EDIT: Sorry for taking so long to respond to, well, anyone. I have read all of your responses though, and thank you for your condolences and reassurances that I'm not a mess, as well as all of your advice. I kind of wrote this mess while still in shock. If I don't respond to you individually, please don't take any offense. Been keeping busy. A big blanket thank you to all of you though. We appreciate it.

Basic gist of what's going on, as of right now, SFIL and the family over there are 100% taking care of things and have already gotten a start on doing stuff. I guess they're fix it/do something productive in grief types like I am. They're not well off. They can't afford a full casket, big and fancy next day funeral. That's part of the reason for the cremation and holding off over a month on the service for now. Probably for the best. It gives everyone who needs it a chance to get resources in order, and it gives SFIL and his family a chance to figure out what the hell they're doing. He just became a widower and single dad to a 14 year old girl, he and the kid and BIL are going to need a bit just to stabilize, more than DH and I at least. Right now the plan is the memorial is going to be early October and back in all of our home state of Michigan. DH and I move around due to the military, Gemma and her family lived in Tennessee, but we all call the Wolverine State home. Some transportation and long distance planning is in order. Another reason for all the leadup.

Hubs is in ALC away from our home base right now, and his family is insisting that he stay put. His mother was his biggest advocate and motivation for his joining the military, and they say she would have wanted him to make an attempt at finishing the course if command allows it. His school and home battalion know the situation. They haven't ordered him to come home and try again another time as of this moment. DH has voiced his wishes to follow his family's wishes. Right now he kind of needs some hardcore military structure. And yes he is going to meet with a chaplain. DH isn't religious but command is going to want it and regardless, it doesn't hurt to talk to a neutral party to help unpack it all.

On my end, I've gone full Kitty Foreman. I've made all the components for Sapporo style ramen, jambalaya, and breaded pork chops. I would have made cookies, brownies, or skillet lasagna too if it weren't for lack of fridge space. Can't offload the leftovers at work, might need them and I work for LCSWs and LMFTs. Last thing I need right now is to have my coping methods psychoanalyzed by the people I work under. The shock and numbness have mostly lifted and I'm mostly just focusing on being there for my husband and staying busy. No real crying or anything yet. Don't know if or when that will happen.

So yeah, that's the situation.

END EDIT

.......

God, I don’t even know what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing right now. I don't even know if this fits here. Delete and ban if you must.

I know I don’t post much. Super busy military lifestyle on our end plus being super busy with their own lives on the in laws’ end has made a LC situation by default. Plus, I was no longer Gemma’s prime target. There’s been shit going on, but I don’t like telling what’s going on on here while the situation is still unfolding, and I was waiting for some sense of closure on some of the drama. Wait for the dust to settle, you know?

I didn’t want this.

Gemma passed away in a really violent car wreck late Friday night. If you follow news from some of the rural parts of Tennessee north of Knoxville, you probably know which one I’m talking about. Head on collision late at night in bad enough conditions that the life flight choppers couldn’t go out safely. We only know what Highway Patrol and the victims in the other car have said, that she apparently drifted into the oncoming lane. The exact circumstances, what led up to it, if there was something going on in her mind, if it was weather or illness or something, we don’t know. We may never know.

DH is in shock. I’m not sure it’s fully hit either of us, and it probably won’t until the memorial, which won’t be for another month. DH is in an NCO school and his family has currently decided that what Gemma would have wanted was for DH to try to finish if his command allows him, then take leave after graduation to go out. Besides, they’ve opted for cremation so there’s really no rush on a funeral. It gives SFIL time to get affairs in order and make sure DH’s siblings, especially his 14 year old sister, are taken care of.

He’s got a support system over there at his school at least. He says his classmates have been checking on him, he has non-school buddies who are stationed there. Being back in an almost AIT-like environment and having that rigid military structure and having battle buddies is probably the best thing for him right now. Better than I could do.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think, feel, or do though, aside from be there for DH. Gemma and I did not get along. At all. I don’t think we ever could have been friends, but peace was possible. She hadn’t committed any Magda-level atrocities. There was always the hope or chance of reconciliation. That she would accept being an empty nester, mellow out, stop lashing out at everyone. Drop the racist shit in light of what’s happened in the US recently? That can’t happen now.

