Things with mil are going better than I expected this week. I finally just decided to let her do her thing....and thank her for doing such a great job. In turn, she's been so nice to me that I can hardly believe it....hugging me, telling dh that if he ever had an affair etc that I would move in with her (God help me) and he'd never see her again , telling dh off if he is rude to me ...... DH has been walking around very carefully this week! I think it's hysterical! DH is beside himself that his mom is constantly talking to me/taking my side now. :>

I decided (after much time and consideration...and regaining my composure) to confront crazy neighbor with the information that she had been gossipping about our family....I decided that I needed to take action and that she needed to know that I'm not going to tolerate the bs anymore.

So...I called her and asked her to take a walk. She kept going on and on about bs and I finally just very politely laid it on the line...I explained that I had heard these things from multiple sources. She became outraged at the other people for telling me, trying to bait me into being mad at them and not her. I held my ground. Eventually, she just stopped walking and apologized to me and told me that she was sorry and would not do it anymore.

I told her that I was willing to draw a line in the sand and forgive this and make it the past...that we could simply go forward with no negativity. To be clear, I was not suggesting friendship with her...just trying to make the situation more tolerable.

Her response? "So you don't hate me when my daughter is mean to your daughter?". I told her that the behavior of her 10 year old didn't influence my feelings one way or the other, but that I would only be upset with her if she continued to spread false rumors about our family. She was stuttering all over herself and I honestly felt pretty darned victorious when I got home.

The next morning though, she called me to once again tell me that the other people were wrong for telling me...and then tried to get me to be being angry with them (again) by telling me that they were all using me for this or that, etc. Then she tried to accuse me of doing the same thing she did and I simply firmly told her that it was untrue and that I wasn't going to discusss it. She started accusing Amanda of staring at her daughter's on the bus, etc, etc and said that our cat bit her cat.... She started flying into a rage about the people who had told me what she had said, demanding names, threatening to go to their homes...

blah, blah, blah.

I can honestly say that I feel a real peace about the fact that I didn't just sit around and take this even though it didn't have the desired effect. I feel really good about confronting this issue and letting her know that I am on top of this.

Mil leaves on wed. and until then, we have a lot going on. We're celebrating christmas early for her and so I'm working with the kids on finishing the gifts they are making for her, etc.

Kris[/quote]