[Blindtlk] Being Disrespected: How to Handle

[Carly Mihalakis]

Yes.  That is what I try to do, too.
   That is what At 05:18 AM 9/28/2014, you wrote:
>I have this happen a lot when my parents come up here.  What I have 
>learned to do, is pick your battle, let her maybe vacumn, or let her 
>organize the table, but have her tell you and christine where she is 
>putting things.
>remember, you will always be her baby, and she truely is just trying to help.
>
>-----Original Message----- From: Brandon A. Olivares via blindtlk
>Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 7:16 AM
>To: Blind Talk Mailing List
>Subject: [Blindtlk] Being Disrespected: How to Handle
>
>Hello,
>
>My wife and I are just looking for a bit of advice on how to handle 
>a difficult situation.
>
>We're both in our mid-twenties. We live on our own in her own home 
>town, about 250 miles from my own family. By all accounts, we keep a 
>nice house. It's not perfect, but it's clean enough, as confirmed 
>also by several of her family and friends.
>
>But still, every. single. time my mother comes up to visit, she 
>finds something to complain about. The worst thing is that I think 
>she believes she is doing it out of love, but on our end it feels 
>like she is being condescending and disrespectful.
>
>I've tried before telling her before she visited to please not say 
>anything because Christine worked very hard on the house to make it 
>nice for her. But still she says or does something every time, without fail.
>
>I'll provide two examples to illustrate:
>
>The first happened a few months ago when she came up to visit. 
>Christine was out somewhere, but told me not to let my mother try to 
>touch anything. I said okay. So my mother visits, and pretty soon, 
>she says the table is cluttered and wants to clean it up. I say no, 
>please don't. We have it handled just fine. But then she starts and 
>just says she's only putting some things in the end-table drawer so 
>the coffee table looked nicer. I asked her not to, but she kept 
>doing it. I figured it was just small things here and there she was 
>putting away, but when Christine looked later on, every single item 
>on the table was put into the drawer, messing up our organization 
>completely. It took us a while to put everything back in its proper place.
>
>Case #2: It was my birthday just last week and my mother came up to 
>visit. Again I asked her not to say anything, and she said she 
>wouldn't. She made a few attempts which I successfully headed off. 
>But then she said the bedroom floor had cat hair on it and needed to 
>be vacuumed, and asked if she could do it. I said no, thanks for 
>letting us know and we'll take care of it. Well five minutes later, 
>I hear the vacuum being turned on. Apparently she told Christine 
>behind my back she was going to do it anyway, and not to tell me. 
>Christine was a bit intimidated I think so didn't speak up. But it 
>was very hurtful that I specifically asked her not to, but she did anyway.
>
>The ironic part is that before we moved out here, we stayed with her 
>for over a year, and she was never a neat-freak. Her own house was 
>often worse than ours would ever be.
>
>So we're not sure how to handle it. I didn't want to make a big fuss 
>about it last weekend because it was my birthday and I didn't want 
>drama. But she might come up for Christmas and we really don't want 
>this to keep happening. Unfortunately as said, every time we mention 
>something, she agrees, but then ends up doing it anyway. At this 
>point we're tempted to just not let her visit our house, but she'd 
>be very hurt by that. But we feel disrespected and degraded, because 
>it seems like she thinks we don't know what we're doing just because 
>we're blind. I'm 26 and Christine is 24, and we're both quite 
>capable to handle things on our own.
>
>Sorry about the lengthy message, but any advice would be appreciated.
>
>Brandon
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>
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