So a lot has happened since my original post. I have had numerous discussions with my wife, my oldest brother S, my Dad and my Mom. There were a lot of deep conversations about the subject. Pros and cons. And some serious soul searching.
H (48), the subject of the last post has done some really messed up things this past year — no showing my oldest sons birthday and then calling an hour late with some lame excuse, saying he and his wife were showing to my younger sons birthday and he shows up acting like Melancholy Mary while his wife skipped out to go a casino (remember the money issues?). On a recent holiday, my pregnant wife was sitting down with my kids and he pulled her up and gave her a hug which is very out of character for him and my wife was like “what the fuck are you doing?” Mind you he thinks he’s gods gift to everyone around him. He showed up to my oldest son’s basketball game when he was told when I wouldn’t be there, to show up the next weekend and that it was going to be my wife there. There were many years of different things.
Every conversation is somehow geared back towards himself. Mind you, his track record is very short and it’s like he’s always trying to compete with me. It’s sad to be honest. Not once in my career, changing specialities or anything I did, he never once checked in with me, while I did when he changed jobs after 20+ years at the same place. He gets angry when called out, so you cannot have any constructive conversation with him. He chooses friends over blood (the previous discussed cookout incident), he has a better relationship with one of my friends kids I grew up with than mine. There’s little to zero effort from them (I showed up to everything I was invited to before I had kids and the only thing I didn’t was because my family had Covid). Am I perfect? No. I have my faults but I look back and even when I rented an in law basement apartment from him, I’d move in for a short time (3-6 months) and each time he’d up the rent when he saw fit (once because I had a girlfriend that would spend the night, no she didn’t shower or eat their food), of which I stopped staying with him in my off months of a winter rental and swallowed my pride and stayed with my parents for 3 months and bought a house soon thereafter.
The conversation with my mother was the most enlightening, saying he was the most self unaware person. Mind you, she is his primary defender but realizes how bad this is. She was sad about the state of his and my relationship but she understood due to all the slights and issues I’ve had with him and when they are brought up he cannot handle talking about it if it’s about him. Everything is an attack. No such thing as constructive criticism.
Also, everyone else has contacted my wife or myself in one way or another and said thank you after the dinner. Not a single thing from that family. Not a word.
Everyone is in agreement with my decision - which is low contact. My father has a condition, and I don’t want to miss any time with him for the kids and myself, especially holidays.
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