild. Understandably, MoL is very upset about our moving, and disagrees that it'll be the best thing for us. When I pointed out that I and my family have had to deal with the separation, as well, she said that at least my mother has my sister.
What I didn't mention is that my sister suffers ADD, has been a very large handful even now, as a young adult (25 years), and that MoL also has two other sons and two other grandchildren in Germany, and that maybe she'll have to rethink her priorities, set her pride aside, and work a little harder to maintain a semi-harmonious relationship with those sons and their families.
I was cold towards her, which is generally unlike me, although I was shaken by her burst of emotion and tears. But I knew from experience that she very deftly could turn this around to make the situation all about herself.
Before we got involved in the discussion, I prefaced my initial response with, "I don't want this to be an emotional conversation..." And I didn't. I needed to protect myself, and I wanted to keep things on an even keel for the sake of my son, who was munching away on his Nutellabrot between us. MoL likes drama and can really turn a situation upside down, and I needed to stamp out the fire I saw beginning to smolder.
She didn't like it when I pointed out that she only visits us twice a year, anyway, and what's the difference between visiting us in Germany, or visiting in America. She said she's 61 years old and didn't like the idea of sitting in a plane for hours on end. That she's travelling alone, and that at least my mother has my father to travel with. She said that when she comes to America, she doesn't know the language at all. I said my mother's 60. My father was in Germany once before, seven years ago. The other times mom had visited, she had been alone, too. (My dad actually came a second time, too, three years ago, but I'd forgotten about that. It wouldn't have helped my argument, anyway...), and that my mother doesn't speak a word of German, besides Danke. How is the situation different?
Like I said, I have a lot of sympathy for MoL's situation. I know it very well. But I was irritated, maybe unfairly so, that she has never once given a single thought to how my side of the family has felt, all this time.
At the end, I pointedly told her that I don't want to hurt her, and that our decision to move isn't about her. It isn't about me alone, or my parents or any of my other American family. It's about our own little family, me, my husband and my son, and what we think is best for the three of us as a whole. And that was the end of the conversation.
I tried to be really nice to her after that. I told her I'd bought a big lump of pork roast and that I would really like it if she would show me how she makes her delicious Goulasch. And after complaining that it's too hot to make Goulasch (never mind that it's too hot to boil and fry up big meals in pots and pans, anyway), she said she would.
Tomorrow, perhaps somewhat cruelly, I've planned an Independence Day cookout. I'd be lying if I said that the cookout hadn't put an evil gleam in my eye when I considered the timing of my MoL's visit and her reason for being here (to say goodbye). One might say it's an expression of my own passive aggression, but the party has been planned since before we knew she was coming. I'm really not that mean-spirited.
And anway, after this morning's conversation I've decided not to mention the reason for the mid-week grill party at all.
