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.

she wants thanked as much and as overtly as she thanks others. 'She's all for show' as we would say in the the UK.

Telling you of things she's done for others, who've thanked her profusely, is really just boasting about how wonderful other people think she is. Boasting is not good and is against scripture, but perhaps she is trying to train you to behave like others do towards her (ingrate that you must be to not worship the ground she walks on for bearing and raising your spouse)

Truthfully now, when someone is really truly grateful to you for something you've done, don't you feel a bit embarassed and say it was no bother, or a pleasure and close the thanking down a bit? I know do. Maybe its a UK V USA thing: we all think you are mental and you probably think we're retarded.

This poor woman sounds so beaten down in her marriage (like many from the baby boomer generation and generations before) that she is looking for approval from others so she can self justify her predicament. Kinda it doesn't matter if hubby is grumpy, controlling, whatever, because everyone else she interacts with loves her immensely and tells her so, thereby validating her position in life.

Life really is unfair in sooo many ways without adding religious beliefs into the mix.

Yes, low self esteem. Also, tscc puts so much emphasis on "showing gratitude," so she likely has that bug in her too.

Yes, it's low self-esteem. The key thing is that her husband is controlling and critical. So she looks for validation elsewhere. No one can bloom under those circumstances.

I tolerate their adoration.

Geez, I think I do that. I wasn't even conscious of doing it, until I read your post. And yes, I've always had very low self-esteem.

Edit: I was just thinking that she might not really be conscious of it either. You might want to gently point it out. I think for me, it's just re-living the good feeling, without realizing that it may be annoying to other people.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2015 08:47AM by Greyfort.

Um. Don't you think it could be this:

"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."

If you lived with someone like that, don't you think you'd be craving validation everywhere you turned? Wouldn't you be desperate to hear that you do actually do things right occasionally and you're not the useless fuck up your husband tries to convince you that you are?

This is just shit rolling downhill afaic. He hears it in his priesthood meetings and then he inflicts that same treatment on his wife.

Sad for all of them.