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The SpermClan is not the only difficult Clan we have to deal with. What is it with natives of the Pacific NorthWest anyway?

Rags's picture

No offense intended to Pac. NWerners but nearly everyone I interface with from up there is incapable of making a decent decision and many struggle with being decent people even to family members. The SpermClan and most of my I-L's have a tenuous grasp on decision making at best.

My wife is in to her third full day of a four day visit with her family.

The I-L drama:

S-I-L is now flunking out of college and my wife has spent two days trying to work with her and her advisor on the most direct degree plan with the least difficult curriculum possible. Guess what? S-I-L's husband had no idea that the ~$40K in school loans S-I-L has taken out was that much and he had no idea she was flunking. How is that for spousal information sharing?

This is the girl that we brought to live with us and offered to put through college in an effort to try to keep her out of the family business of out of wedlock pregnancies and financial destitution. She quit school after her Freshman year of college, moved home, got pregnant, had an OWL kid and has managed to accomplish exactly squat academically after she moved home and has now saddled herself, her husband and their OWL son with more debt in school loans than they will ever be able to pay off. Her proudest accomplishment "at least I was not a TEEN single Mom like you were". She actually said this to my Wife. Grrrrrrrr! I had to bite my tongue like you would not believe on that nugget of rhetorical elocution.

My M&F I-L have gotten there no shit last chance no way to recover foreclosure notice on their mortgage. This would be the mortgage that was only 7yrs from being payed off nine years ago but that has now been second, third and God knows how many more mortgaged to the point that is worth far less than they owe. But it is the agricultural Mecca and must be bowed to and preserved at all insanely ridiculous cost. It is F'in dirt for God sake. Let the good for nothing piece of dirt go for God's sake. PLEASE!

My youngest B-I-L is once again on a voluntary combat tour so that he can try to save his parent's home/farm from foreclosure. This is his THIRD voluntary combat tour that he has served in an effort to bail out my I-Ls from their long and distinguished history of crappy financial decisions. (2 in Afghanistan and currently 4wks in to an Iraq tour) These people are well on their way to bankrupting a second generation with their complete inability to make a good decision. My M-I-L actually called the bank to see "if my Son's death benefit pays off what is the last possible date we can catch up on our payments and not lose the farm". Really, no shit, she actually did this. :jawdrop:

My oldest B-I-L and his hag of a wife are once again ignoring my Wife at a family gathering and are not allowing my Wife to hold her latest niece (~6wks old)from their scary coupling. She just called me in tears that they are doing their same old crap. I had to once again make her laugh so that she could go back to a family gathering with a smile on her face. These are the people who used to call, visit and interface with her/us regularly. They decided that it was their sole mission in life to out earn/buy my wife and I. Every time we visited we used to get the "come look at my shed, it is bigger than your shed", "check out my new (used) truck (long ago repo'd)it is nicer than your new (new) truck (paid off and sold about two new cars ago)", "check out our new (resale) house (now foreclosed) it is nicer than your (semi-custom new) house (sold for a nice profit a year and half ago), etc ........." These are the same people with an amazingly developed case of "Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome who tried to convince us and the rest of the family that they were moving in to their "new" place (after they were foreclosed on by their mortgage company) and then moved in to yet another "new" place after they were evicted from for non payment of rent three months after moving in to the first "new" place all while trying to convince the rest of the family that they moved both times because the previous place was too small. I could go on and on with this B-I-L and his devil hag of a cow wife. This B-I-L used to call me every pay period to compare pay checks. He is an unskilled ag worker who works 100+ hours a week. What he does not understand is that Ag is about the only industry that does not pay time and a half for O/T. I never told him what I make and would just say "wow, good job you are doing pretty well" but he stopped interfacing with us (including my wife) not long after I got aggravated with him after nearly a year of the "I bet I made more than you this month" calls and told him to call and talk with his sister instead of trying to compete in an arena that he can't touch and that if he works another four+ weeks at 100+ hours a week he won't make what I do in 40hrs. (I know, bad Rags, bad). He used to bring up that Bill Gates did not finish college and is the wealthiest man in the world. Every time he brought this up I just told him that he is not Bill Gates and that he needed to get his butt back in school or back in to the Army. As usual, no one in the I-L family listens to our/my advice.

