Burning Bridges
We are officially done with my husband’s family. It is over. So, I watch my sister-in-law’s one-year-old child for basically nothing every day. I run a business full-time from home. I have a two-year-old daughter as well. They regularly don’t pick their daughter up on time. I have to take her to the doctor when she’s sick. It’s just a mess.
They have had CPS called on them for drinking problems, unsupervised children, etc. My husband’s whole family lives in the same house. His family is just…narcissistic? Anyway, I was informed this morning that one of my clients wants to do a video call tomorrow or Tuesday to talk about our upcoming project. I inform my sister-in-law that I will not be able to watch her child one of those days, but she is free to choose which one and the time.
She flips out and tells me she can’t take the day off of work, has no one to watch her, etc. I tell her she will have to figure it out; I have to take this call to pay for my daughter’s upcoming surgery (it’s minor, but it costs $2,000). Well, approximately five minutes later my father-in-law calls my husband, yelling. My husband works for my business too, so he was home.
He complains that we didn’t give them enough notice. My husband informs him that we just found out this morning and that this client is quite major. The family’s group text starts blowing up with family members yelling at me. So I did it. I told them I wasn’t going to raise their child anymore. Calling my husband and yelling while he is at work is unacceptable behavior. That’s when things really took off.
My mother-in-law tells me she is so disappointed in all of this. I informed her that I was quite disappointed in her favoritism. She pays for all her other children’s stuff, but has never given us a cent; she regularly misses my husband’s events; etc. Apparently, she blames me for everything because I spend too much time with my family (???).
I tell her that I make a concerted effort to spend equal time with both families even though she works and drinks constantly. Even when we are over there, she doesn’t interact with her granddaughter (or son) at all. And then I laid it on her: “You’re the one that canceled her first birthday party at the last minute. You’re the one that doesn’t even know her favorite color. You’re the one that didn’t know she cried when her grandfather stumbled into the vacation house, tipsy, because she was scared”.
And that is the end of that, I hope.