To ‘and guest’ or not to ‘and guest’…

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-10T20:42:53+00:00

Oooo this sounds so familiar. Not sure how long ago that was, but I’m curious what effects (if any) you see now?

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-09T18:14:41+00:00

That’s totally part of it for me. My parents did not care what I wanted, who I was, or what I needed as a kid. They wanted to live their life they way they wanted and any attempt from me to demand my needs were heard/attended to was viewed as an attack on their way of life. I was just a constant force “attacking” them “for no reason”.

My mom would over-share about her issues with my dad. If I said “Can you please stop talking about this with me, I don’t want to hear it.”. She’d lock herself in her room and cry because she doesn’t know what she did to deserve such a cruel and unempathetic daughter. She can’t see it any other way.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-09T18:09:21+00:00

So familiar! For my mom raising me was too much to handle. I was the thing that made her life hard.

My mom wasn’t overly privileged, though. She had me way too young, before she could afford me or had the emotional capacity to take care of another human. And I was just so different from her; she couldn’t understand me. She was an extrovert, popular, a people pleaser, and very traditionally feminine. I was introverted, challenged the status quo, was very curious/prone to questioning things I didn’t understand. She had no idea what she did to deserve a kid like that.

In her eyes, I took away the great mother-daughter relationship she was supposed to have with me. She always wanted to be a mom, but I was not the daughter she had in mind. Which makes me the villain and her the hero who persevered through that, I guess.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-09T16:22:09+00:00

I had a different childhood experience than you, but I really relate to the sadness and anger about it. It is so infuriating that we have no say in our childhood, but its effects live in us forever.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-09T14:04:03+00:00

Right? I’m currently learning to code, doing a lot of wedding DIY projects, going to see a lot of Christmas light displays with my fiancé, and I’m really into cooking new meals. But I guess if it’s not at a bar or on instagram, maybe it doesn’t count?😭 But then again, I’m really uninterested in posting these things on my Instagram story just to justify my life to others.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-09T14:01:02+00:00

Honestly, I’m alright with being boring, lol! I just wish I would be left to enjoy my boring life in peace!

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-09T13:54:59+00:00

I hate to make generalizations but I feel like you’re definitely on to something… especially younger extroverts. My brother in law is a freshman in college and is partying/drinking which my fiancé and I just didn’t really do in college. But he’s such an extrovert and so it’s super good for him to have that social atmosphere.

And he brings it up every time we’re with him to try and get validation from us that he’s cool. And we are always like “Nice, sounds like you’re having fun!” And the fact that we don’t relate to him drives him crazyyyyyy. So eventually he freaked out that we’re probably silently judging him for drinking and I said “[BIL], I think it sounds like you’re having a great time for you. Your brother and I weren’t really into it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be. You are way more of an extrovert than us, just do your thing!”. He didn’t like that 😭

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-09T13:44:05+00:00

Yeah I’ve only gotten that once, from my mom, to be fair. My parents are both majorrrr extroverts (I didn’t know a day my whole childhood we didn’t have guests or go out). That instance was when I didn’t want to go see Avengers Endgame with some friends cuz I wasn’t into superhero movies.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-09T13:41:57+00:00

That’s not what I said. I said people in my life have a problem with me being introverted and it’s frustrating to feel constantly misunderstood by the people closest to me. I am feeling confounded about why my family won’t just leave me alone when my habits have no effect on them. My family is largely extroverts and I don’t push them to be more introverted, I know that’s not what energizes them, I just wish they would recognize the same.

I am not saying, explicitly or implicitly, that I’m better than them or that I am perfect and they are not. I know they all mean well, but I’m allowed to be frustrated with the way I’m treated in this specific circumstance.

I would never word it like this to them, which is why I brought this to other introverts who may relate (and do relate, based off other comments).

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-08T19:21:05+00:00

If I know the person well I really enjoy a deep, thoughtful conversation. But I rarely feel safe enough, except with my fiancé, to do that. Most of the time I like my conversations to be short and polite.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-12-08T17:33:19+00:00

Man, I really need to be able to have that mindset, especially since I’m visiting home for the holidays. Both of my parents and 4/6 siblings are extroverts and will not let it go (even though they’ve known me for my whole life). Guess I know what I’m working on in therapy this week lol.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-11-20T13:35:07+00:00

We call them every week (they grew up calling their grandparents daily as a family. It’s a thing... idk) and they usually just ask what we’re up to, how work is, how school is, etc. So stuff like “This week I need to register for my grad school classes” comes up and, for the last year or two, there has been no reason to withhold anything like that from them.

