You know how families tend to have that one person who holds the clan together and makes things happen? On my dad's side, it's my aunt. She's the one who stays in touch with everybody, makes sure that there's something planned for the holidays, and who can get you Cousin Elizabeth's phone number or email address if you lose it. On my mom's side, that person is my mom.
Somehow, in Matt's family, that person seems to have become me.
Just because I am geographically present and not a trainwreck, does it automatically follow that I will be that go-to person? I do not want to be responsible for finding out what the helll MIL's hematologist ACTUALLY told her at her latest appointment. I do not want to be responsible for coordinating gift exchanges. I do not want to be in charge of finding out if MIL will like the sushi set her sister got for her for Christmas (my guess, by the way, is "no"). I do not want to be in charge of tracking whether SIL is dead or alive and where she is currently located.
I have just not been picking up the ball on most of this, but, with Christmas approaching, I'm getting more and more emails and phone calls from HH's aunt, BIL's wife, and MIL. It kind of weirds me out that I am suddenly the family cornerstone when I've only officially been IN the family for six months.
Re: Yay for my new family
That sounds like a great idea. He may not be super receptive to it but it is HIS family.
Oh, he is receptive to it. He tries to take on that role, himself, but men just aren't very good at keeping track of mailing addresses and stuff like that.
When it comes time to lay down the law on something or break news that someone's not going to want to hear, though, he definitely handles it. The problem is that everyone still comes running to me with stuff, even though I promptly hand most of it over to Matt to handle.
As a matter of fact, he's on the phone with his mother right now, getting cussed into next week because we (us and BIL & his wife) decided that we're doing Thanksgiving on Friday instead of Thursday this year. This is the third time she's called tonight-- hung up on him the first time, and the second time she maxed out the voicemail time limit. It took everything I had not to flip open that phone when she called while he was in the shower...
This!
agreed!
We'll see!
Thanks for letting me vent. I don't think I mentioned this here, but MIL called an ambulance a few weeks ago because she was vomiting again. She claims that the ER doctor told her that she has aplastic anemia (which is incredibly rare and what Matt's sister had when she was 6... you know, like 20 years ago). She can't seem to explain why or how the ER guy would have diagnosed this, since she went in for something completely unrelated to this condition. Her actual hematologist won't diagnose her with a rare disease that she doesn't have on demand, so she's "breaking up" with him and is trying to get a second opinion.
It's sort of like Munchhausen Syndrome, except that those people usually research the symptoms of the disease they want and then go to great lengths to duplicate those symptoms. If she has Munchhausen, she's really bad at it! LOL
Most of the time I do manage to laugh at it all, but last night was tough for some reason. Part of me keeps insisting, "But it's not fair that we have to put up with this nonsense!" And it's not fair. But neither is life, so I need to learn to deal, because she's never going to change...