Month Four of the engagement:
We had really started butting heads on wedding details, so I distanced myself from my mother-in-law. I needed space to do my calm breathing exercises. I had grown tired of her endless “assistance”, constant reminders that I needed her along when I did hair and makeup trials or gown fittings. I couldn’t possibly make the right choices on my own.
One day, she finally invited me to lunch and I was out of excuses. After the initial gossip and pleasantries, her face turned serious. “I’ve wanted to talk to you about something,” she said. “I feel as if I don’t see you enough. You don’t call me enough, and it also makes me upset when you don’t respond to all of my emails.”
I immediately know she’s been to see a therapist. Her ability to form reasonable statements on her own is never this good. Astounded, I explained that a) I worked full time and b) I was sorry that I did not acknowledge every crappy joke, cute puppy picture or alarmist health warning she emailed throughout the week. Yes, I would try harder, and how wonderful that she’s found a therapist she liked.
Unfortunately, her travails into self-awareness were short-lived. Two weeks later, she said that she’d just had her last session with the therapist. When asked why she stopped, she replied with a satisfied shrug, “I have nothing more to talk about!” She meant it. She was fixed! And she smiled into her soup.
I felt a kick underneath the table. It was my husband’s foot. It was saying, “are you getting this?” This is precisely the reason that we sit next to, rather than across from, each other at dinner: so that our feet can talk in code when our mouths are bound by manners. We spent the whole drive home parroting his mother, alternately laughing and being terrified that she actually believed herself.
Knowing that she was no longer retaining anyone who would tell her the truth was depressing, to say the least. There are few things worse than a narcissistic personality who has ditched her therapist. Two things that come to mind are the atomic bomb and abusing small animals, but that’s all I can come up with.
Coming up…
You’re going to get somebody else to do your makeup, right?
and
You know you can still back out.
The Bewildered Housewife 