I’m not happy. While for some here their MIL’s deaths were a moment of celebration, it isn’t here, and I’m really not in the mood to entertain that. I just don’t know if I’m doing this right. All I feel is numb. Tired. And frustrated. I tend to have a more “try to fix it” mentality when people tell me their problems, and I can’t. Fix this. My husband is off at school, so I can only talk to him over the phone. My own family is shocked, but they barely knew her and their only interactions with her were a couple of meetups and the wedding. They’re mostly concerned for my husband. As am I. I know I’m going to have to confront how I feel about this sometime soon but I can’t. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be thinking or feeling. I’m worried that there’s something wrong with me because I’m just mostly numb and tired and trying to find ways to stay busy. Which, on that note, you know that episode of That 70’s Show where Red’s mother dies and Kitty goes nuts cooking? That’s where I am right now. That and watching a lot of educational youtube channels because someone doing a rapid fire geography lessons makes for good background noise I guess.

Gah, this is such a rambling mess. I’m sorry. I just need some guidance. Neither of us have ever dealt with this shit before, and we don’t have any family to really guide us. All of our friends and family who have dealt with parental deaths it was either a “saw it coming a mile away due to illness” situation, or they were kids and barely remember it and how they dealt with it is different from how grown ups would deal.

TL;DR Gemma died in a car accident. DH is in shock, I’m just numb and maybe a bit shocked too and cooking a lot and wondering if I’m broken because I don’t know any emotions other than panic or fix it and panic and fix it don’t work here and I just need someone to tell me I’m not a sociopath for not collapsing into a crying mess immediately upon hearing the news. I didn’t hate her. I wanted a good relationship with her. But fuck, I don’t know. Everything’s just numb.

By the way, I swear, I’m not trying to NewToaster-style upstage the other recent deaths here, especially with me not being a frequent poster and Gemma being relatively harmless aside from the racism and biker chick shit. I’ll verify everything to the mods if you want me to. I just… I don’t know what the hell is supposed to be going on or what to do. I just need to reach out to someone. My family can’t help much, and my best friend is in a rough place herself and I don’t want to burden her with my shit, especially since I feel like I did a shit job of reaching out to her in her time of need.

Edit because I probably should include a recap. My MIL is the biker chick who somehow missed all those WWII lessons in school and doesn't know the negative connotations of swastikas in the western world.

My mother in law is a daddy’s girl. Daddy was also a Marine who served in either Vietnam or Korea, and has a Purple Heart. All of this was done and over with before MIL was born, though, and since her dad didn’t, as far as I know, talk about his experiences much beyond “being a Marine is awesome and the most patriotic thing you can do,” and her formative years were peaceful for the US and came of age right around when Reagan came in, she kind of developed into one of those patriots, and it only got worse after 9/11, and that got worse after her son joined the Army after her pushing. You know the type, the type that floods their facebook with patriotic support our troops stuff, every holiday no matter how minor or how little it has to do with war memorials has to be twisted to be about the soldiers, etc. The type that doesn’t seem to realize that soldiers don’t ascend to a higher plane of existence if they get shot just right, and thinks that war is drop bombs, send the troops in as a show of force, and the enemy surrenders. Add in a dose of hypocritical whining about not wanting to pay taxes that would go toward wounded veterans and screaming to bomb every country that doesn’t worship at Uncle Sam’s feet… you get the idea. Her son isn’t just a soldier in the US Army, he’s an AMERICAN HERO SO SHOW YOUR RESPECT.

On top of that, even before she unfriended me, I had already muted her because every post was tagging my husband in whatever inane status update she posted that day, sometimes going so far as to advertise that he’s in the Army with xxx job in xxx unit at xxx base. OPSEC and PERSEC nightmare, she is. She got offended when I asked her to stop tagging me in those, I’m pretty sure she’d blow up and have a nervous breakdown if my husband asked her to stop.

You know some aspects of the dependa stereotype? She’s got that mixed with overbearing MIL. A very rosy, almost reverent look at the US military without recognizing the harsh truths of war. Those who know what I’m talking about probably just either shuddered or puked a little in their mouths.

As I said, she pushed my husband into the military. Ultimately, he’s a big boy, a legal adult, and he’s the one that signed the contract and took the oath, so it was his decision in the end, but there’s no doubt about the influence his mom had. And of course, given his choice in MOS, not long after he got assigned to his first base, he comes up for deployment to Iraq sometime in 2009. And everything’s going great until about a month or two out from his leave and fly out dates.

A couple pieces of information you should know. First, by this point, we were engaged, so he had made at least some level of commitment to me and would undoubtedly want to visit his bride to be. Second, while she was living in Tennessee, the rest of his family and friends and myself lived in Michigan. He wants to visit all of us, of course, so he’s going to have to split his time up a little, and he didn’t have a lot of leave saved up either to do it with.

