Diary of an HD Monster

[NotATLDave]

"Denial" was the first thought in my mind this morning.

My wife's mom (MIL) exhibits avery self defeating behaviors which she is oblivious to. She just strolls around pretending everything is wonderful and uses an excessive amount of religion to support this. The last time she visited, she cornered me with the a completely panicky question "why won't (W) talk to me?...I feel like I'm walking on eggshells around her and that I can't do anything right". My W's attitude is that her mom will not listen nor will she ever change at her age. While I've agreed with that for a while, I told her that she really should come clean with her mom so that the issues are at least out on the table so that their relationship isn't completely screwed up. I will also say for the record, that in a minor spat recently, my W laid out some examples and her mom kept interrupting her as she did to avoid hearing it. Her mom has learned to selectively hear things and she also thinks that we can't see the "real" version of her behind the facade she puts up.


There are 2 points in this story....

1. My W desire to maintain "false harmony"
2. A genetic or learned disposition to no truthfully introspect. ie. she acts just like her mom pretending that everything is great.

I have never received much "real" criticism from my W and she has never touched anything bordering on a personality trait like "chattiness" for example. There is a possibility that I really drive her nuts with something or that she really isn't attracted to me but I detect it in her. For the example in my previous post about our LM session the other night where she tried to play if off as something else. It was so obvious to me what the reality was and her lie about it was so transparent. Yes, in that situation it was better to play along with it and not turn a LM (no matter how bad it was) into something to avoid in the future. BUT, this is just one example of a bigger problem. I truly feel that there is something deeper and she's not talking. Is it a problem with me? Is it something with her? In either case, she assumes that it can be ignored.

It's like she's terrified to tell me what the issue is. It's exactly the same thing she is doing with her mom. Now her mom is freaking out and so am I because we don't know where we truly stand with her. I can't imagine what it would be like to have a child give me mixed signals when I'm in my so called golden years.

The second big issue is that, like her mom, she seems very hesitant to examine her own faults. Maybe she's scared that she can't change them. Maybe she assumes that nobody can change and that's why it's better to gloss over everything.

Like I said last night, I'm just now discovering these things about her because I too was masterful at living in false-harmony and denial for the past 9 years. Unfortunately it took a dying parent to make me realize that I should get this relationship into shape or get out.

I've thought about the worst case scenario of really pushing her to get "real" with me....
me: "say it! say it! say it!...tell me what the issue is? get real!....get real!"
her: "you actually drive me nuts, I'm completely disappointed in you and I really don't want to be married to you but I'm scared to leave because I don't have a degree or a job and I want our D to have a family"

As painful as it would be to hear this, I would love to hear it because it would no longer be boiling inside her. Unless she admitted a sexual orientation issue, we would have something to work with.

Once again. Is this a topic that can be communicated with her? Would my failure to bring this up be just as bad as her "false-harmony" behaviors? I could frame at as a problem we both have to make it look like I'm pointing a finger back at myself. Any suggestions on how/if I should try to address this?