I really enjoy spending time with my in-laws, but, as with all people, there are certain traits about them that I find annoying and these are chiefly all issues I have with my mother-in-law. She spends most of her time talking up her kids, which is obviously a common thing with proud parents, and it's not as if she doesn't have anything to be proud of because her kids (my siblings-in-law) have all accomplished a lot and are each exceptional in their own ways! But many of the things she says are directly insulting to me, and I'm not sure if she's oblivious or vindictive. For example, she insults public colleges in front of Keegan and myself, knowing full well where we went to undergrad. She also makes no secret of the fact that she thinks all the public high schools except the one her kids go to are complete jokes, also knowing that I grew up in Raleigh and went to a different Wake County high school.
Last night we were at their house for dinner because one of Keegan's aunts and cousins are in town, and she's going on and on about how excellent the twins' high school is and how my youngest brother-in-law is going to go to school there next year. To start her story she said something about all the APs they offer there and it's amazing that Camden can go there because "*knowing nod* it IS the best high school in the state...!" and by this time my patience was wearing very thin and I interrupted with, "Actually, it's not.". Very blunt, very direct, very true, but very rude. They do go to an excellent school, and it's great they have access to so many neat programs, like the IB program, but just her tone was so smug and irritating that I just flat-out didn't want to sit there and listen to it anymore.
I know I need to control myself better and not say things like that, but after years of the same snide comments it's sort of hard to ignore. That, and the fact that I knew I was right. If she really thinks that public schools are not good enough and that her son could do better than me why doesn't she just say that instead of making broad derogatory comments about where I went to school/schools like where I went to school? There are plenty of other things I would like to point out to her, such as the fact that none of her 4 kids who have gone through the college application process so far were accepted into their top 2 or 3 schools (not even waitlisted), and none of them got into Duke, let alone full rides to Duke (so it's not like I'm light-years behind all of her kids, which seems to be the attitude she takes). It's taken a lot of control so far not to point that out, and I'm worried that my resolve is not going to hold. Is there a way to deal with particularly difficult people/situations in a tactful manner? For the most part we get along really well, and I'd like to think she's oblivious, not just mean. But I really can't tell sometimes... I try to think about other things when she goes on one of these spiels but usually she tries to engage me in the conversation, like she wants me to explode at her or something. It's such a stupid thing for me to get worked up over and it's not worth starting arguments, but I just can't walk away!
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