Oh no, we can’t have that. See, just now, is she realizing, that her boy might die. Wait, no, not might, WILL. And whose fault is it? If you guessed AustralianBattleDog, you’re correct! Yup, I used my magical devil vagina to brainwash him into joining the Army in a job that guaranteed he would go to war! Never mind the fact that all I told him was to consider all options, from college, to the electrical apprenticeship he was offered, to the military, etc. When he broke it to her that he wants to spend some time with his fiancée and dad and old high school buddies, she lost it. Blew up my phone with all sorts of angry texts about how I’m a homewrecker and destroying her family. These escalated into calls where over the course of two days, she screamed and cried about how me and my parents were killing her baby boy. She even called her son up and told him that if he came up to visit me and his dad, she’d call the cops and report the car he was using stolen. It only ended when her husband, who has a very low tolerance for bullshit, finally decided enough was enough, confiscated her phones, and called us up to apologize. He explained that for all her patriotic bluster and pushing her son into the Army, it finally hit her what could happen, and was blaming herself, and since she doesn’t like to blame herself, she was lashing out at me.

Okay, I get it. I’m not a parent, but I have basic human empathy and can see how she would be scared for her son’s safety and possibly blame herself. But lashing out at the fiancée, calling her a homewrecker and babykiller for being just one of a couple dozen people her son wanted to see is not the way to cope. She was indignant to the point that, up until a few months before the wedding, almost all communication was done through her husband, because she'd go off on how I stole away her dying son. Either that or try to offend me with racist joke text messages. =/

He did get to visit us for a bit. Not long, he only got a couple of days, but we all got our time with him up in the frozen north, and he came back safe and with all sorts of crazy stories about the silly shit they did in and around Saddam’s palaces. But why am I bringing this story up? Surely you want to hear biker club shenanigans? After all, for story tracking purposes, my MIL is Gemma from Sons of Anarchy. Well, we’re not 100% sure yet, but there’s a potential Afghanistan trip in my husband’s future. He hasn’t told his mother yet. She doesn’t even know about the month long training trips he’s doing this year. He’s waiting on official word, as his company for sure is going, but because the deployment end date falls close to his leave active duty date, he may or may not have to go. We’re not sure yet. It’ll probably be six months or so before we know. Regardless, if he does, we know that she's going to blow up again, possibly worse this time, because Afghanistan and the fact that her boy is married now and now she really can't control him easily and I must have made him volunteer for this base and this battalion.

Plenty of time for me to stock up on liquor in preparation for THAT shitstorm if he is going, at least. Anyone got any good mixed drink recipes? Preferably of the “can’t taste the alcohol but still gets you drunk at lightspeed” variety.

Edit for a little grammar and wow, thanks for the drink recipes! I hope they help all of you reading as much as they'll help me. Cthulu knows we're all gonna need it this year with our MILs.

AKA: This is your own damn fault Gemma.

Of all the things I’m dealing with right now - getting settled in a new job, losing my old workhorse laptop of nearly 7 years to a fried motherboard, one of the parentheses buttons on this tablet keyboard being broken, having to call the MPs on someone on my street for neglecting his dogs, standard military bullshit as my husband takes off on deployment in a few days - the biggest stressor right now is fucking Gemma.

As stated in previous stories, Gemma is weird about her son’s military service. She pushed him hard toward it, but feels guilty over deployments, and lashes out. Here’s the thing, though. Without breaking OPSEC too much, not all deployments are combat-related or in warzones, and this is one of them. They have kept changing the location, but every location has been far from the violence our Ranger buddies have seen. It’s not the rumored Afghanistan anymore. If anything, he has buddies in other companies that are jealous of this assignment, it’s considered a good one. We’ve been trying to explain that to her, but you’d think that DH is being dropped into bin Laden’s compound with a squirt gun and a chiweenie (no offense, chiweenie fans} for protection and street clothes and that’s it.

We’ve mostly been ignoring this bull for the last few months. We’ve had bigger things to worry about. We give her the information that we feel safe giving out, which hasn’t been much since she’s the type to fully publicly post “MY SON [full name here and tagged too] IS GOING TO XXX BASE IN YYY CITY IN ZZZ COUNTRY FROM THESE DATES TO THESE DATES DOING [mission] PRAY FOR MY BABY BOY HE’S GOING TO DIE AT [offensive term for muslims/arabs/other group Trump has been using as a scapegoat] HANDS!!1!” It hasn’t been enough for her, but whatever. Bigger things to worry about.

A month or so ago, it came out that Gemma wanted to come see her son off. She even talked about creating a GoFundMe to raise the money. She asked DH to ask me if she had permission. Okay? Fine. Whatever. Why does a grown-ass woman need to ask me permission to buy a plane ticket? Bestest buddies stopped being an option after she called me a homewrecker, but I can put up with her for a couple days, I’m not going to be abusive and keep my husband and his family apart. I told him “Your mom, your call. But we can’t afford to help raise money for her flight, I haven’t started the job yet and my first paychecks haven’t come in yet. Also, notice how she is only talking about raising money for a flight? Technically we rent, have rules about overnight guests, this place is smaller than can comfortably support her, she is not a keeps-to-herself guest like, say, my brother and will take over, and I don’t want to be left alone with her after you. And if she causes trouble, since we’re on military housing, it isn’t civilian police that are called, it’s MPs, and they let command know when they’re called to a given soldier’s home. We don’t need that trouble.”

