Dec 14, 2012 2:18 PM GMT
Damn, I really have mixed feelings about one, my "sister-in-law" (though not really an in-law, since my partner & I can't be legally married in Red State Florida, she's just his sister).
So OK, I had placed an order for a piano as a Christmas gift for us both, that I posted here elsewhere. I play, he sings, and I wanted to accompany him.
We're up in Boca Raton at her home, and I stupidly show her a pic of the new piano on my iPad. "That's too expensive for you," she says, "You don't play well enough for that." She's both a former opera singer and a concert pianist, and no one can poach on her territory, she's the expert on all things musical.
I was grossly humiliated, and my partner (her brother) also started to question and belittle me. When we got home I told him I'm canceling the piano order, you don't insult me like that. He can continue to drive 60 miles round trip to his sister's home for his vocal rehearsals, which is what I think she wants, what she feared I might deny her.
And then, get this, she asks me to make 20 CD copies of her own 1958 piano recital, at my expense. Which I think is a lousy performance, full of flubs. If she ever heard a recording of my own piano recital, from 10 years later in 1968 at the new Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, featuring the Schubert Wanderer Fantasy, it would kill her.
But I won't do that, it would threaten my relationship with my partner. He loves his sister, as he should. But gawd damn it, I have to endure these insults and say nothing.
Are any of you plagued by your partner's relatives? What insults have they inflicted on you that you had to accept without comment?
So OK, I had placed an order for a piano as a Christmas gift for us both, that I posted here elsewhere. I play, he sings, and I wanted to accompany him.
We're up in Boca Raton at her home, and I stupidly show her a pic of the new piano on my iPad. "That's too expensive for you," she says, "You don't play well enough for that." She's both a former opera singer and a concert pianist, and no one can poach on her territory, she's the expert on all things musical.
I was grossly humiliated, and my partner (her brother) also started to question and belittle me. When we got home I told him I'm canceling the piano order, you don't insult me like that. He can continue to drive 60 miles round trip to his sister's home for his vocal rehearsals, which is what I think she wants, what she feared I might deny her.
And then, get this, she asks me to make 20 CD copies of her own 1958 piano recital, at my expense. Which I think is a lousy performance, full of flubs. If she ever heard a recording of my own piano recital, from 10 years later in 1968 at the new Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, featuring the Schubert Wanderer Fantasy, it would kill her.
But I won't do that, it would threaten my relationship with my partner. He loves his sister, as he should. But gawd damn it, I have to endure these insults and say nothing.
Are any of you plagued by your partner's relatives? What insults have they inflicted on you that you had to accept without comment?
