I've been mulling this over for a few days and I think I need some alternative points of view as I don't have anyone I can really talk this through with in RL as they would all have their own axes to grind.
I've known my MIL for 25 years. She is very different from me, but a lovely lady (if a bit prone to worrying and over-thinking things since being widowed 15 years ago). I have genuinely always felt that we rub along quite nicely.
She spent Christmas Day with us, and chose to use it as an opportunity to air her opinions on "womens lib", equality, gender division of toys and "men's jobs" vs. "women's work". In 25 years she has never, ever chosen to talk about anything faintly political - so something must have happened to trigger her need to dump all this over me (quite specifically me, as she only talked about it while DH was out of the room). She is usually very astute and take pains not to offend friends and family. I'm now worrying about her motivation, because the conversation felt to me to be on the verge of a personal attack on me. Alcohol was definitely not a factor as none of us had drunk anything at that stage of the morning.
In the course of the conversation she laughed at the fact I told I her that I had been upset when I found a man doing the same job as me was earning more. She also made huge, sweeping generalisations about my DDad's attitudes and the assumptions she has been making about my parents' marriage. She also told me she pities me because I have never experienced a man spontaneously offering to carry my bag for me (I have had people offer to carry bags when I was obviously overloaded, but never because "a woman should always have empty hands").
She often admits to 'playing dumb' to get her own way but I used to believe that she was more honest and straight forward with me. Now I'm wondering what the motivation behind this conversation was, is she judging me for not being a good enough DW to her PFB? She didn't really want to hear my opinions - so why was she telling me this stuff?
I feel uncomfortable about being around her again, at the moment. I need some ideas about what on earth it was all about, do I need to raise it with her or just let it lie?
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Is this just a momentary lapse or is my MIL trying to tell me something?
piprabbit · 28/12/2012 16:54
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