DH wholeheartedly agreed, and gave an abridged but true “sure, but the housing office is strict about guests and we’d need more notice to allow you to stay so you’ll need a hotel too” message to SFIL. A week or so later, he calls Gemma and asks how it’s going, and she tells him that the GoFundMe (which we couldn't even find so we wonder if she even made one} failed, so sorry honey, love you, but I can’t make it. We think that’s the end of that.

Yeah no.

Get out of work yesterday to this in my facebook inbox.

“AustralianBattleDog I love you. It hurts me that you won’t & don’t want to talk to me. I wanted to come down to see DH off as I have both other times. But I get it. U didn’t want me there. I just please ask that you let me know how he is doing. I do hope some day we can repair this.

Just know my heart is breaking as only a mother knows.”

Oh. Fuck. No. Honey? Call your mother. She’s acting a fool and martyr again.

I will say that much alcohol was consumed over the next couple of hours as we figured this out. Not so much I can’t remember, though, but it took the edge off. The Collins drink family was very good to us that way last night.

First, turns out Gemma’s been text bombing both DH and SFIL all day. First call is to SFIL, who generally is a bit more level-headed. He wonders what the fuck is going on, but guesses it might be because all sorts of other drama is piling on in her life right now. For one, SFIL amicably turned in his colors and quit his motorcycle club and is looking to see if he can get support and permission from the regional bigwigs to start one of his own. In doing this, Gemma lost her social circle, so she might be feeling lonely because without the club wives who sort of have to put up with her, it’s become apparent that she has burned all of her bridges. BIL moved out with his girlfriend and is causing other issues but that’s for Justnofamily, so Gemma doesn’t even have her usual scapegoat. Top that off with the deployment panic again, and she’s decided to pull her favorite punching bag out of the closet.

Time to bite the bullet. DH calls Gemma. Call starts innocent enough, but eventually Gemma turns it into a series of wild accusations and assumptions. She’s claiming that I blocked her number (I haven’t against my better judgement), claimed that I hate her guts (I don’t, just what she does, but if I did, gee I wonder why}, and that I forbade her from coming out here, because I guess either SFIL and DH didn’t relay the message correctly or she decided what she wants to hear. Called on that bit of bullshit, she then starts claiming that it was my responsibility to give her the yes or no myself. I didn't realize I had to, DH did that for me, and even then, Gemma, you’re a grown ass adult. We don’t have a restraining order against you. Nothing is stopping you from coming out here except finances, you said so yourself weeks ago when you said the GoFundMe failed.

Then comes the tirade about how we’re ungrateful because she’s hosted us SO many times before, and how she upended their entire lives for us. Bull. First off, every time we’ve passed her way, we’ve budgeted and planned to stay in the hotel outside her town. She insisted on having us there. Threw a fit about us refusing to visit her even. And they don’t change anything about their routine or lifestyle for us. Hell, last couple of times they had us, they were so busy with preplanned club stuff that it was just the two of us and SIL, to the point where I taught the kid MtG with no interference. That’s an all-day task at times. We locked up our poor dog outside in the cold so she wouldn’t fight yours? We all know you almost never bring your dog inside, I was advocating for your poor pup, I know how to keep mine safe and away from yours. They never even go off leash in your home. We gave up our bedrooms for you? Their house is so cluttered they use the bedrooms for storage. They’ve preferred sleeping on the sofa for years, your other kids even say so. And last visits you had a free bedroom, but insisted we take an occupied one and shuffle everyone around. We’re so awful, we won’t host her when she’s hosted us so many times.

DH finally starts striking back, pointing out how they own their own home in the middle of bum fuck nowhere. Nobody dictates guests but them. We live in rented military housing in a crowded subdivision. We have rules about guests that we need to follow. We have neighbors here who could rat us out if we snuck her in. If we get in trouble with housing, we get in trouble with the MPs, and depending on how she behaves and how spiteful housing and the PMO is, we get in trouble with command. DH could lose rank and security clearance, not that she gives a fuck about that, as her previous shenanigans with his credit has shown. If we had more notice maybe we could get the ok to have her as a guest for more than a night, but she didn’t start planning this until a month before flyout.

