“Good morning Mom, I just wanted to stop by and talk about the move this Saturday,” she said while walking into the kitchen. I offered her a cup of coffee and watched as she began to imagine how she would rearrange my space.
“The kids are so excited and Sadie has already decided that she wants the bed by the window in the sewing room,” she said. It bothered me that she spoke as if my sanctuary already belonged to her children.
“And my mother Gladys is so grateful because she is getting very forgetful lately,” Penelope continued with a sigh. She was using emotional manipulation to make me feel like I was responsible for her mother’s well-being.
“Where exactly are you and Randall planning to sleep?” I asked while keeping my expression neutral. She explained that they would be on a sofa bed in the living room until they could find a larger house which I knew was a total lie.
We are also going to help you with the monthly expenses because we know everything is expensive these days,” she added. I asked her exactly how much they planned to contribute and the question seemed to catch her completely off guard.
“Well, we were thinking of giving you whatever we can spare each month,” she replied while looking down at her coffee. That meant they would likely give me nothing while I paid for the increased utility bills for five people.
“Penelope, did you or Randall ever actually ask me if I wanted you to move in here?” I asked directly. She became very flustered and started fidgeting with her napkin because she knew they had completely ignored my feelings.
“Well, Randall said that you agreed and that you were very lonely living here all by yourself,” she stammered. I told her the truth which was that I was never lonely and that I actually loved my routine and my privacy.
I saw her confidence crumble as she realized that I was not the submissive woman Randall had described to her. “They did not think about me at all because they only thought about solving their own problems,” I told her firmly.
Penelope realized that they had made a massive mistake by assuming I would just go along with their plan. She argued that they had already told the landlord they were leaving and that they had nowhere else to go.
“Those are problems that you and Randall created when you made decisions for me without my input,” I told her. She left the house in a hurry and she was clearly angry that I was not cooperating with her vision for the future.