The crowning moment of pride for that marriage? "Our (first) child was not BORN out of wedlock". This less than 9mos after they called us on the return from their 2day honeymoon that we had to pay for because they were too broke to pay for it themselves in order to tell us "guess what, just to see, we bought a EPT on our way home and we are ....... pregnant!" They actually thought we were stupid enough to buy this load of self delusional crap. Youngest B-I-L confirmed the obvious when he told us a couple of years later the story of how Oldest B-I-L's hag got pissed and moved out the month before the wedding because "he got her pregnant" before they were married. That is what happens when you quit taking your pills you ignorant cow and you don't wear a jimmy-hat you dipshit! No Pill No Thrill, No Glove No Love! Learn it, love it, live it and save the world or at least your sister and I from having to keep another of your children from starving.

I am now more than ever absolutely convinced that my wife is a mutant or an alien because she can not possibly share the same gene pool with her family.

They all ignore the unequivocal facts that my wife graduated HS with her class with honors as a Single Teen Mom, went on to complete a dual major Undergrad with Honors, an MBA with Honors and came withing 4pts of passing all four sections of the CPA exam on the first sitting. She passed the fourth section with ease on her second testing. She passed three out of four on the first sitting.

All S-I-L and Oldest B-I-L and his hag of a wife can say is something along the lines of "at least our children were not born/conceived out of wedlock when we were in our teens".

Yes, my wife had our Son (my SS) when she was 16 but she made it her goal in life to not be a statistic. She is an example and her family cannot comprehend what she has accomplished. Maybe my comments along the lines of "is it worse for a 16yo to get pregnant or a 20+yo to get pregnant. You tell me if the 16yo or the adults have made a worse decision?" have contributed to this ignorant crap. (I know, once again, Bad Rags, Bad)

Except for the crap described above they are all actually very good people and I enjoy spending time with them.

But, I guess that statement would be roughly akin to asking Mary Todd Lincoln "other than that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?"

Sorry for the rant but you would think the Toothless Moron Pac NW SpermClan would be enough of a cross to bear.

Grrrrrrrr! I am hurt and angry for my wife.

Come home soon Honey and please, please, please do not read STalk until this messages gets buried very, very deep.

Comments

mother goose's picture

So glad I'm not a native here in the PAC nwest!!!
Your wife sounds like she has her hands full. Poor girl!

Rags's picture

I am sure there are many great people there and the geography is incredible. But ........ these people drive me Nucking Futs.

Again, I apologize to you NWees who don't have your heads up your butts.

Best regards,

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)

bearcub25's picture

I am proud of the fact that I was born and bred in West by God Virginia. We have many intelligent, interesting people here but BF's EXW and family (sorry to say skids included) fit very nicely into the stereotypical 'Appalachian family'. Sad and humorous all at the same time.

Rags's picture

and flood season. While there I noticed a significant level of dental health problems in the more rural populations that I supporting as an insurance adjuster. One evening at dinner with some adjuster buddies I grabbed the paper before sitting down to eat at a restaurant and on the front page was an article about how rural WV had the worst dental health in the nation and that ~60% of the rural WV population had no remaining natural teeth.

Apparently the highly mineralized water tends to erode the teeth very quickly.

Unfortunately another supporting data point for the stereotype you indicate that XW/BM and her clan fit so well.

WV is beautiful by the way. I enjoyed my 6mos there very much.

Best regards,

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)

Sasha's picture

Do you suppose there is a type of Witness Protection Program out there for married couples so they can get away from their families? Biggrin

Rags's picture

Nor would we give up my Wife's. Other than their tenuous grasp on financial reality and their incessant need to make my wife feel like the black sheep of the family they really are not bad people.

I just wish they would call any time they have a decision to make and get a good answer from my wife before they try to engage their own flawed decision engines.