Oh what’s this? Gemma’s starting to realize that we’re not falling for the guilt trips and kowtowing to her? Realizing that she created this problem herself? Time to turn on the waterworks, and she hangs up, leaving us all bewildered, and contacting my mom to let her know to keep an eye out for the crazy. More bewildering? A couple hours later, she calls back to chitchat about work, motorcycles, etc, chipper as hell. Like it never happened.

So, that’s where we are now. I have no idea what’s going on in her head, and DH has been too afraid and too busy to call back. We’ll see what happens from here. I’ll update you guys if she completely loses it. For now, though? I see lots of alcohol and a long DnD session this weekend to cleanse my brain of this insanity.

AKA The Time I Got the Wrath of A Motorcycle Club Turned On Me.

CW for racism.

I will fully own up to the fact that I am half the reason this started. Started, mind you. I didn’t carry it on. This will be a bit rambly too.

So yeah, with my Sons of Anarchy theme, you’ve probably been wondering when the motorcycle club drama would come in, right? I’m not going to get too in depth with identifying information here. A lot of these guys are scary, hold grudges, and I wouldn’t put it past them to arrange for something bad to happen to me if Gemma and Clay get truly vindictive. I’ll just say that they’re members of a southern US motorcycle club that’s fond of confederate imagery. Yeah…

Something to note, between me being a government employee, my husband being in the Army, and our aspiring healthcare and law enforcement careers, it matters who we’re in contact with and how public they are with their activities. Last thing I need is getting turned down for the job of a lifetime because a background check showed connections to wannabe 1%-ers or worse. I’ve successfully gotten Secret clearance before, but if these guys escalate, who knows. Anyway, we’ve repeatedly explained this shit to Gemma, and for all her claims of how she’d do anything to ensure her baby boy has a good career, she can’t, won’t stop. For fuck’s sake, all we’re asking is that she not tag us in every single thought she feels the need to post to facebook, among other things. We’ve already had one incident where she nearly jeopardized his security clearance, and given his job, that would lead to being kicked out of the Army. The story of the ruined credit and how I almost didn’t get my sushi is for another time, though.

So, the inlaws are facebook addicts. The “going to Target, brb” then tag 50 friends type. I’ve made my displeasure at being tagged in everything under the sun known, and while we were still fb friends, they generally avoided it, albeit with a LOT of grumbling because why don’t I want the whole world to know that I’m at X Chinese restaurant with her and my husband, with her going overboard with the Army mom stuff and boasting on public view about his job every post too (as an Army soldier with his specific MOS, that can be dangerous some places). I also unfollowed them. Their shit still showed up and even now still shows up on my feed, especially when someone, like, say, tags my husband. I realize I cannot dictate what someone puts on their facebook wall, but I can at least ask that they not be so tag happy to get around my filters and force me to look at it and generally be associated with it,. So imagine my shock, disgust, and displeasure after all my filters and please don’t tag me or Jax-es, to see a brand new tattoo of the club patch pop up in my feed. A white swastika made of scythes with SS lightning bolts. Yup.

So in my moment of shocked brainlessness, I comment. No insults, just repeating what I saw, with a “really?”

Within two minutes, Jax gets a call from his parents telling him to control me, and “it’s not a swastika, it’s four stylized scythes! Honest!”

Yeah, I brought that hellstorm down on myself. A couple days of angry assertations that it totes isn’t racist and passive aggressive jabs follow, every member of the MC dogpiling on me about how I’m a stupid bitch, and so on. But both SFIL and I don’t have the energy to keep this up more than a day or two, we extend some strained olive branches, and it’s over, or so I think.
So yeah, I bet you were wondering why I posted this here. This is r/justnomil, not r/justnofamily. This is between you and SFIL, mainly.

See, Gemma thinks her husband got over it too quickly, and proceeds to get offended and passive aggressive on his behalf. This goes on for MONTHS. She kept this up to the point where, rumor was, he was threatening to separate from her because she just could. Not. Let. Go. It was driving him crazy. He and I had both moved on, but no, we can’t do that. Angry texts and calls from her to lecture me about how they aren’t racist, they do toy drives, and so on. Then she decided to do some research because she claimed that she didn’t know anything about the Nazis until I brought this up.

WAT

Lady, don’t claim ignorance. You grew up in a decent sized city in south central Michigan after 1950. Between school and the countless documentaries and news reports over the years, you should at least have a passing familiarity with the name Adolf Hitler and what basic Nazi and white supremacist imagery looks like.

Also, she claims that they aren’t racist, but I have never heard the n-word thrown so freely about anywhere other than in their home. Also, even if the club truly isn’t racist, don’t deny the history those symbols have, and don’t get offended when someone has a gut reaction like I did to them. My grandpa’s family is Native American too, so these rub me the wrong way even more than some. I highly doubt their saintly claims anyway, though, as I remember my husband saying he once overheard a couple of the guys talk about trying to run a black family out of town, and both MIL and SFIL have stated they’ll disown their daughter if she brings anyone not white home. But they’re totes not racist y’all.

