past dealings

I'm now in California, staying at my in-laws place. They are not here yet, so we have the house to ourselves. Besides unpacking and settling in, then, I'm steeling myself against the inevitable Mormon/ex-Mormon clashes. Like my family, my husband's family has been pretty good. As far as the siblings go, his has been far, far better, in fact.

I have nothing to base my trepidations on other than past behavior of my mother-in-law. And since past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior...

Incident 1: When I was still quite devout, Jack Mormon brother-in-law and his never-Mormon now-wife had a baby. Mother-in-law approached me from my opinion: Should she ask if father-in-law could bless the baby in church? Did I think that's appropriate? Being what I was when I was devout, I saw nothing wrong with that, and, in fact, that it would be a good thing to expose both child and mother to The Truth. (I'm so embarrassed now.) Baby was never blessed, thank goodness.

Incident 2: Mother-in-law had an never-Mormon tenant in the guest room. The tenant liked coffee. Naturally, the tenant placed her own coffee maker in the kitchen, as her hosts didn't have one and that's where coffee makers go. Mother-in-law explained to me that she told the tenant that if she was going to drink coffee, it would have to be in the privacy of her own room. Coffee maker must remain in the bedroom. Didn't I think that was perfectly reasonable and appropriate? At the time, yes, I did. Now, no. Live your own rules, fine, but don't extend your sense of "morality" onto others.

Incident 3: I had made my break from the church, but no one knew that yet. We were at a family reunion, and mother-in-law hoped that this would be the perfect chance to ask Jack-Mo BIL and his wife to come to church with everyone else. Go as a family, you know. Like there would be only positive pressure to come when the other two dozen people were going, too. She tried to recruit us to help ask them to come. We flat-out told her that we already arranged with them to do something fun on Sunday while everyone else would be at church. That was her first big clue that we had changed. She didn't say anything about it for six months.

Incident 4: Christmas time. She wanted more than anything to ask all of us evil apostate children to join her at church on Christmas day. Just like she had on Incidents 1 & 2, she sought confirmation from a devout member if this would be appropriate. Only this time, I wasn't the devout one, so she asked her daughter, the one we stayed with in Utah. Didn't she think it good to ask everyone to come to church? Was it too much to ask for everyone to be at church together on Christmas Sunday? Is that too big a request? Bless her heart, sister-in-law clearly stated that yes, that would be too much to ask. We didn't go. (I only just realized that I hurt my mother-in-law further by being perfectly willing to go to the non-denominational church with my never-Mormon sister-in-law. But that was on Christmas Eve, not Christmas morning. All the other churches were smart enough to have their services on Christmas Eve.)

Incident 5: Six months after Incident 3. A few days after Incident 4. Mother-in-law decides it's time for The Talk. It was terrible timing, considering we had just left a party because my husband had a migraine. But she wanted us alone, and that was the only time we were. She told us "this" would be hard, but it would be harder for us, since she had The Truth already, and we were just searching. To borrow from SML, Niiiice.

Incident 6: Over the phone, she half-jokingly asks my husband if we were going to church again. "No," he answered simply. She explained that she wanted to be able to joke about it, talk about it. I interpreted that to mean, "I want to be able to joke about your apostasy. But if you joke about my church, I'll kill you." Am I too cynical?

So, yeah, we're a little nervous about what to expect.