the proverbial In-Law.....

so my birthday was a couple of weeks ago... the big 3-5...

my husband was forbidden to buy me anything until July 30th, since that is when we will have extra money for him to spend (gotta love those 3rd paycheck months where no insurance and junk is taken out)but we went to dinner with my parents and brother and his family and it was quite a nice evening.

i received presents from my parents (a new chandelier for my dining room yay!!!!) and from my brother and SIL (an amazon gift card .. yay!!)... and i got plenty of happy birthday wishes from my friends on Facebook... to include my husband's sister that lives in Arizona... she's so nice.. :)

so for the next week, i am checking the mailbox every day... and every day after that... still looking... but nothing.

what, you might ask, am i looking for? .... a card from my in-laws.... but none comes.

I have a, ummmmm... you might call it a tense relationship with my mother-in-law... tho i get along great wiht father-in-law and love spending time wiht him and hubby... as long as Mother-in-Law is not in disagreement with whatever it is we are doing with him... which causes some friction in our household... and very little of that friction is on my end... i might not get along with the woman, but at least i try to be nice... same goes with my sister-in-law who lives with them.. i am polite as i can make myself be... and they are nice to my face, but most definitely not behind my back...

to give a little background.. aparently, in their eyes, in the 10+ years my husband and i have been together i am making him unhappy, ruining his life, and forcing him to have a dangerous job...... to name a few things.... i could go on.. but i won't....

so... back to the story... about 5 days before my birthday, we decided to tell them that we are pregnant... which is such exciting news for us that we just had to share with our family.... Father-in-Law was as happy as we are.. he could not contain his excitement... but according to my husband, his mother's reaction was less than thrilled... she actually seemed bored and not to care... which was hurtful to both of us to tell the truth... we have known for a while that she has had a less than stellar opinion of me because of my infertility issues... and it came out one time that she thinks i am ruining my husband's life because i have such difficulty making babies.......
*** this coming from the woman who was 10 miles away from the hospital when i was having emergency surgery to remove the ectopic pregnancy we had 6 years ago and refused to come be with her son so he wouldn't be sitting in the waiting room alone worrying about me... luckily my parents showed up (from 300 miles away) before i was out of surgery and they were able to calm him down....

so anyway... my birthday comes and goes... no card.. no call... not even any acknowledgement of the day... i was hurt to tell the truth... i mean, they might not be my best friends... but they are family.

i don't expect a gift... heck.. no one got b-day gifts from us this year because we just didn't have the money because of how expensive making this baby is... but a card would be nice... especially since she has always sent at least a card in the past... and we always at least send that...

i ask my husband the other day to check with his parents to see if maybe the card got lost in the mail... his father truly forgot, and he actually sounded sorry about it... but his mother knew, even mentioned my birthday to him before he did... but no hint of regret for missing it...... did she forget? did she ignore it? did she just not care?

i mean... wouldn't you be offended and hurt? i know i am.

so tonight, hubby called his parents to talk about a completely unrelated topic and casually mentioned how i had been looking for a card from them.. his mother said "no, sorry, didn't send one"... and that is it... didn't even sound sorry about it and changed the topic immediatly.... ugh i guess i am just never going to win her approval.

well my sister-in-law who lives with them, her 48th birthday is next week.. and we will definitely be sending a card.. because we are nice people like that... and to make a point.

nothing i can do about this tho... i married my husband for him, not for his family... and nothing i do will make them like me if they refuse to... at least i got one great sister-in-law in the deal ... but too bad she's in arizona...