Next week Eric and I will be celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary. We have been together for 4 years. I have spent those 4 years being polite and considerate of his family. I have been loving and thoughtful. I have reached out to them whenever possible. I am a nice person and a lot of times put others before myself and love everyone. I accepted Eric's family as mine early on in our relationship. His parents also accepted me as well and I love them. His brother and sister-in-law are another story.
I am always thinking of them. Over the years I have always been friendly asking how they are how the kids have been (we have 2 newphews). I like to make conversation and don't like just sitting with people and not talking. Just ask Eric about our first date where I wouldn't shut up he didn't say much but was ok with that. So I am always trying to make small talk with them.
Now I give up. This kindness has been one-sided for too long. It should not just be on me to be the nice one and always being shunned in return. I try to make small talk and get answers from them that a teenager would give a parent. One word answers and oks and such. I am to the breaking point. Last summer we were all at Eric's parents and the boys were out in the yard playing and SIL and I were sitting on the deck. So I tried to talk to her and I got one answer and then ignored. She was just sitting watching the others play and wouldn't talk to me. So I felt like I was sitting there being ignored. Her excuse was she had a headache. Now my thought is that if you have such a bad headache you can't make polite conversation maybe you should go lay down in some quiet for a bit.
Then there was Christmas. First they never really gave me a chance to take some pics of the kids. (I am a photographer) By the time I did they did still have time to print them as cards. But they told me they had already got cards. I just kinda shrugged it off at the time it was 2 weeks before Christmas. They took their kids to Portrait Innovations the place that FIRED me. They claimed they didn't know I worked there but they knew they just didn't care.
So then it came time to celebrate Christmas as a family. They will never get together on the holiday because they want to spend their time with the kids and I respect that. So we all gathered at BIL and SIL's house on new years day to celebrate Christmas together. First when we get there they are both so busy that they can't even say hi to anyone and welcome us into their home. No hi how are you, nothing. Then they keep being so busy and it seems like the rest of us are just there to entertain their kids for a while. They decided to just have snack type foods to eat instead of sitting down and having a meal which I have no problem with. I do have a problem in that I have food sensitivities and there is a lot I can't eat. They take no consideration for this and there was basically nothing for me to eat. I picked at a couple of chicken legs but that was it. (This is not this first time I haven't had much to eat at their home, they never consider my problems with food) So then of course I am munching on too many sweets like cookies and starving by the time I get home because there was nothing else for me to eat.
Mother's day threw in the final straw. Eric and I arrived first at his parents house but our nephews were already there as they had spent a couple of days there. So we had some time to hang out with his parents and the kids before the BIL and SIL showed up. When they did I was holding their youngest and they came over and talked to him but nothing to me. They told everyone hi and gave others hugs and didn't say a word to me. So I felt like such and outcast. Then they didn't speak to me the entire time they were there and I ended up crying most of the way home because I felt like crap. It was at this time that my MIL was more informed as to the way they had been treating me and she noticed as well.
Eric asked them why they didn't talk to me or even say hi and they first acted like they didn't realize they didn't even say hi to me. Then the truth came out. They purposely decided not to speak to me because they feel like I don't know how to have a conversation.
At this point I am hurt so badly. This is not how I have ever seen family treat one another. I feel like I am not a part of the family just an outcast and I don't belong. I really don't want to be around them any more. I am done. I know the answer to the question. No I am not family.
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