So, You Thought Your Family Was Nuts -- The Fallout

Before we get started, I have to beg you for votes – I know, I’m sorry.   I have been nominated on Circle of Moms to be in their Top 25 Funny Mom Blog list.  This contest only runs from now until March 21^st, and I am not trying to “win” – just stay in the Top 25.  The pink button/badge thing over there on the right hand side will take you to the site.  Then you just scroll down to my blog (as of this morning, I was #17) and click on “vote.”  You can vote once every 24 hours.  So, please, don’t let me fall out of the Top 25!

This is the final post in the twisted saga of The Smiths, The Dimsdales, and Mrs. Mealy.  Writing this series has been exhausting – reliving the drama of the past 6-8 months in such a short period of time was bad.  And as fun as it is to collaborate with a friend on a post, it is incredibly frustrating to be on different schedules and to have to bow to the pressures of not just my family, but her family as well.

So, if you've been keeping up with these posts, then you know that the Dimsdales are completely nuts, the Smiths are very normal, and Mr. Mealy....well, let's talk about Mrs. Mealy and the fallout my friends have endured.

After the confrontation, the Smiths told Mrs. Mealy everything that had happened and everything that was said.  It turns out that Mrs. Mealy is as irrational as the Dimsdales. She actually had the nerve to blame the Smiths for not bowing down and cow towing to the insanity. She thought the Dimsdales had a point. She said, “Well you guys do yell a lot” as if what goes on in the Smiths marriage is any of her business or the Dimsdales, or if the Dimsdales marriage with all of its phony sunshine was somehow superior to the Smith’s brutal honesty.  She said it was ok that her daughter didn't tell the truth because...... "Well you would have been mad."  She stupidly thought the only reason the Smiths were upset was because the Dimsdales said their kid could not spend the night at their house. Dishonesty, misplacing your aggression onto children and character assassination... “Well you know they didn't mean that...” was her misguided attitude. At every turn, this horrible woman absolved her horrible daughter of any responsibility.

Mr. Smith told his mother in no uncertain terms that he was pretty much done with his sister. He made it clear to her that she had better not ever bring his kids around the Dimsdales again. A no contact policy was initiated that Mrs. Mealy tried to skirt for months.

Mrs. Mealy claimed she was getting "conflicting stories" about what was said at the restaurant sit down, however, she refused to elaborate when seriously questioned about what these conflicting details were. Instead of dealing with the issue she would throw her hands up and exclaim that she “didn't want to get into the middle of it.”  (Well it’s a little late for that!  She had plopped herself right in the middle of this mess when she perpetuated the Dimsdale’s lies for God knows how long.)  No -- she just continued to throw more fuel on the fire and then run away.

The Smith's tried very hard to make her realize that THEY had never lied to her or anyone else. They also tried to point out to her that the same could not be said for the Dimsdales. Mrs. Smith made the glass houses argument and pointed out the ironies of the situation. The Dimsdales didn't have any room to judge other people – especially about how others conduct their relationships when Mr. Dimsdale couldn't even keep his pants on at church. Yet, Mrs. Mealy repeatedly sided with her daughter and would not hear any of it. She dismissed the Dimsdales from any responsibility in the matter again and again saying they didn't have to apologize for the way they wanted to raise their kid.

Too bad she would not afford the same courtesy to the Smiths.

She continued with, "Well, I'm sorry I told you the truth....and you’re just mad you got the truth."

I would like to point out exactly how specious and infuriating these arguments are to my friend (and to ME as her friend!). First of all, no one is ever mad when they get the truth, but people are always mad when they find out they've been lied to. To excuse the Dimsdales from any responsibility in the matter and blame the Smiths for the Dimsdales dishonesty is totally asinine. Anybody with an ounce of common sense or a shred of decency should know that the last thing you say to anyone you have been caught lying to about something for a couple of years is “I’m sorry I told you the truth”—“I’m so sorry” would have been appropriate, but what Mrs. Mealy was saying was equivalent to “I’m sorry that I got caught lying to you.” And then she continually antagonized the situation by pushing and pushing and pushing -- what was this woman thinking manipulating and pissing off the mother of her grandchildren?

As a result of all of this behavior – criticizing the Smiths and holding up the damn Dimsdales like some sort of example of moral fortitude, Mrs. Smith did not want her kids around Mrs. Mealy at all. This grandmother -- who had probably seen her kids at least once a week since they were babies – was kept away from them for a couple of months because of her behavior. Now she gets to see them at most once a month, and rarely unsupervised for fear that she’ll sneak the Dimsdales over as soon as the Smiths drive away.

Here is what Mrs. Mealy could not get through her thick skull -- Mrs. Smith needed time to process. She needed time to be incredibly pissed and to vent about this insanity. Then maybe, possibly, she would calm down and find a way to co-exist with her mother-in-law. Her relationship with the Dimsdales was over. There was no fixing that. But after all was said and done, there was a possibility of a reconciliation with Mrs. Mealy....I say, 'WAS'.  But Mrs. Mealy wouldn't leave it alone.