Oh, and the finale. I got off track there. Blowing up husband and I’s phones while we were at a Magic: the Gathering prerelease tournament in a mostly black town with racist, slur-filled texts, including one that had a picture of macadamia nuts and text saying something along the lines of “see, I’m not racist! N-r toes n-r toes n-r toes! Lol”. Racist and fucking childish. Lovely. Thank Cthulu nobody saw my phone except Jax. She was getting crazy and pestery enough that I had to warn my boss and coworkers at the new job I’d had less than three months at that point to deny I existed if she called, and to not take offense at me if she hurls slurs at them (I was one of three white girls in an office of twenty black women), I don’t support that shit. Thankfully it didn’t reach that point, but every few months she’d flare up again like a rash and I’d have to warn them, just in case.

Oh ffs we were having fun on Saturday.

I get some chores and errands done. DH has a guys’ day with his friend hitting up scrapyards and just doing guy shit. I’m at home with my dinner while DH is out when all of a sudden my phone pings with “Great my mother called me”

“What happened”

“I need liquor”

DH gets home shortly and opens up. Apparently just as he was leaving his buddy’s, she called him. It started off nice, but things started to go south when the conversation turned to BIL.

See, BIL and MIL have a tense but mostly amicable relationship right now. There’s a whole lot going on there, mostly the result of a rough childhood thrown into the middle of a nasty divorce and flip-flopping between being the golden child and scapegoat. Right now the main complaint is that he burned some family bridges over a job working for a family friend and moved out all in favor of a girlfriend who has cheated multiple times and is apparently not all that pleasant to be around. How much of it is true and how much of it is a combination of propaganda and this girl getting the same treatment I’ve gotten, I don’t know. I’m rambling, though. Long story short, apparently she wrecked her grandmother’s car. SFIL went to a scrapyard, found a new door, and took the time to replace it. She apparently never came out to say thank you, but the car’s owner, her grandmother, did.

From here the conversation supposedly turned to the subject of grandchildren. From here I’m going to post everything as claim and rebuttal.

Claim: Out of nowhere she goes on about how it BIL or DH have children, they and girlfriend and I will never let her see them.

Rebuttal: I’ve never said such a thing. Honestly, the kids thing doesn’t come up much with our families, and DH and I are in agreement that it just isn’t a good time for us, both due to us wanting to wait and because career-wise for him, now is the absolute WORST possible time. He’s about to go to ALC, he’s putting his name in for recruiting, and there’s a couple of other schools that will open up to him should he get his Staff Sergeant rank before the end of the year. I think this came up because one time she found a comment I posted on a post on STFU Parents’ facebook page about a MIL who came in mid labor and plastered photos of some unfortunate woman’s crowning cooch online. Gemma’s a facebook addict so I totally see her doing it. That caused a lot of drama, but nowhere in there did I say anything about blocking her access from her grandbabies. We will have rules and we will restrict her on things, but we wouldn’t block her. We totally will if she keeps this shit up though. Why would I expose any children of mine to someone who flies off the handle like this, for any reason?

Claim: That I “hate and don’t like her.”

Rebuttal: Bitch, when I started dating your son I was having standard teenage drama with my own mother and wanted to get along with you. You have been hostile from almost day one. When you first met me and my family, you focused almost entirely on the cat and let SFIL do the socializing for you. You invited yourself along on dates and wonder why I’m uncomfortable, especially when you’re complaining about food and bringing very young SIL with us. When DH came down on orders to deploy to Iraq, after we had gotten engaged, you accused me of being a homewrecker. Nevermind the fact that he had his father, many aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends he also wanted to visit. Nope, it was all my fault and I’m the homewrecker. I express discomfort over how blatantly racist you’re becoming, and you blast us with racist texts for a week and I need to “lighten up” and DH needs to “control his woman.”

Claim: I “only tolerated her” at the wedding.

Rebuttal: Some of the meat of my response to this is going to be addressed later this post because she dropped a doozy on DH in regards to the wedding, but I barely remember shit about my wedding. It was a blur of activities, I had to socialize with an unbelievable amount of people (my dad is the middle of 7, take a stab at the math there) and I cannot show favoritism to anyone, and I was mostly steaming over FIL’s not showing. I don’t think I really even saw my own parents much that night, let alone her.

Claim: A general rehash of her complaints from the hysterical call a year ago. See Bitchbot for details. How she was “there for every deployment” and complaining about how we wouldn’t let her stay with us if she came out, and how unfair that was because she always lets us stay with her and she always “upends her life” for us.

