Please help!

My fiance's mother is the most negative person I've ever met. When I'm around her, I feel depressed, discouraged and downtrodden. My fiance still lives with his family, so it's impossible to get away from her!

Tonight, I had the great idea of cooking so she wouldn't have to after a day of work and a doctor's visit. So, she comes home, and I offer to cook some Rosemary-Lime Chicken. She starts whining about how she hates rosemary and how it gets stuck in her teeth (??? I never had a problem). So, I offer to make it with just lime for her, and she starts complaining about how she wanted to eatr the CHICKEN SKINS and how crunchy they are and how they keep the chicken moist (KNOWING I'm on a diet). Then she sees the chicken and starts on about how it is boneless and she didn't want boneless (it was all they had aside from family pack).

What do you do when family gets you down?

Don't let other people bring you down, your motivation must come from WITHIN.

Your choices (if there is no bone-in chicken, there is no bone-in chicken, just say "there wasn't any bone-in chicken" - not a big deal

1. Make your desired dinner for you and your boyfriend only
2. Make your desired dinner to share with the family and she can eat it or not
3. Make a special piece of chicken with the skin on and no rosemary for her
4. Make a special piece of chicken without skin for you

No reason to let it inferfere with what YOU are doing. Never stop eating better, never let other people influence what YOU want to eat. If you let her sabotage you, no more meals at her house, your fiance can come eat at your house. Your progress and weight loss are important and it's EASY to let other people derail you, it's easier to eat badly and it's easy to make excuses why you have to eat badly (speaking from experience). No excuses.

Not sure why it's impossible to get away from her - you don't live there.

My SO's mother is the same way. Nothing he does will make her happy and she complains about everything. Some people like to complain; it is like a hobby to them--that's my SO's mother. We just ignore her. We don't go out of our way to do special things for her, since they aren't appreciated. We only offer to do things for her that aren't going to be a burden or a problem for us. When she complains, we just don't respond. You can't win arguments with a professional complainer so it's best to just not engage.

It is incredibly frustrating and my SO does still sometimes get sucked into arguments with her. The funny thing is that she wants me to gang up with her against him (which just shows how crazy she is that she even thinks I would do this); since she's trying to make me her buddy, I can do no wrong. She'll complain (in an annoying back-handed way because she knows her complaints are inappropriate) that he doesn't spend enough money on her Christmas presents but go out of her way to say that my presents were perfect, even though I will have spent way less on her. This year I think all of our gifts will be from the both of us--I wonder what she'll do with that.

You can't control other people, all you can control is your own response. Since your MIL doesn't appreciate favors you do for her, either don't do them or do them without expecting any thanks. Isn't there a saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. Your MIL isn't going to change, no matter how much you go out of your way for her.

Also, Glory is right, you don't have to spend time at his place. For the first three years that we were dating, my SO lived with his mother. As a consequence, we spent all our time together at my place. And I mean ALL--literally, I did not go to his house once that entire time, except for when she was out of town. People are constantly pressuring us about getting married, even back then, and because I always ended up cooking when he was at my place, I used to joke that he owed me three years of dinners before we could get married (unfortunately, after 11 years, this joke doesn't work anymore ). But spending our time at my place worked really well in that 1) we hardly ever saw her and 2) she eventually figured out that if she wanted us around, she would need to behave better.

Even though she sounds like a pain, and we could speculate about how she might be trying to make you look bad or put you down, she is still an obviously unhappy person, and you can feel sorry for her suffering without changing what you are doing.

I like Glory87's suggestions a lot--but be aware that she may find fault with whatever you do. Just learn to let it roll off and be compassionate. She must be very miserable in her life to have to try to control every aspect of a dinner someone else cooks for her.

Jay

This is why I choose not to live with people period. My way. Always. Unless its someone i can compromise with (like my sister).

Heck, its not hard to make her chicken piece with skin and without rosemary. Just leave one piece off and then get her a separate case of chicken and freeze the rest for her.

aaahh, the professional complainer/negative nellie...I have one of those in my family. Negative constantly, ALL THE TIME! About everything...you get the picture.

I just try to be super positive, but there's only so much a person can take.

When positivity doesn't shut her up ( ) just don't respond. These negative people just love a good bicker, so don't bite and retort...it just fuels the back-and-forth.

Other than that...I don't know how else to deal with it. It's frustrating, I know. But don't worry about it too much. Had you been making rosemary free boned chicken with skin on, she'd still have found something to complain about. Don't take it personally.

You handled it better than I would've, honestly. I'd try the positivity thing for a while, and then around the bone talk I'd probably say something like, "Okay, don't eat it, then!"

[QUOTE=Tiffie;1497963]Please help!

My fiance's mother is the most negative person I've ever met. When I'm around her, I feel depressed, discouraged and downtrodden. My fiance still lives with his family, so it's impossible to get away from her!

Tonight, I had the great idea of cooking so she wouldn't have to after a day of work and a doctor's visit. So, she comes home, and I offer to cook some Rosemary-Lime Chicken. She starts whining about how she hates rosemary and how it gets stuck in her teeth (??? I never had a problem). So, I offer to make it with just lime for her, and she starts complaining about how she wanted to eatr the CHICKEN SKINS and how crunchy they are and how they keep the chicken moist (KNOWING I'm on a diet). Then she sees the chicken and starts on about how it is boneless and she didn't want boneless (it was all they had aside from family pack).

What do you do when family gets you down?[/QUOTE]


I divorced the 2 guys whose mothers nagged me like that but I don't recommend that to everyone
How I deal with people like that in my life is difficult but it pays off. I kill 'em with kindness. I've said things like "I'm sorry I've disappointed you so much. What can I do differently next time to make things better for you?" Many times, the person who's being a pill is so wrapped up in their own misery that they forget that they are inflicting it on others. try "I'm sorry, I was being selfish in my determination to eat healthy. Is there something else I can cook for you?"
My last MIL is one of those people who never gains weight so as I creeped up...and up..and up to 263, it became her mission to remind me I was overweight (What? 263 is fat? Gee, thanks for the news flash). For Christmas, she would buy me clothes in 1X when she knew I was a 3X...one year she even said "Honey, I held up a 3X in the store and I told the girl I was sure you weren't THAT huge!" There should be an MIL thread somewhere here where we can swap horror stories *tee hee*

Thanks guys. I was mainly ranting after a bad night. Most of the time, I can just deal with it, but then she started going on about cookies and fudges and cakes, knowing I'm on a diet! My fiance finally told her it was mean to talk about those things I couldn't have right before dinner when I'm hungry.

I guess you can't get these sorts of people out of your life forever. Just glad I'm marrying my fiance and not his mom!

Think of it like practice - the world is going to be filled with people talking about cookies, cake and fudge. They're going to talk about it, they're going to offer it to you, they're going to leave it out on counters to tempt you. They're going to say stuff like "just EAT some fudge! it won't kill you. Just eat some fudge, I made it just for you!"

Ugh. Little doses from your MIL are perfect practice for dealing with real-world temptation. It's all around us, all the time.