Posted by:
irritated&annoyed
(
)
Date: January 26, 2015 09:22PM
Have you ever known anyone who seems to need and/or expect unreasonable amounts of appreciation? My mother-in-law is this way. One or two simple, gracious, and sincere thank you's aren't enough for her. She continually fishes for more expressions of appreciation, and more compliments on how wonderful she is. It's exhausting to essentially keep patting her on the head like a child and telling her, "good girl!"
On the flip side, when we do something nice for her, she can't stop telling us thank you and how wonderful we are, over and over again. It's incredibly irritating and annoying. I don't want or need to be told five times during dinner how delicious the food is, and how nice everything is, and then told again two more times before she leaves. I hate it and count the minutes until she leaves. I dread family dinners, birthday parties, etc. because I know we'll have to take part in "the great appreciation show."
When she does something for someone, she's all too eager to tell you about it and make sure to let you know that "they were sooooo appreciative" of her. The number one thing she wants and expects of someone is to tell her thank you numerous times, how kind she is, how thoughtful, etc. It's like she does nice things for people not because she truly cares or wants to help them, but because she wants to be told how wonderful she is.
I'm not sure why she's this way, but if I had to guess I'd say it's because she has low self-esteem. She and my father-in-law are the typical, old school TBM's who believe the man is the all-important, all-knowing head of the household and the woman is basically just there to have kids and agree/support him in whatever he wants. To make matters worse, father-in-law is a very controlling, critical person who thinks he never does anything wrong but is all to quick to point out everything he thinks she does wrong.