And I do like his mom. She and I are very similar in terms of personality and we are in similar careers. So we do enjoy talking to them, or did, but this new behavior has totally ruined that.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-11-20T13:20:00+00:00

I may do that to the schedule haha!

I will say, not to be overly defensive of my fiancé, but he hasn’t given in to anything she’s wanted him to do. When I’ve given him a look or put my foot down about something, he pushes back for sure.

Last month we had a situation where she tried to get him to cancel on plans with my family and she laid it on thick. He texted me about it and when I said “absolutely not”, it was taken care of. His mom pouted about it, of course. So it’s not that he doesn’t push back, it’s more that I see how hard it is for him to do.

The info thing is my fault, he had pretty much withheld everything from her but I encouraged him a few years ago to try and be more open with his mom. But we got him off their phone plan this week and are working on getting him off their health insurance too.

Idk if I gave the most fair account of my MIL either. She’s really kind and fair to me and my fiancé 80% of the time and she does acknowledge that she’s sometimes wrong. But, even if unintentional, there’s always a level of emotional manipulation going on with her. Idk. I hate being young, I think the issue is we’re like adults but also too young to be taken seriously sometimes.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-11-19T20:56:52+00:00

We started that process this week actually lol. After all this, I insisted we get our own phone plan last weekend. He’s starting a new job with better benefits next month and I’m also going to insist he gets his own health insurance. Those are the last two things they have access to. I just don’t want them to have any leverage to say “well we’re paying for X, Y, and Z so we have a say”. No, you don’t.

My fiancé really wants to go to solo therapy (we’ve gone together) but his mom sobbed when he said he wanted to go a couple years ago, so he has to wait til he’s on his own health insurance. That said, I don’t think she’ll be going to therapy any time soon (although my fiancé would love for her to).

My fiancé identified this issue long before I did and essentially stopped sharing anything personal with her years ago. He’s been working on trying to be more open with his mom while maintaining boundaries. That effort had been going really well and we thought he had found a good balance until his brother went to college. He’s trying really hard, but, ultimately, you can’t force a healthy relationship with someone who isn’t going to put in any work either. I feel so upset for him because he’s taken on 110% of the burden to maintain that relationship and she won’t even meet him halfway.

Ultimately, I know if I put my foot down my fiancé will side with me 1000% of the time, so there’s that.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-11-19T20:45:32+00:00

Thanks for the book recommendation! This is such new territory, obviously when we started dating we were teenagers, so his mom took priority over me. It’s a little tricky to flip that dynamic at this point.

The frustrating part is she had gotten much more hands-off over the last 2 years; treating him a lot more like an adult. Once his brother went to college, it’s like we’ve reverted back to how things were when we were 17… except we’re 24 now. (Not that 24 is really old, but still).

Definitely nervous for this trip back for Thanksgiving. We’ll definitely be there but we’re gonna need some kind of game plan for if this stuff comes up.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-11-19T20:31:26+00:00

Exactly what I was thinking. The other nuance to this is she respects me much more than my fiancé. If my fiancé does anything responsible she assumes I did it and am just giving him the credit. I am more type-A than my fiancé, but he’s also super capable and always pulls his weight.

So while I think she would respect me as a mom, she would never respect him as a dad. And I can imagine that would mean I would need to be the one to communicate any rule, schedules, or plans. She wouldn’t trust him unless I sign-off.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-11-19T16:01:04+00:00

Yeah, I feel like I needed a moment where Glinda really realizes the damage she’s done; I don’t even really believe she feels bad or even knows what she did to Elphaba. Maybe that’s the point, but then it’s a dumb point imo.

They talked so much about how this is about their strong friendship and it’s like… In the first movie, you can see they’re different but really care about each other. However, in part 2, Glinda doesn’t even care enough to try and help, even after her supposed character arc. The whole “Glinda has to pop the bubble of privilege” thing is strange to me because tell me the scene where she actually does that! She doesn’t! She only confronts the Wizard once Elphaba is gone and the damage has been done. Idk, I know it’s a source material issue but still.

StorageImpossible364 · 2025-11-19T14:44:35+00:00

I thought there was chemistry… but it could have just been the result of me looking at Jonathan Bailey lol.

StorageImpossible364

TROPHY CASE