Sorry to have been cryptic. I was in a sincerely sad mood when I wrote my post. I'll try to make this brief, but I married into a family that's very domineering and suspect of any "outsiders." They do everything as an extended unit, from holidays (of course) to vacations together (not really my thing). The background: My husband lived at home when I married him (our first mistake), and his mother threatened to kill herself several times after we got engaged many years ago. She sought therapy and while she didn't jump off any bridges, she's lived to make our and her lives miserable. Her ex, my husband's father, and she have been living out a tortured relationship for thirty-plus years of on-again, off-again romance, although they divorced decades ago, and have dragged each other through court over the years. When they're on, they're happy. When they're off, they're angry if we've been socializing with the other. Worst of all, though, may be that FIL has been very critical of how we've raised our special-needs child, and at one point HE ceased speaking to US for nearly a year over it. He's also criticized DH and I about our weight, asking why had we let ourselves go (hello, stress?); and has sat in our modest home, asking when we're going to get a bigger house (not in the cards right now, not that we have any problem with our home). Whenever I'm shocked by these comments, my husband says he's just so used to his father being an idiot that he doesn't listen to him anymore. (I do take some comfort in that!) Adding to matters is my husband's brother and his wife are competitive people who've used our difficulties to emphasize their own wise decisions, i.e. their children do not have our child's problems because they were smart enough to space out their vaccinations. (This is not why my child's had issues.) My sister-in-law gamely convinced my mother-in-law to invest her entire life savings in their house, and my mother-in-law lives there and acts like the mom, so if I say, "My daughter wants to tell you about the clown she saw this week," my MIL's response is, "Well we saw a clown too. We saw lots of clowns when I took the kids [meaning her other grandchildren] to the circus." It's a one-upmanship between "her" kids and our kids. "We have that toy, too." "We've been there, too." Etc. My MIL's never forgiven me for taking her son away, and now it's affecting my kids. Her other son is now the good one because "he took me in" (took her and her several hundred grand in cash). After many years of enduring the barbs, the drama, the put-downs, it hit me a few months ago: Why am I spending any more minutes of time than necessary around these folks? Hasn't many years of this been enough? Do I do this so I can feel bad about myself? Or how I'm raising my kids? So I can feel bitter? The few times I've spoken up, it's only added fuel to the fire, ricocheting around this tight-knit family that I had a problem with something someone said, with everyone excited by the latest drama. So, I just stopped going to things, except on rare occasions. My husband is a gem of a man and father, but loathes confrontation, and this hasn't been easy on him, because of course they're circling their wagons and instead of being genuinely concerned, seem to relish this new opprtunity to find chinks in our marital armor. For my MIL it's proof I'm a bad DIL. For BIL and SIL it's evidence that they know how to handle the family and DH and I do not. For FIL it's proof that I don't like the annoying MIL. Everyone has an agenda all the time, and I'm just so tired of it. My husband and I used to complain to each other more about things, but it got tiring. After I kind of made the decision that to survive in this marriage and family, I need distance, the only problem is my husband is now in the middle. :( I'm not sure how else to continue in this family unless I expose myself less to their criticisms and drama. And I understand that for my husband to freeze out his own family, as bad as they can be at times (and they are not ALL bad--who is?) would not be fair and would create more stress for him. I can say I feel happier since I've seen them less (I posted on a rare day that I saw them). I have a good little family, a rewarding career, wonderful kids and husband, and a very good life. Since I don't see them as much and am not reminded as much in all that I and my family are lacking, I've had greater peace. But I do think my husband feels worse, and that makes me sad. Any advice for me and for us?

Another historian here, but ran away to a farm over 15 years ago. Lots of humanity on the farm and with three kids : ). Interestingly, I always considered myself a humanities type, but between the need to become an amateur biologist and botanist on a farm and our home schooling, I've found I'm much better, surprisingly so, than I (and my teachers!) thought in science and math. And if I had to do it all over again, I'd probably skip college and go work in a greenhouse! Becky