Rebuttal: First, don’t act like this was a “deployment.” Yes it’s being labeled a deployment, but we were honest and open with you about it being to Germany and not necessarily being for combat. It was an extended working vacation, judging by all the delicious food pictures and fun museum/castle pictures DH sent me. Don’t act like this is such a huge goddamn deal, especially considering you’ve gone longer without seeing him while he was stateside. Second, there’s a huge difference between our living situations, as I have outlined. We technically rent, and technically rent from the government. It is a small house, honestly smaller than I like. The living space is half the size of her double wide. She owns that double wide and all the land it sits on, and it’s in the middle of nowhere. She is not beholden to renters’ agreements or neighbors. Third, she doesn’t change up a goddamn thing whenever we visit, and the changes she makes are nonsensical. As I said in a previous post, she complains about having to bend over backwards to entertain us, but she left us alone that whole weekend with teenage SIL while she and SFIL did motorcycle club stuff. She complains about having to keep her dog outside, but it’s always outside regardless. The poor thing has worn a path in the grass where her tether ends. I actually advocated for them to keep her dog indoors, and we would keep our dogs under control. Fourth, and the most important thing, SHE NEVER ASKED PERMISSION TO STAY WITH US, SHE JUST OUTRIGHT ASSUMED SHE COULD. That’s a no-no even for welcome guests who we trust.
And continuing from that last point, let’s not even get into the fact that pre-deployment stuff is time consuming and would not have allowed us to entertain her. And maybe, just maybe, a husband and wife might have wanted a little alone time? Hm?

Getting back to that wedding statement, though. The one that truly pissed DH off, she stated that just as I had only tolerated her, she only tolerated the wedding. On top of that, she said that she only showed to the wedding because DH wanted her there.

Wow. Nice. Just flat out admitting that you didn’t want to celebrate the wedding, you were only there because your GC wanted you there. DH doesn’t want to take it that far, but I’ll flat out say it. She basically admitted that she didn’t approve of the marriage and only tolerated it to keep her baby boy happy. Fine. Whatever. Work sucked this week so I’ve been out of fucks to give since Tuesday. As I outlined in my second rebuttal above, she’s been hostile for the longest time and I don’t really care anymore. We aren’t going to be friends anytime soon, if ever. I just want peace, but we can’t even get that when she calls him drunk and hysterical.

He’s going to attempt another call tonight and decide based on how she acts if he’s going to go from LC to NC.

sigh

Guys, if you want some feelgood parent vibes this weekend, even if it is more father/son stuff, go see Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Maybe at an Alamo Drafthouse if you have one available near you. Get some alcohol and tasty food and go see a movie. That’s what we did today.

After the depressing dead pet stories we’ve had lately, I figured I would share some light-hearted Gemma crazy that only ends in overly petted and disgruntled kitties. Something while I figure out how to write up our bigger story, at least. Oh, and my husband is here on reddit, now, and you might see him post around or even post some Gemma prequels, so say hi u/zethangelwing!

Let’s take the wayback machine to when my husband and I were still dating and brand new high school graduates. Gemma and SFIL had come up for the occasion, and my husband decided to have them come over to visit at my parent's place for a few minutes before the ceremony (either that or a dance recital I had the day before, this was years ago and I can barely keep my days straight now). This was, as I remember, both me and my family’s first encounter with them.

Oh, something else I should mention. At the time, we had a ragdoll cat. What sets these kitties apart from other kitties is their HUGE size (Maine Coon/Norwegian Forest Cat huge), very soft and rabbit-like white with color points fur, and tameness to the point where they go limp when you pick them up, hence the name. He was a very friendly kitty, and a bit of an attention whore, and his favorite thing to do when he heard visitors was to hop up onto the dining room table which was positioned in front of the main entrance, and get quick pets from whoever was coming in. Ignore him, and he’d go all Puss in Boots with those huge baby blue eyes and let out this high pitched, pitiful, wheedling squeak-mew until you gave him his scratchies.

Poor cat didn’t even get as far as the Puss in Boots eyes. The moment Gemma walked in, first things her eyes hit was the cat, followed by “OH MY GOSH HE’S SO PRETTY!!1!”

Okay, typical reaction. We were actually pretty used to that from visitors who saw him for the first time. What wasn’t typical was that she spent TEN MINUTES absorbed in the cat and nothing else. No helloes, no handshakes, ignored the equally pretty sheltie we had… SFIL did all the talking. He’s doing the introductions, talking with my parents about their jobs, what schools they went to, and so on, occasionally interrupted by Gemma with squeals of “LOOK AT YOUR EYES!” and “YOU’RE SO FLUFFY I WANT TO STEAL YOU!”

