Family Matters
rebecca+matt
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How to break unpleasent news to my overly emotional mother
Hi all,
My husband and I met and married in NC, but now we live in GA. Our original plan was to move back to NC after a year or two. Well, we've been married 2 years and a few months and we've learned we really love it here and don't want to move back to NC. Here's the problem: When we got married we assured my tearfully sad mother that we were not leaving her forever, we planned on moving back to NC, especially before we had any children. She talks about us moving back every other time I talk to her. We didn't lie back then, we really truly planned on moving back! But we've changed our minds - we're grown adults, we're allowed to do that. But I have no idea how to break the news to my mother that we have no intention of moving back and her grandchildren will be born and raised 500 miles away.
No, we do not have children, are not pregnant, nor are we planning on becoming pregnant for at least another year or two. But my mother has been reminding me of my daugterly duties of providing grandchildren since I was SIXTEEN. I'm her only child and her only source of grandchildren, which she reminds me of constantly (sensing a pattern here?). I'm afraid if I told her we were staying here she would have an absolute emotional breakdown. She has said "I WILL be near my grandchildren!!!!" and said she'll either move down here (never mentioned my father in these plans..) or we'd get really sick of her after how much she'll be visiting and staying with us. Boundaries aren't really her thing......
My mom has always been very emotional. I don't know if it would be best to tell her now that we plan on staying or just let her figure it out when we announce (one day in the future) that we're pregnant and obviously still living here. I really don't want her to be in emotional guilt tripping mode when she should be happy I'm pregnant, I'd rather her get those negative emotions out now...but I don't know how. Someone please tell me how to gently break my mother's heart....
My husband and I met and married in NC, but now we live in GA. Our original plan was to move back to NC after a year or two. Well, we've been married 2 years and a few months and we've learned we really love it here and don't want to move back to NC. Here's the problem: When we got married we assured my tearfully sad mother that we were not leaving her forever, we planned on moving back to NC, especially before we had any children. She talks about us moving back every other time I talk to her. We didn't lie back then, we really truly planned on moving back! But we've changed our minds - we're grown adults, we're allowed to do that. But I have no idea how to break the news to my mother that we have no intention of moving back and her grandchildren will be born and raised 500 miles away.
No, we do not have children, are not pregnant, nor are we planning on becoming pregnant for at least another year or two. But my mother has been reminding me of my daugterly duties of providing grandchildren since I was SIXTEEN. I'm her only child and her only source of grandchildren, which she reminds me of constantly (sensing a pattern here?). I'm afraid if I told her we were staying here she would have an absolute emotional breakdown. She has said "I WILL be near my grandchildren!!!!" and said she'll either move down here (never mentioned my father in these plans..) or we'd get really sick of her after how much she'll be visiting and staying with us. Boundaries aren't really her thing......
My mom has always been very emotional. I don't know if it would be best to tell her now that we plan on staying or just let her figure it out when we announce (one day in the future) that we're pregnant and obviously still living here. I really don't want her to be in emotional guilt tripping mode when she should be happy I'm pregnant, I'd rather her get those negative emotions out now...but I don't know how. Someone please tell me how to gently break my mother's heart....
Re: How to break unpleasent news to my overly emotional mother
All of this.
And here's the thing about boundaries - it's actually not on your mom to follow boundaries. It's on you to set them and not back down. YOU decide she can (let's say) only visit for a long weekend. Then YOU have to stick to that. She says "Oh- but I want to stay a week". It's not time to cry about "OH! But my mom doesn't do boundaries! What do I do?". No- it's time to say "Sorry mom, but we're unable to host you for more than a long weekend".
I also personally believe that a part of why some people are "overly emotional" is that somewhere along the way they learned that they get what they want - people bend to them, do whatever they can to avoid telling them bad news, etc.