Brooke,

My mother-in-law loves to give me ‘advice.’ It used to drive me crazy–to the point that I told my husband that I didn’t want his parents to stay at our house when they visited. Needless to say, my mother-in-law is the very first person I will be doing my SCS homework on for week #1. 😉

I have come so far with my thoughts about her since listening to your podcasts and joining SCS. We had a really nice visit with them staying at our house last Christmas. When she gives me unsolicited “advice” I now find it very humorous but also reply in a sarcastic but hopefully non-snarky way. Example: She mentioned that the grid at the bottom of my sink needs to be scrubbed periodically and I said, “thanks for informing me–I might not have realized that until little mold monsters started crawling out of my sink.” I laughed and she just said, “well, I wasn’t sure if you knew that the foot pads were getting slimy.” I didn’t think much of our conversation at all, and thought it was pretty funny.

So, my question is this: is there anything wrong with using sarcasm/humor in these situations? I realize that I can’t not control how she chooses to think about my tactic, but I think it sure beats the alternative old tactic I employed which was to smile at her, say nothing and boil inside.

I also want to add that it is so freeing to have given up on trying to manipulate her actions and opinions! I had a recent experience when I found out that after I told her about a decision my husband and I made regarding our daughter, she called him up telling him he HAD to change my mind. My husband told me after the fact that he hung up on her and didn’t talk to her for 3 days. It was interesting that my reaction was thoughts of sympathy for her that her excessive worrying causes her to miss out on talking to her son for periods of time rather than the old me who would think, “yeah, serves her right for butting into our business all the time.”

Thanks!