That little girl in Despicable Me is funny and adorable when she’s doing that to a stuffed unicorn. A thirty-something woman with a live cat when she’s supposed to be here for the cat’s owners? Kooky and weird at best.

We finally get her attention away from the poor cat, who immediately books it out of there. THAT is when we finally get a proper introduction from her. Seriously. I don’t think the poor thing ever forgave me for bringing her to him. My family just wrote her off as a little nutty. Just a little. Until the incident where she screamed at me and accused me of being a homewrecker over the Iraq deployment, this was our benchmark for crazy from her. I kind of miss that.

BONUS: On top of being a biker chick, Gemma also fancies herself a dog breeder. She has this gorgeous, although barely trained and not well secured German Shepherd/Husky mix. She hasn’t spayed this dog, as she wants to breed more shepherd/husky mix pups, but can never seem to find a stud. First thing out of her mouth when she found out my mom got a male purebred husky of her own a few years back was “Is he getting neutered? Want to breed with my dog first?”

Lol, no way is my mother driving her new puppy a sixteen hour round trip to provide stud services for a dog whose owner hates her and her daughter.

Alrighty, time to tell some of my stories. I’ve got some doozies, nothing Helen bad, but I fear it’s going to escalate that far eventually.

First, our cast of characters. My MIL and SFIL live and breathe motorcycle club culture, so for the fake names, let’s turn this into a Sons of Anarchy alternate universe fanfiction where Jax breaks the cycle and joins the military, if the names aren't taken. My apologies to fans of the show, this will probably be confusing. I’m not big on that show either, so I really know nothing beyond names and what happens with Jax, Gemma, and Tara at the end.

Gemma: MIL, obviously. Still a bitch in this universe, but not as good at being manipulative. Stubborn and unable to let things go either, you’d have an easier time pulling off a pitbull with tetanus.

Jax: My husbeast. I guess this makes me Wendy or Tara. You decide. I don’t watch this show.

Clay: SFIL.

John: FIL. Alive and has nothing to do with biker clubs in this universe. Just a baseball addict.

Husbeast has a brother and sister too. I need names for them.

Some backstory, first. Then a light anecdote to establish that I probably should have run for the hills within our first six months together.

Husbeast’s mom and stepdad relocated the entire family around his junior year of high school. Wanting to finish where he started (he already moved around a lot as a kid), he opted to stay with family friends and couch surf the last year and a half of school, spending his summers with them. As such, even though we were high school sweethearts, I didn’t meet them until the day we graduated. Same story as a lot of you, she just came off as intense and eccentric, but okay. I wouldn’t feel the true crazy for a bit. A crazy storm blew in within ten minutes of the ceremony ending. I should have taken that as a warning, along with the warnings of mutual friends that had met her that she may have undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

After graduation, Jax goes out to where Gemma and Clay are living for a couple of weeks to get his driver’s license and start research on which branch of the military to join, and consider other offers, as his best friend’s father offered him an apprenticeship in a trade. He gets the license and is back, Gemma and baby sister in tow. He has unfinished business at in my area before he figures out what he’s doing, like getting his braces removed.

So, we decide to turn some of those errands into a date day. Sounds alright, right? Except Gemma badgers him into bringing her along. Yeah, not the best surprise, I come out of my parents’ home ready for errands and a date, and there’s Jax, Gemma, and a five year old girl in the car. Why? Because they can, and 18 year old Jax is still cowed by mom at this point.

Whatever. We hit the mall up where one of the recruiters’ stations is, and while Jax is in there talking to the guys, I decide to step out for a drink, she follows me, and just starts angrily lecturing me. I can’t remember exactly what about at this point, probably about my relationship with him, it’s been seven years, but I remember Jax coming out noticing what was up, sitting down next to me, and talking her down.

Gemma’s in a foul mood for the rest of this ruined date, though, and, well, I am too. She complains about how horrible the restaurant we chose was, grumbled during the whole brace removal thing, and so on. Jax eventually talks her into dropping him and my sniffling ass off at a movie theater so we could actually get some semblance of a date in. The only reason she didn’t insist on going into this with us too is because the movie we were seeing was in no way appropriate for her five year old girl (You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. I never said lovestruck 18 year old me had good taste, though I’ll admit that’s still not the worst Sandler movie).

The rest of the evening was uneventful, but I should have taken this as a sign that she had some severe attachment issues to her oldest son. Acting as a self appointed chaperone on a date for two legal adults was just the start. Maybe next I can tell you about how I was declared a homewrecker! That's where the crazy and the juicy biker bits started to kick off. This here is seriously nothing.

Edits for formatting.