Brother-in-law jerk
Hubby and I are estranged from his family, including his parents and siblings, sibling’s spouses, 3 nieces & 1 nephew. This started 9 years ago when we were all on vacation together at a beach house and my MIL was very unkind and impatient with me, so I left the vacation a day early with my 10 month old son. The only reason my husband didn’t leave with me was our 7 year old son LOVED his cousins and wanted to finish out the vacation. We decided me and baby K leaving early was the best compromise.
Ever since then, I’ve tried to get back on good terms with hubby’s family, but my non-negotiable requirements are I will be treated with kindness and respect. I don’t have any relationships with anyone in my life unless they are built on the foundation of kindness and respect. It took 8 years to get a genuine apology from my MIL, and now I do believe she is actually sorry for mistreating me, but I’m unwilling to move forward unless we set some ground rules via a mediator (therapist) that we are willing to pay for and that can all be done virtually on zoom meetings. The last time I met my husband’s parents was 3 years ago when I arranged to meet them at a museum (neutral territory) so they could see their grandkids, but because we hadn’t set ground rules in advance, they proceeded to tell me they don’t trust me because they think I lied. I didn’t. The entire meeting was my MIL and FIL expecting an apology from me because I somehow owed them one for not putting up with MIL’s nastiness? I’m gainfully employed, college educated, never been arrested, never smoked or done drugs, I’m 100% faithful to and I love their son and I adore the two grandsons I birthed, I’m a good neighbor, tax-paying citizen, and friend, and we live amazing lives, but they are stuck believing I’m an awful person that they think lied to them one time…. My FIL believes I told him “I am ok” the night before I left the beach house at 5:00 the next morning. He thinks I was in the living room using the land line phone. That’s the “lie”. 9 years ago we all had iPhones, and I’m confident the beach house did not have a land line. So they are stuck believing that because my FIL misremembered something he thought I said, that I should actually be OK with my MIL’s nastiness. This leaving had been building up for a long time, and I just got tired of years worth of my MIL’s judgement and snide comments. Whatever.
Anyway, my older son W is now 16 and rows for his high school crew team. Twice a year he competes at an out of town regatta that his 5-months-younger cousin M also happens to compete in for her high school crew team. We live 4 hours apart in different states. Last year, when we passed by M at the regatta, I stopped to say HI and reintroduce her to my younger son K who was then 8, but M looked very shy, so we just said HI and moved on. The most recent regatta where the cousins usually meet was yesterday and today. I feel like the universe wants us to try to get along, because with absolutely no intervention on our part, the boat trailers always seem to be very close to each other, and our hospitality tents (team food, parents seating area) also happen to be very near each other. This is at an event with 160 clubs and 791 entries, thousands of athletes. So as I passed my niece M yesterday, I said HI. She said HI back, and seemed much more confident. She’s definitely taller. I offered to reintroduce my older son, but he’s not interested, because to him she’s just a stranger (he didn’t say that to his cousin, but to me). Sad but true. However, when I asked my younger son, 9 year-old K if he wanted to meet his cousin, he said yes. My younger son K has no memory of his cousins on that side at all, and family is very important to him. I’m the team photographer so I’m often running around talking pictures while my hubby and K are at the hospitality tent. So this morning when I saw niece M getting ready to race, I asked if she wanted to meet K today, and she said yes. I said we could meet up after her race, and she told me we would meet at our school’s tent. Great. Never any judgement or pressure from me, never any questions, I’d never put her in the middle.
Well, our school placed 5th in the same heat my niece placed 2nd in, which meant our school was done racing for the day and we could start our 4 hour drive home. As we passed by their tent on the way to the car, I saw my BIL & SIL walk away. My BIL made our estrangement complete about 4 years ago because he apparently thinks I should just put up with his mother’s mistreatment of me, which is funny, because as long as I knew him before the estrangement, he hated when his mom mistreated him. So I thought I could leave a verbal message with another parent at their tent that we were leaving in case I missed M as we were headed to our car. I didn’t want M to think we didn’t want to meet with her as we had arranged, but we really did need to hit the road. So I left a message for M with a couple of other moms at their tent in case we missed her. We don’t have her phone number and we aren’t friends on socials. All we do for hubby’s nieces and nephew are send birthday cards and Xmas cards with cash. That’s all his family does for our kids. As we passed by the vendor tents, my hubby spotted M at a shop. We waited outside until she came out, then said HI, we are leaving, this is your cousin K, congratulations on your race & happy birthday (we just sent her birthday card but I’m sure she hasn’t gotten it yet). I asked if she got a car as she just turned 16, and she said her older sister and she will share a car. What I did not do and what I’ve never done: didn’t ask about her parents, her sister, her other cousins, or her grandparents, didn’t ask if she knew why we were estranged, didn’t touch her (no big hugs), didn’t even stand close - we were 5 feet apart, didn’t ask for her phone number or social media info, did not even comment on her parents or grandparents. I’ve been to enough therapy to understand that the problems between the adults in her dad’s family are not and have never been her problems, and she should never be put in the middle. I think she is a smart young lady and I hope to have relationships with each of my nieces and nephew if they decide when they are adults they would like to have kind and respectful relationships with us, their aunt, uncle, and cousins. No pressure. But being kind and respectful includes acknowledging our relationship. I’m not going to walk by and pretend I don’t know her. I’m not going to miss the opportunity to let the cousins meet when they have both expressed an interest in meeting, even if that meeting lasted all of two minutes. I am her loving aunt, and I was in her family’s life since before she was born up until she was 7 years old. I’ve tried so many times to create kind and respectful conditions where I could have relationships with all my nieces and nephew again, but unfortunately, hubby’s siblings and parents are really good at holding grudges, placing blame, and being angry, so we just stay away.
We said goodbye to M and something to the effect of ‘see you next time, happy birthday, congratulations on your race,’ when we see my BIL approaching. M disappeared quickly into the next vendor tent, and my BIL approached us saying ‘are you looking for trouble? Cause you just found it! She’s 16! What were you doing?’ BIL was ready to fight his brother! I quickly herded K away and there were harsh words, and then my husband was right behind us. This is all so strange to me because as much as we are estranged from the adults, we have always been allowed to send birthday cards back and forth to nieces and nephews, as my kids are their nephews. I’ve NEVER been unkind to my BIL or SIL. I did a lot of self help and therapy before I married my husband, and I spent the first 9 years of my marriage deliberately being thoughtful and kind to his family. I had asked BIL and SIL for help because I thought BIL might be able to convince his mom to do mediation a few years ago, but I guess that was the beginning of the estrangement between BIL & SIL & us, which is so sad. I thought they were open to therapy as their older daughter had a very positive experience going to a therapist, which I found out about while we were all on vacation together at the damn beach house!
As we walked to our car earlier today, I was shocked by my BIL’s reaction, but my husband told me he wasn’t surprised at all by his brother’s anger. Hubby says his brother was an ass the entire time they were growing up from about the ages of 8 & 10. BIL is 2 years older than hubby. According to hubby, BIL would pick fights with him just to have an excuse to beat him up, and his parents did nothing about it. I’m starting to understand more why my husband was so willing to break up with his entire family the day I left the beach house 9 years ago. I’m also so sad all over again that rather than try to mend fences, hubby’s family is digging deeper into holding a grudge against us, although both BIL & SIL have previously said I didn’t deserve to be treated unkindly by MIL. After all, they witnessed it all as they were at the beach house too.
In the infamous words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?”