[Blindtlk] Being Disrespected: How to Handle

[Bob Hachey]

Hello Brandon,
This is a most vexing issue. IT is sad to say that sometimes the most
difficult folks to deal with are close family members as is the case here.
Sounds to me like you've repeatedly asked your mother not to interfere here
and she keeps on agreeing not to and then just goes right ahead and does it
anyway. She probably does mean well, but IMHO, your home should be your
castle and you shouldn't have to put up with this, especially in instances
when she moves things around disturbing your organization. AS a totally
blind person, I don't think I could stand for this part.
I think it's time for a major conference between you, Christine and your
mom. I'd begin by reminding her that you love her very much and want to
continue to have her make visits to your home in the future. Then, you need
to tell her that you and Christine are extremely upset and put off by how
she continues to interfere when asked not to. You could sort of draw a line
in the sand. That is, tell her that if she does that again, she will not be
welcomed to visit for at least a year or some other specified time period.
Hopefully, this will impress upon her your desires and set boundaries for
the future.
Now, there is a risk here, such a conference could lead to a big fight. But,
if done tactfully, this could work out.
The other option is for you both to just grin and bear it. 
IF it were me, I probably wouldn't go to the mat over her doing a bit of
vacuuming or cleaning, but I would go to the mat over the times when she
moves things around on you.
Best wishes in moving forward here.
Bob Hachey 

-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Brandon A.
Olivares via blindtlk
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 8:16 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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