(Seething right now, this is long, I won't be offended if you skim...)
My wife, kids, and I were visiting her extended family last week, the first time we've seen her mother in person since my deciding to transition. We had not talked to her yet, because we wanted to do it in person. My wife also wanted to talk to a few of the closer aunts and cousins, though not to everyone. The idea was to give those people a warning and talk to them about the situation and (hopefully) convince them that this wasn't a big bad deal.
We got as far as kind of talking to her mother. She refused to listen to anything we had to say, and seemed only concerned that we not dare talk to anyone else. We would "ruin their vacation" or something. Very interesting given that she knows literally nothing about the situation except that I am transitioning, and I doubt she has any idea at all what that even means. She ignored my wife's attempts to explain that she supports me fully and is completely happy with these changes, in fact overruling those attempts and declaring that my wife had no idea whether she'd be happy with my "life destroying" choice.
She was otherwise ok, I guess, as in she didn't actually treat me or us any differently than usual. She did apparently have more than one discussion, at one point actually yelling at my wife not to talk to anyone, and that if we did she would go around apologizing so everyone knew we had gone against her wishes. (I was not there for that, which is for the best.)
Weirdness number one was that after we left, she contact my mother to discuss this (after actively refusing the attempts we made to discuss it). It was nominally ok that she did this, as we did tell her that my mom already knew, but it was very strange. Furthermore, from what she said to my mom it was clear that she had no idea what was going on. Even things she'd been told (such as my wife's complete support) she had ignored.
So my wife somehow found the grace to swallow her anger about this sort of end run, and sent a very cordial email, including a fairly detailed (I'm told) explanation of her support and a few other things. It was hard, but we did not want to cause a rift because she did not seem to have an actual problem with me, just that it would turn out badly.
She replied with a frustrating message, essentially blaming my wife for not having told her the things in that email while we were with her (as I said above, we tried very hard and were refused or ignored). She then followed up promising support, not with a very satisfying response, but something. It was enough, since she seemed mainly concerned that the future would be horrible, we knew that she'd just learn she was wrong when it didn't turn out that way.
But no, the story could not end there, could it? It would certainly make my subject line misleading.
My wife got an email from the aunt she most wanted to talk to, whom she very nearly talked to in spite of her mother's requests and intimidation. (Forces of nature intervened literally, so unfortunately it didn't happen.) In it, she mentioned that my mother-in-law had told her about our impending life changes and offering support.
What. The.
So after literally yelling at my wife demanding she not talk to anyone, without any actual information about the situation, she took it upon herself to not only out me to someone, but to interfere with my wife's relationship with her aunt. She denied my wife the opportunity to have a deep in-person conversation with someone she cares for, about something profoundly important to her. She may have given the impression that we didn't want to talk to her, or did not consider her close enough to speak with whille we were there. And there is no chance she explained anything accurately because she refused to hear any information, so she is running purely on stereotypes and assumptions.
And that's all ignoring that she outed a still closeted trans person. That's horrible, but honestly I don't care. I could accept it as pure ignorance, but in this case it is secondary to the despicable lack of respect, love, or consideration she is showing for her daughter. I am almost sick to my stomach that she could act in such a hateful way. My wife went wayyy out of her comfort zone to try to make things work, and has been reminded in a painful way why she cannot trust her mother.
I am alternating between seething with rage and sick to my stomach on the border of tears right now. How can a person do that to her daughter? What goes wrong in someone's head to make this seem like an ok way to treat someone?
(And how did her daughter turn out to be such a beautiful, sensitive, caring person?)
