eviction notice

Amazing how things can escalate so quickly.

After the long night in the ER on Friday evening, Rick woke up feeling better Saturday morning. I was still quite upset about the interaction with his mom, and so we both decided it would be the perfect time for he and I to head out to the cabin with the dogs and leave his mom behind for the weekend.

And what a great time it was. We got there mid-afternoon, let the dogs run around for a bit before heading over to the driving range where he hit balls and I sat in the warm car reading my latest People magazine. Can I just say there's nothing more beautiful that a sunny fall day out in mountains?

For dinner we got cleaned up and headed into town to a lovely little Italian restaurant we both love, and then from the exhaustion of the previous day decided to call it an early night.

We woke up this morning with a mission. Once a year, there's a expo and swap meet for snowmobiles, so we loaded up the car as fast as we could with the dogs and headed south for some window shopping for some winter toys to go with the cabin.

Certainly lots of gear on the expo floor, but we were underwhelmed with the used snowmobiles for sale by owner. As we were leave the expo, we saw that there were more sleds for sale in the parking lot across the street. For fun, we decided to take a peek and came across a hidden gem. A brand new 2008 Polaris snowmobile. With no miles on it, it must have been hidden in the dealer's back corner, because I'm not sure how it made it this long without getting snatched up. While not eager to empty the pocket book, it was a good enough deal that we signed the dotted line and found a neighbor to haul it back for us.

By now, the day was getting late and I realized my MIL-free weekend was about to come to an end. Feeling slightly anxious about seeing her for the first time since our heated exchange on the phone on Friday night, we started to bring in our things into the house from the car.

There was barely a moment to set the things down when she appeared. All three of us sitting in the entrance hall, I was expecting that she would apologize for her inexcusable behavior. Instead, with my husband as a witness, she began again:

MIL: I'm angry with you and I know you said I need to watch what I say, but you say things that hurt me....we just don't like each other very much right now.

Me: Linda, let's be clear about why I am upset with you. You had absolutely no right to insinuate that I had done anything wrong when I took Rick to the ER.

MIL: I may have issues, but you too need lots of help. You with your obsessive compulsive ways. I'm afraid to walk around here without doing something wrong. You intimidate me.

Of course, this is really not an insult to me. And as if I really care what she thinks about me. At this point, I was done with the conversation and it was time for me to get out of the house and while Rick had done his best to defend me, we both were tired.

Off to dinner we went. I told him that I was done. She had crossed the line. She didn't even think she'd done anything wrong the other night and to top it off, attacked me again as soon as I walked in the door.

There's a reason she is living with us and not anyone else from her family. No one else can handle her. And now I can see why. I wouldn't have high blood pressure and be taking anti-anxiety medication if it weren't for her.

For the last three months, I have been the only person advocating for her. There have been so many times when Rick was ready to ship her off and I convinced him that the right thing to do was give her more time, more chances. And now she has bitten the hand that feeds her.

I promised to be cordial, but I am no longer bending over backwards to accommodate her. I WANT HER OUT! I'm done with the games. I'm done with her manipulation. I'm done with her tantrums. She's vicious and she's toxic. There is no room in our lives for this kind of behavior, mental illness or not.

Again, I cannot stress how much my husband has stepped up in a tough situation. He sees what's going on, he continues to be on my side and now he's told his mom it's time for her to go. We don't think Washington is the right place for her. In fact, when she said she wanted to find an assisted living place in a small town nearby he told her no.

If I had my druthers, she's be on a train back to Wisconsin this week. Rick told her to keep the peace and apologize to me, which she did, but the damage is done. I have no sympathy for her any more. She continues to make bad choices and now she's going to have to take responsibility for those choices.

On the bright side (as if you could even imagine there was one), instead of Rick and I taking sides on this, we are very much unified and feeling stronger about our relationship and ability to work through tough issues like this. The other upside is that for as much as my own mother may drive me crazy at times, I have a new found appreciation for her child-like ways. My mom may need constant reassurance, but she doesn't have a single bone in her body that would want to cause hurt for anyone else.

Maybe it's time I took a long weekend away to see my mom and give her the much needed appreciation she deserves.

So I guess we'll see where it goes from her. As far as I'm concerned, we're on a timeline to be just a newlywed couple again, but this time without the 62 yr-old mother-in-law who acts like a 5-yr old.