The relative who keeps offering food as a test

Started 20 October 2024 · 24 replies · 269 hearts · read 4.9k times

RufusGuildford, UK · 20 October 2024

1.7 years ago

Something I have been sitting with: The relative who keeps offering food as a test Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

Anyone else navigating this? I feel as though every piece of advice I read was written for someone with a completely different week.

The arrangements are the hard bit for me. Nothing medical has been difficult; the organising has been relentless.

The social side of this is harder for me than any of the logistics, and I have not found anywhere else where that is discussed practically.

The thing I have not been able to find anywhere is how people manage this when the week has no fixed shape at all.

Thanks in advance. Practical detail welcome, however dull — the duller the better, honestly.

BessLouth, UK

Somebody here said that you do not owe anybody an explanation, including people who love you, and I have leaned on that repeatedly.

ObiLagos, NG

Bess, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

My experience is that families adjust more slowly than individuals and that the adjustment does eventually happen.

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

Two things, both boring. Nobody here can tell you what to do about your week. And describing your own week is genuinely useful to somebody planning theirs.

CormacWaterford, IE

What I did not anticipate was how much better things got once I stopped managing everybody's feelings about it as well as my own.

11me too 2

TeganNewport, UK

What helped was giving my partner something to read, so that the explaining was not all coming from me at eleven at night.

12me too 7

OmarAmman, JO

Agreed, and I have nothing to add to it.

NolwennRennes, FR

Tegan, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

I found that other people's questions got much easier once I had one short prepared answer that I used every time.

MapleToronto, CA

The hardest conversation was about money, because this costs and we share a budget and I had been quietly not mentioning it.

RuaridhFort William, UK

Picking up Maple’s point rather than starting a new one.

What helped was one honest conversation where I said what I actually needed rather than expecting him to notice.

OssieWolverhampton, UK

#10

We used to eat together in a particular way and that changed, and neither of us said anything about it for months.

NikitaYerevan, AM

#11

The thing that changed our house was me being honest about the tiredness rather than pretending I was fine and then being short-tempered.

11me too 1

RufusGuildford, UK

#12

I would gently say that a partner's worry is usually love with nowhere to go, and asking them what they are actually worried about often unlocks it.

BessLouth, UK

#13

Coming back to what Ossie wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

What surprised me was that the person I expected to be difficult was supportive and the person I expected to be supportive was not.

ObiLagos, NG

#14

My mother cooks as an act of love and my appetite changing felt to her like a rejection, and naming that out loud helped both of us.

OzrenZagreb, HR

#15

Something practical: I told my partner exactly what would help during a difficult week, in advance, in writing, and it worked.

CormacWaterford, IE

#16

That is a very clear way of putting something I have never been able to put clearly.

TeganNewport, UK

#17

My sister started too, six months after me, and it has been unexpectedly lovely to have somebody in the house who understands.

OmarAmman, JO

#18

The comments at family meals were relentless for about a year and then stopped, mostly because I stopped responding to them.

10me too 2

NolwennRennes, FR

#19

My family's reaction was the hardest part and I have had to accept that some of them are not going to come round.

MapleToronto, CA

#20

Building on what Omar wrote rather than answering the original question.

What I would say is that telling people is a separate decision from doing it, and you can take as long as you want over the first.

RuaridhFort William, UK

#21

Nolwenn has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

My partner came to a family event with a prepared subject change and deployed it three times, and it was the kindest thing.

OssieWolverhampton, UK

#22

The friction in our house was almost entirely about the changed evening routine rather than about anything medical.

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

#23

Thank you for the honesty about how hard the logistics have been. The accounts that admit the planning is exhausting are the useful ones.

RufusGuildford, UK

#24

I would say pick one person to be honest with completely. Mine was my brother and having one person who knows everything has been enough.