She's fighting with her cousins via text, so I get a few days off... :)

[formflier]

Politics and how the Bible applies or matters seems to be the subject.

FFw apparently got in some good zingers cause she was over the moon when she got home.

She laid out some bait for me which I let lie...and it didn't seem to bother her.

Easy street for FF for a few days... 

Best,

FF

[UBPDHelp]

Hi FF,

Yikes!

Are these usual topics of conversation or are other things (news) driving it?

My H is riled up, as per usual, when he sees some political issue. I have been baited more times than I can count but have learned to stay away whenever possible anymore.

He doesn’t get to the Bible too often, despite being morality police, which makes ZERO sense with many of his beliefs and actions.

MIL is more the one likely to throw religion around, but in a cherry-picked kind of way. Makes me crazy, but generally I just recognize the flaw. How can you be a good Catholic/Christian and be hateful and unforgiving?  Seems impossible to me. Yuck.

Over recent years, she’ll tell some political/religious story that is so far-fetched it’s ridiculous, and then say, can you believe it? Um, no, I can’t. I tell her when something seems so absurd, maybe she should question its validity and not just accept it as truth.  One year she told me that no school kid was allowed to wear red or green to school anymore because they symbolize Christmas and the liberals wanted all religions represented equally. What?  Some things she says are actually ridiculously funny.

Idk...tell us more. How are things today?

[formflier]

Apparently she is really proud of some zingers she got in.

Her cousin who purports to be Christian said in a text. 

"I don't care what the Bible says.."

to which my wife replies

"I agree (cousin name), it's obvious you don't care what the Bible says."

That sent the cousin into a tizzy...saying my wife meant it as an insult.

Cousin seem to dysregulate via text.  Calling my wife/lumping in with "you people" that believe the Bible aren't really Christians and Jesus wouldn't want her talking that way...

Best

FF

[UBPDHelp]

Hi FF,

I have lived some variation of this before...ha!  My H has taken to giving speeches lately.  I give it a minute for him to get it out of his system.  If he hasn’t wound down, I validate out of thin air and excuse myself. It’s exhausting. Sometimes he just tuckers himself out.

The thing that gets me about your wife’s zinger(s) is twofold — first, how did she mean it if not as an insult? And, to “excuse” kind of non-Biblical/Christian behavior by using the Bible is well, um, hypocritical...yes? No?  What do you think?  Maybe I’m not connecting what she actually said and am off the mark.

My MIL does a variation of the cousin’s “you people” sometimes.  She does often lump people/groups together and often with some condescending connotation.  Interestingly I always thought she was a bit of an a$$ when she did this, but I guess it’s kind of the black/white, all/nothing thinking. She has her good qualities so I just took these as slight flaws in her — heck, we all have them.

But my favorite is when you “discuss” politics (anything she feels strongly about) and then when you state an opposing view, she says “you’ll see”.  It’s her old school form of a mic drop. These conversations should be light debates. It took me a while to see they were more to her and haven’t had “debates” with her in 20 years.

BUT, the thing that drives me absolutely nuts about these exchanges is that she considers herself a devout Catholic but she has some of the most bigoted views on certain things and has done some pretty un-Christian like things. Now I just chuckle it off because she has no input in my actual life.

Anyway, I hope things are calming on this front for you. It’s hard not to get caught up in it and also hard to always have to find something else to do.

[formflier]

Vacations over.  FFw sent out group text saying that she was "taking a break from the haters on FB", so she would be making her comments to us via group text...

Ummm...

Best,

FF

[UBPDHelp]

I’ve got my popcorn ready...keep us posted.

Deep breaths...