My frustrations is solely because of the hurt they cause my wife. She struggles with guilt over leaving home for school and taking her BioDad's VA death benefit with her "if I had not left maybe .......", she struggles with guilt over "they work so hard, why can't they get a break", she struggles with guilt over "maybe I should not wear new clothes when I go see them, then they might not feel so bad about me being there", etc, etc, etc...........

Once she gets home we will go through a few weeks of detox. Then the guilt will start to build over not waiting so long to visit them next time. Always she is hopeful that next time things will be different. And always she comes home hurt and dissappointed. Then I tell myself that I will never send her out there again without going with her and then I send her to the lions den of bad decisions alone again.

This whole carousel of guilt laden crap and total disconnect from reality just gets old. In what universe does a beautiful, smart, successful, educated woman in a strong marriage raising a great kid have anything to feel guilty about? I just don't get it.

As you can see this one has me firmly in the grasp of insomnia.

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)

LizzieA's picture

Your in-laws are jealous of your wife. Their criticisms are only their way to cut her down to size. They know you are more successful. Why else the comparisons? The guilt trips are to punish her. They're not going to ask for help or advice in advance because it's more fun being rescued.

There are competitive roots that go way back in her family. Her mistake is falling into the trap and playing the role again. "You're beneath me but help ME! You owe it to me, we're family." I can guess from what you said that she is a helper and rescuer. Stop it! It doesn't work and just wears you out.

It happened to me recently, rather unexpectedly, when my younger sister started making little digs at me and my darling DH. I moved to her region and thought we were close. Oh yeah, until the more dynamic, younger looking older sister threatened her world. Until we broke ties, we were so helpful to her and her kids and pets, etc. Same dynamic with my SILS. My DH was at their beck and call but they loved to put him down and beat us up. No more!

Jealousy in families causes a lot of problems.

Rags's picture

influence for her own parents and her three younger sibs.

Other than the 1yr of total support including college tuition, a vehicle, family vacations with us, for her younger sister we have little skin in this game. We learned long ago that we cannot give any of them cash or any negotiable contribution or it will get spent on something other than what it was intended for.

It is truly amazing how she guides them successfully on many things then out of the blue we will get a letter saying something along the lines of "I am going to do XXXX, I know it is a bad decision but it is my dream and if you can't be supportive please don't say anything". WTF! :?

They know they are making a stupid decision but want our moral support while they do it? Not just our moral support but for us to be happy for them and cheer them along while they make their stupid decisions. Then, when their stupid decision fails miserably they want us to listen once again to how they got screwed by the man, taken advantage of by customers, their lenders, the mortgage broker who "never said anything about the re-fi being an ARM (though my wife showed them the 35+ times they either signed or initialled the closing paper work next to some mention of Adjustable Rate Mortgage), or how they paid some guy who called them and told them he could get them completely out of all of their debt and they could keep their home, cars, etc all for the bargain basement price of ~$3500 in cash. Guess what,the guy and the money where never to be seen again.

Let's not forget the brilliant plan to repeatedly take the entire pay check to the casino to win the money for the vacation/retirement/to pay the bills, etc....... That is always a good plan. :jawdrop:

Probably the most notable was when my F-I-L lost the big farm to foreclosure, he got screwed by the owner financiers that he bought the farm from, when they foreclosed after he missed 6 quarterly payments. He pulled at least a year and a half of crops off of the farm and did not pay a dime on his mortgage. Then he turned around and leased the same farm back at more than he was supposed to pay on his mortgage. Now, I am no genius but I have owned my own business, have an Engineering degree and an MBA and am pretty sure that the objective of any business is to turn a profit. When I told my F-I-L this his response was "you just don't understand agriculture". :jawdrop: Okay, I guess I missed that day in class when the Prof said that the goal of any business is to turn a profit unless it is an agriculture business.

This is just my M&F I-Ls. Stack the Sibs on and the genetic poor decision portfolio gets truly impressive.