First, she tried to invite the Smiths over for "a birthday dinner." Mrs. Smith flat out refused when she found out it was for the Dimsdales. Mrs. Mealy actually said “Well I can tell you’re still upset, so can the kids come?” (Uhhh nooooo!)

Then she called her son up trying to plan a camping trip with the Dimsdales. When Mr. Smith lost his temper over the psychotic BS that he was hearing (and coming from his own mother, no less) she pulled the same stunt and just asked if just the kids could come. (The answer was not just no, but hell no!)

She also tried to invite the Dimsdales to one of the Smith kids' games. Incredible.  Unbelievable. Mr. Smith had to tell his own mom that his sister was not invited to any of his children's events -- EVER.  She actually had the nerve to tell him it was a public place and the Dimsdales could show up if they wanted to. (Seriously?  Was it gonna take a restraining order??  My friend was open to the idea…)

She was told on multiple occasions and in every way possible by her own son and Mrs. Smith that their kids were not to even be in the same room with the psycho Dimsdales. Mrs. Smith in total exasperation said it was like having a retarded dog. You could teach her not to piss on the rug but you couldn't make her understand why.

She either could not stop or would not stop. She just kept poking the bear…

The last straw between Mrs. Mealy and Mrs. Smith came at a final sit down in the kitchen of Mrs. Mealy. Mrs. Mealy wanted to know what she had to do so the kids could spend the night at her house again. The answer was simple and Mr. Smith delivered it, "Don't bring our kids around the Dimsdales not even for pick-ups and drop offs. You have the right to see your grandchildren, but you do not have the right to take them around people of whom we disapprove.  Keep pushing against that and you will find yourself cut off from us and them."

Mrs. Mealy tried everything from lying at the meeting to warning the Smiths that one day they would have to answer to God for all of this. Mrs. Smith shut her down fast and said her conscience was clear before God. She had handled this whole thing like an adult – she had asked her sister in law how she could be accommodated.  She had remained calm in the face of character assai nations from the Dimsdales.  She had not reached across the table at the restaurant and smacked the Dimsdale’s faces, and she wasn’t going to let this woman make her feel guilty about being the only normal one in this situation.  She reminded this delusional woman that she had no one to blame for this but her own delusional daughter. It was the Dimsdales that chose this outcome and were now having a hard time living with the consequences of their heinous actions.

Finally, since nothing else had worked thus far, Mrs. Mealy tried to tell the Smiths that they had misunderstood everything that happened that day months back and that she had already known what the Dimsdales kid had told their kid, so that's why she told them the same thing.

HHHHHmmmmmm… so now we’re re-writing history? Is there a better way to insult someone else's intelligence? My friend was done.  Done watching this woman fall on her own sword to protect a daughter at the expense of a son and a grandson. She was done listening to this loon rewrite history because her narcissistic daughter and son-in-law made themselves look like a couple of assholes.

Mrs., Mealy finally quit speaking to her daughter-in-law -- which was probably the only smart thing she's done in all this.  There were too many conversations between the Smiths and Mrs. Mealy over the last 6 months for me to possibly recount in this post, but Mrs. Mealy's general attitude was "When are you going to get over this so we can all go back to pretending that we are a nice, normal, family?"

Well the answer was NEVER. And seriously who would?  The Dimsdale's are such a couple of self-absorbed head cases who would want to waste Christmas or any other holiday staring at them across a table of tater tot casserole and bullshit. Things were never normal in this family – they had just fooled everyone into believing the semi-normal facade. So, where did Mrs. Mealy get off asking if it was going to get back to normal?  And Mrs. Mealy was perfectly happy to participate in the delusion as long as it meant that they could have family dinners and weekend sleepovers at her house.

I, for one, thought that Mrs. Mealy was out of her mind for wanting to get the Dimsdales and the Smiths together under the same roof. It would be catastrophic to put these people in any situation where they would have to interact. The Smiths had shown great restraint at the restaurant, but no one should expect them to act that way over and over again.

This is my gift to you, dear readers -- cheaper than therapy and waaaay more entertaining. Bookmark these posts for future reference. Every time you think that your families is being ridiculous or unbearable, come back, count your blessings and thank God you are not related to people like the Dimsdales or Mrs. Mealy.

Leave a comment. I want to know what would you do if you found yourself in this situation with your in-laws. Did the Smiths do the right thing? Go too far?  Or not far enough? The Smiths believe they should raise their kids to steer clear of people who pull stunts like this and then have the nerve to deny responsibility by blaming the very people they have wronged in the first place. What do you think?

I heard one last thing about the Dimsdales that made my jaw hit the floor before I burst out laughing: guess who wants to run for public office???  Anyone want to contribute to Mr. Dimsdale’s campaign fund?

I told you I can't make this crap up!!!!