Anyone have friends or family members that portray their life, children, home etc in such a grand, pompous manner even though you know the true facts? BS is their middle name! I can only take these folks in small doses. Ugg!
Yes, and all I have to do to hear about their wonderful lives and accomplishments and opinions is log onto facebook!
Someone who acts this way is most likely very insecure and needs your empathy and not your annoyance. If you have to be around this person show them understanding and acceptance. Instead of focusing on how annoyed you are either ignore them or focus on making them feel more secure. Praise them when appropriate. Sympathize when they're complaining.
You cannot change them but you can change your attitude with them. Focus on making yourself happy instead of focusing on how they're acting. At the very least, ignore them.
If you don't have to be around them stay away. Small doses is the way to go.
My husband's Ex-Wife is this way and it drives me freaking batty! I truly believe she might be certifiably crazy?
She helped homeschool a child from her church for a month and she told her children she was a 'Teacher'!
She told her oldest to stop at the twin towers memorial sight,when he went to NY with us, b/c as a 'retired firefighter it was dear to her heart'...she volunteered as an EMT for a month with her local fire dept in the lil' county she lived in!
On Vetrans Day she stands up in church when they ask all the military veterans to stand to be honored...she joined the Army after my husband joined (when they were 18) but quit basic training! To this day her kids believe she is a veteran even though my husband has told them she shouldn't stand up as she didn't make it through basic training!
She lives next to a vacant lot, they do jot own it, it's just never been developed and the people she bought the house from owned it too but didn't want to sell it but told her she could use it, she tells everyone she lives on a 'farm' and wants to get lots of animals for her 'pasture'!!
She went to school to become a PA (Physician's Assistant) which is cool all by itself, a great accomplishment in it's own right...but she told her kids she is a 'doctor'!
It was VERY important to her that her boys become Eagle Scouts. She told them they couldn't get their drivers license until they got their Eagle. She did everything for the oldest so he could get his, including deciding on the Eagle Project, getting all the supplies donated and arranging all the help so he would get it b/c in all honesty w/out her help he wouldn't have gotten it. Then the other 2 boys got theirs...but she had the older 2 wait for the younger one (1 year later) to finish his so she could be the first and only Mom in her ward and our city to be a Mom with 3 sons getting their Eagle Scout at one time!
The list is endless and seriously odd...she tries everything in her power to appear better than everyone else...but the sad thing is she accomplished a lot on her own in her own right, she really doesn't need to embellish, ya know? Being a volunteer EMT is cool, becoming a PA is awesome,you don't need to be a doctor... having 3 kids who are Eagle Scouts is great, who cares if they got them all at the same time or not!
The standing up and claiming you are a veteran is disrespectful though...so is embelishing that you are a 'retired firefighter' when it comes to talking about 9-11!
My ex MIL was like this. She insisted on visiting her mother one Sunday a month, a 100 mile drive. All the while she was there she would brag about her kids. She always told everyone about their outstanding GPA, any awards ect ect ect. My ex-husband said he never understood why his cousins didn't like any of them. It was because after they left to go back home Sunday night and for about a week all they heard from their parents was 'why can't you get good grades like X or do your chores like Y or ....' The cousins felt they had to live up to an impossible standard.
My ex and my oldest daughter adored his Mom and are now 20+ years after her death find out no one else liked her, they put up with her. And my daughter can now see her grandma was an emotional and verbal abuser.
So moral of the story --- Let them brag and be a genuine pain in the ___ , in the end they will have no one because everyone can see through their line of BS.
Luckily I don't know anyone like this.
I see it on FB all the time! My best friend's SIL has a MISERABLE marriage--but you'd never know it on FB. She'll post a picture of flowers her hubby got her and put "I have the best hubby ever". She leaves out the part where he didn't come home all night and then gave her flowers to help her forget about it:)
Inmy30'salready--ha ha that was funny! I was drinking a glass of OJ when reading your post and almost ruined my blouse! Ha ha ha. She sounds like my ex-step daughter!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's been my experience that people alter the truth so that they can control the outcome. by that I mean what others think of them...your friends/family may do as such because they are ashamed.
Not quite the same situation but I have a friend for whom when you ask, what did you do this weekend, she'll say, "we just hung out" now that could mean wine tasting, a weekend away, etc etc.. but she NEVER gives details. I believe she does this because she wants to control or coerce an outcome.. which is.. what we think of her...
To that I say... a half truth is still a whole lie..
I now take her whatever she says with a grain of salt.... you just never know the complete truth of the matter...