For my wife and I it is not about being more successful it is about trying to help them avoid the incessant downward spiral in to a financial train wreck. They are all not just jeopardizing their own financial futures but are damning their kids to repeat their crappy financial decisions. To me that is insufferable.

But, we are just the rich citified relatives who are woefully lacking in common sense and just don't understand the ways of the real world.

Wow, sorry for the now going on 12hr rant.

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)

sparky's picture

"My M-I-L actually called the bank to see "if my Son's death benefit pays off what is the last possible date we can catch up on our payments and not lose the farm". Really, no shit, she actually did this. "

She must be one of the most evil witches on earth. Can we make arrangements to send her into the war zone instead of the kd?

Rags's picture

on the ragged edge of emotional stability.

I think she needs help.

But, the whole family buries their heads in the sand as far as her behavior is concerned. When their heads are out of the sand they all stand around butt naked in front of the mirror saying "don't my regal robes look wonderful" (figuratively of course) and they all chime in "Oh yes, the robes look wonderful". I refer to this as the "Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome.

It is truly sad. The hard part is that my wife and I want to help them but can not until they take steps to help themselves.

Sigh. Sad

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)

sparky's picture

She does know the son has to be dead to collect that money so basically saving the farm is more important than saving him.

Rags's picture

that she made the call to the mortgage company, but she knows what has to happen for the death benefit to pay.

She needs help but won't get it.

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)

frustrated454's picture

I am sorry for you and your wife to have to put up with them.
I have to say though your nicknames and the way you write crack me up.

Stick's picture

I am so sorry to you and your dear wife. Jealousy is an ugly, destructive monster. Not just for the ones who harbor the jealous thoughts, but also for the one who unfairly is the recipient of the "hatred".

I know your wife probably always just wants to do what's best and be around her loved ones. And I'm sure it kills her to know that her own successful presence feeds their jealousy. I'm guessing that she feels that she is, in effect, the cause of their unhappiness because she shows them "the other side".

It's a toxic situation for your wife. And one that she can not easily be free of. All you can do, is what you are doing. Limit the visits, limit the time, make her laugh, and get her a nice bottle of wine with a hot bubble bath when she comes home. Remind her of the wonderful beautiful creature that she is - as I know you probably do so well Rags!! And please let her know that her fortune is NOT their misfortune.

I cannot imagine how much of a guilt burden their jealousy causes her.

It's sad. And I'm sorry.

*** A rainbow just threw up on me... and now I'm sh*tting glitter! ***

RB's picture

OK, this does not sound normal for the Pacific Northwest family culture that I know. It just sounds like a family matter and, from what I am reading, it does sound like your wife's family is jealous of you and your wife and what the two of you have achieved in life.

Agriculture is a difficult business in the Pacific Northwest. Many people joke that they will "farm 'till they go broke". Farming is in some people's blood. It is a way of life. The smaller operations have a harder time until they find a niche and the larger operations seem to have an easier time because a niche is not necessary due to the volume of their production. To help those small agriculture operations succeed I urge everyone to buy local. Buy from your local farmers market, farmer, butcher, rancher and so on. You will find your food is of high quality and you will know where that food comes from.

Hang in there and give your wife plenty of support. Her family doesn't sound like they give her a lot of credit for all she has achieved and it sounds like she is a real "go getter". In fact, it sounds like her family members like to lay a guilt trip on her about not contributing to the family long after she grew up and moved away from home.

Rags's picture

good decision making processes. It got really interesting when my Wife went to her Niece's 5th birthday and her S-I-L and her family treated my wife like some kind of city freak leper. When I picked her up from the air port an hour and a half ago she made the comment that "apparently the whole town still considers me the girl that got pregnant at 16". It is almost as if none of them have done crap with their lives since HS and consider my wife the "bad girl' though many of them have OWL or at least conceived out of wedlock children. Interestingly my wife and her brother's wife's oldest sister graduated from HS together and has she some issue with my wife.

I will never know how the minds of toothless rednecks work.

No offense intended against the Pac NW. I was just venting.

Best regards,

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)