This past weekend Jason and I flew out to Seattle to visit my brother and sister-in-law. We stayed in a hotel and got a rental car, so we wouldn't have to be dependent on D&J (brother and sis-in-law). Saturday evening my brother picked Jason and I up from downtown to go see a sunset, one of the things I really wanted to do while there. Afterwards D was taking us back downtown to drop us off and we asked him to stop at a Wendy's so we could go to the bathroom. We offered to get him something (thinking a Coke or a frosty) and he asked us to get him a meal - and he waited in the car.
While inside the following texts were sent to me:
D: She didn't stop talking
D: Jason hasn't said 3 sentences
(I figured out he thought he was sending the texts to Jenn - maybe answering a question she asked?)
C: You dork I'm buying your dinner.
D. Oh ;)
I got back in the car and he tried to laugh it off. I was angry (I've been an emotional mess for the last week so a lot of raw emotions were right there at the surface and I just couldn't let it go.) I chewed him out for bad-mouthing me to his wife, and also for saying *I* didn't stop talking. He asked me one question (about what we did) and while trying to answer him he kept cutting me off and telling me useless trivial facts about buildings I don't really care about.
Jason was sitting in the back and if you know Jason, he's not usually one to join a conversation unless he has knowledge that no one else does. So I told him that was the pot calling the kettle black. I then reminded him that we could have used our free airline ticket and 3 free hotel nights anywhere in the country and we chose to use them to visit him. But by then I was wondering why I bothered. He said nothing. No apology, no defense, just dropped us off downtown. I thanked him for taking us to the sunset, said goodbye and slammed the door.
(I hate to say it but it messed up the rest of the evening and ruined mine and Jason's date night.)
The next day we were supposed to go shopping with them and then dinner, but I had such little sleep by then that I had no patience to real deal with anything. In fact, I just wanted to get the first flight out of Seattle and head home. So Jason and I went shopping by ourselves. Here's the texts that followed. I believe they'll tell the rest of the story. (And for the record, these are ALL the texts back and forth, I have not deleted or changed any of the exchange. D is the brother, J is the sis-in-law, and C is me. Jason was not part of this exchange.)
J: Are we going to see you before you leave, or shall we cancel the dinner reservations?
C (to J): Cancel the reservation.
D: Consider dinner canceled. Bye
D: We need the nice measuring cup and measuring spoon back before you guys leave tonight. Where do we meet you?
J: Please return my kitchen things to me. I need those back. The Tb is from the set that my parents got me.
C (to D): You can pick them up at the hotel after 9 tonight. Jason will bring it out to you. I won't bother you an Jenn any further.
J: btw, do u feel even a tiny bit bad about pitching in only $20 toward our $143 trip Fri?
(They asked us if they could take us on a road trip. We had no idea it was 2 hours from Seattle or how much it would cost, but they did. And for the record, we contributed more than $40 and didn't even include food.)
C (to J): You want me to feel bad? I wanted to go downtown Friday and do things on our list. If we would have known how expensive it was we would never have gone. Btw Jason gave David what he could.
J: You're a class act.
J: Didn't see u pinching pennies abt going to fancy restaurants. (We went to one seafood restaurant because we wanted local seafood. The other restaurant we ate at was a pub style and not "fancy.")
C (to D): Shuttle is taking us to the airport. Your stuff is in a white bag at the front desk.
D: Thank you, Jenn got 'em from her dad, so these means a lot. While I do value your opinions and thoughts, I hoped to hear Jason's also in a 4 way conversation.
(Still not sure what this means. Jason sat up with D both Thursday & Friday. I finally got a chance to talk to my brother Saturday and this is when he says he wants Jason's opinion in a 4 way conversation - when there were only 3 of us in the car.)
C (to D): You married a mean controlling woman and you'll end up just like Nick. Don't expect to hear from me again.
(J's mom's husband who is now a widower and quite a mess without his wife. Yes, this was harsh, but if I got to say one last thing to my brother - this is it. He defends his wife to the end, but his family knows he became a completely different person after he married her. And most of us don't talk to him anymore because of it.)
J: Thanks for the visit and for blocking us from yr FB. The favor has been returned. Look up Narcissistic Personality Disorder when u can and discover why u cannot sustain REAL relationships And also why counseling will never work for u. U have a good man with a lot of kindness and patience. Hope this one works out and tht u don't crush his soul too.
(I didn't block them from facebook, I kept them as friends but just prevented them from being able to post on my page. Also, FYI... previous husband remarried months after our divorce was final - to the woman he and I agreed he should have been with from the beginning. Yeah, I really "crushed his soul.")
J: BTW next time u want to talk at GREAT length abt your myriad upcoming pregnancy plans, make sure the listener hasn't JUST HAD TO HAVE A HYSTERECTOMY, you pathologically insensitive twit.
(Her hysterectomy was last year and they never tried to have children. Also, the pregnancy plans were about coming out to see them - which they begged me to do. Oh, and I also got chewed out by my brother when they weren't one of the first to know I was pregnant. And btw, I had had 2 miscarriages at that point and didn't see telling people if there wasn't much hope of getting past the 1st trimester.)
Some family members suspect that J has been trying to alienate D from his family. I'd say if that was her goal, she's done a great job. As if the physical distance wasn't enough (it was her idea to move to Seattle, she's from PA), there's now a pretty hefty emotional distance too. Sadly enough David complained about not having any friends in Seattle. They've been out there 8 years and he has no friends. This just breaks my heart. I made suggestions on how they could find meet people and hopefully make friends, however my suggestions were probably offensive to J and she informed me that it just doesn't work that way out there in Seattle.
If D loses his one last friend, J, I really don't know what he would do. He's burned too many bridges with family for him to return as the prodigal son. I have no idea what to do at this point or how to feel. I just know I need to stay away from them, physically and emotionally.
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