merrybookwyrm, You still have to be pretty tough, independent and determined to live out there around Orr because it is just so remote. Even with modern-day vehicles, it can take police, firefighters and medics a long time to reach you out there in the boondocks even without flooding or road washouts which just compound an already difficult situation. Western Love County, including Orr, and the adjacent portions of Carter and Jefferson County were hit really hard by this last storm. They got a lot more rain and flooding out there than we had here in southcentral Love County. There's a point where you even stop having cell phone service once you get out there, and where the fire and police radios cut in and out and have so much static that they are pretty much unusable for communication. In this day and age, it is shocking to me that there's still areas that are not so remote, mileage-wise, but that still are far enough out there that communication is spotty. Carol, I love the sunshine and it helps the garden a lot, but the heat and heat index numbers kinda take the fun out of it. We gardeners and our gardens are going to be roasting hot this week which will help plant growth but make life miserable otherwise. I've been so busy with other things, or flooded out of the garden, that I am so far behind on harvesting and canning that it isn't even funny. Today I'm going to sort, wash and freeze about 10-15 gallons of tomatoes that I can use later on to make salsa. I just don't have time to make it this week. I've already got that many frozen, so they're really piling up and still there's tomatoes piled up on every flat surface in the house. I am more behind than usual. Partly it is because of the peppers. I have hot peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, etc. for making salsa, but the sweet peppers are so far behind it isn't even funny. If I picked every sweet bell that is even half-sized, I might not get enough for one batch of Annie's Salsa. I did hold the pepper plants in cups forever during the May flooding before finally getting them planted and they are way behind everything else. The jalapenos were quicker to set fruit and start making up for lost time but the sweet bells and poblano plants are just sitting there. Apparently 33+" of rain in the last 7 weeks does not impress them at all. I've been trying to just stay caught up on making plum jelly, but last week I didn't have time to make jelly so I just extracted the juice and froze it. I can make jelly any time, but I don't like the fact that I'm stockpiling everything in the freezer. I wanted to have all the plums finished before the peaches began to ripen, and we're only 2-3 days away from the first peach harvest (if I can keep the birds out of them, which seems like a losing battle). I'm hoping to pick a day later in the week, maybe on Wed or Thurs, where I block out any and every other thing and just focus on thawing that plum juice and making all the jelly. Oh, and I have more plums to harvest sometime today. It is cloudy and there's been rain (and flash-flooding) to our southeast. The last thing any part of this region needs today is more rain. Lake Texoma's rise has slowed dramatically in the last day, so I am not sure its crest will even match the record crest that happened around June 1st. The Red River is falling fast, and everyone here is relieved by that. I never got okra, cucumbers, winter squash or purple hull peas planted, and I need to do it now or not do it at all, but I'm so distracted by trying to deal with the tomato and fruit harvest that I don't know if I'll do it. I might wait and see how the watermelons and muskmelons I planted before last week's heavy rain/flooding do. If they don't survive or quickly become diseased in the waterlogged soil, I might not bother planting anything else. At least all the cracks in the ground healed up, though I am sure the silty ones on the surface will return soon. Dawn

Wow, such wonderful wisdom, not that I'm surprised! Lynn, we are both embarking on quite the life adventure, right?? I hope I've gotten off on the right foot with being a MIL; since they met I have tried hard to stay supportive but not be intrusive. In a fortuitous life circumstance, just after they got engaged my son had to be away for professional training for 8 months, and my DIL ended up living a couple of blocks away in my own MIL's house while he was gone (my MIL is in assisted living). While he was gone I tried to invite her over for dinner at least once a week and I think that helped us bond--it also helped get her leave the office in the evening and go somewhere to consume a healthy meal, both of which she tends to ignore when she's too overworked :). Meanwhile, my son was training close to her family so he would go stay with them on the weekends. We joked it was our version of the Parent Trap. I also read a tip somewhere that I've followed-I always take my DIL's side! I never criticize my son to her, or vice versa. As far as they know I think she is right 100% of the time LOL. I will confess that it sometimes feels as if our side of the family is an afterthought which can be a bit hurtful and this from Tish really resonates: "Another thing I would say is to give your future DIL the benefit of the doubt. Some things she may do will be clueless but not malicious and sometimes there may be underlying reasons why they choose a particular course of action." I think it bothers my husband more than me, he has quite often commented that DIL doesn't confide in me, include me etc. I'm selfishly very glad I have a daughter of my own. We're super close, as DIL is with her own mom, and it reminds me that mothers and daughters share a relationship that is from the heart and can't be replaced. My own MIL was a sweetheart in most ways. Very different from me but devoted to family and I can honestly say she never once said anything nasty or unkind until her dementia caused most of her social filters to slip. She has thrown some zingers my way in the past few years ('I really hate career women") but that's not her fault. Overall though she was loving and very accepting which meant a lot especially since I lost my mother when I was 19.