At the risk of confirming the stereotype, my family in law is much like that. It's not that they don't have respect, but most of them are just incapable of adhering to any schedual. When we meet up for christmas, you know that it'll take about 2 hours from the starting hour for everyone to show up. When we just graduated, we once helped out a relative of my wife by putting together a building application form after they ran in to some problems. We worked about 20 hours on it, charged them next to nothing, but still they didn't pay.
I myself am very considerate of others' time. Sadly, my wife suffers from the same lack of internal clock as most of her family. It has bettered over the last couple of years. If we have an appointment somewhere, we'll usually be on time. That wasn't always so though, with the worst offender, for which to this day I am still ashamed of, is us arriving on a wedding party 3 hours late. Also, if we're not meeting up with anyone but we just planned a day out, it's neigh impossible for us to leave before noon.
I guess what I myself suffer most from is that ever since my wife got pregnant for the first time, my parents can't seem to do anything right anymore towards my wife. She'll only speak badly of them, we'll have rows over them whenever we've seen them, ... It's really bad, and it's eating me as I'm continuously standing up for my parents to my wife, and for my wife to my parents. It's not that anyone's actually doing anything bad or with the intention to harm, it's just that my wife will always see stuff in a bad light. I don't know how we've gotten this far, and I sure don't know how to mend things.
travo said:What about you guys? GG, we know of your situation with an inconsiderate brother.
I think it sounds more like your in laws are hapless more than deliberately trying to screw you over. I have a friend of 25 years who is always, without fault late. He has even not showed up to places where we were suppossed to meet and I called him to find he forgot and was in bed! When we arrange to meet sometimes we give him a time an hour earlier in the hope he will show up an hour late as usual and we will arrive at that time.
Some people are like this and there is nothing you can do about it really. I hope this sister in law of yours paid you back for those train tickets.
I also have problems sleeping and waking up in time so I'm not exactly surprised that your older in laws had problems.
SupremeAC said:
I guess what I myself suffer most from is that ever since my wife got pregnant for the first time, my parents can't seem to do anything right anymore towards my wife. She'll only speak badly of them, we'll have rows over them whenever we've seen them, ... It's really bad, and it's eating me as I'm continuously standing up for my parents to my wife, and for my wife to my parents. It's not that anyone's actually doing anything bad or with the intention to harm, it's just that my wife will always see stuff in a bad light. I don't know how we've gotten this far, and I sure don't know how to mend things.
This has happened between my sister in law and my mother. I never really believed what my mother was telling me till I saw it myself. The sister in law is manipulative and is the source of most tension and aggravation regarding my brother and me and my mother. He always sides with her because he has to live with that I guess. But she is very two faced and acts kindly to your face whilst doing shit or stirring the pot behind your back.
gamingeek said:This has happened between my sister in law and my mother. I never really believed what my mother was telling me till I saw it myself. The sister in law is manipulative and is the source of most tension and aggravation regarding my brother and me and my mother. He always sides with her because he has to live with that I guess. But she is very two faced and acts kindly to your face whilst doing shit or stirring the pot behind your back.
Yeah, not quite the same though. No one involved is malevolent, it's just that my wife is very, very sensitive and has a knack for taking everything the wrong way.
SupremeAC said:Yeah, not quite the same though. No one involved is malevolent, it's just that my wife is very, very sensitive and has a knack for taking everything the wrong way.
Same.
Both my bro and wife became hyper sensitive since having kids. No one can say shit to them about their kids lest they get paranoid that they are being bad parents and cause a shitstorm argument. Of course he and her are allowed to be loud mouthed dicks about everyone else. My brothers thing is questioning the meaning of someones very life if they should dare refuse to do something for him and his wife or kids.
Speaking of inconsiderate how about my mother smoking in the house when she knows I'm coming over and that it makes me feel sick, makes my chest tight and its hard for me to even breathe around it? Despite being told about it multiple times she still does it. Or my dad using me as tech support for his technological addiction? Only he's got poor eyesight and can barely work shit yet insists on still buying and using me like a norton live assitent. Sounds petty right? Well how about when it sucks 4-6 hours out of your weekend, every weekend?
My friends... this is why you marry an orphan.
robio said:My friends... this is why you marry an orphan.
Yeah, that's what my niece did. How I envy her. 
On my brother and wifes hyper sensitivity, because no one was allowed to say anything about it, the middle child is bordering on gender re-assignment surgery.
He wants to be a girl because he likes Disney princess movies and recentely went to a part dressed up exactly like this:
Blonde wig and all. And everyone is supposed to act like it's perfectly normal. And of course this has led to him being bullied at school. Great job.
GG, I probably shouldn't go there but I do respect the boy's wishes to dress however he pleases.
And yes, they're not intentionally screwing us over, just not thinking about others or making an effort. As for the tickets, there's no way in hell she'd pay us back even if I asked. I never would have though. She changed her invitation after the fact
travo said:GG, I probably shouldn't go there but I do respect the boy's wishes to dress however he pleases.
And now the poor kid is suffering in school and being bullied because of it. All because the parents acted like it was a perfectly normal thing to cross dress and never tried to explain that boys don't usually wear skirts. They also bought him and I am not exagerating here as we counted them - 63 Barbie dolls that are piled into one plastic tub.
A lot of what I've heard about your brother is awful, but I respect their decision to let their son dress how he pleases. He may be more comfortable showing his real self than most children.
As for the bullies, the fault lies on them, not the victim, for preying on someone different from them. No one should be picked on or beaten for the way they dress.
travo said:A lot of what I've heard about your brother is awful, but I respect their decision to let their son dress how he pleases. He may be more comfortable showing his real self than most children.
As for the bullies, the fault lies on them, not the victim, for preying on someone different from them. No one should be picked on or beaten for the way they dress.
That's admirable but not practical.
Problem is the mother never had any brothers and so she raises him like he was a girl, encouraging him to be more feminine. No one is allowed to even comment on it. It's like enforced silence with threatening behaviour from both parents behind it.
My cousins, aunts and uncles all live in different countries. I feel like I missed out on a communal big family aspet growing up. I still can't get close to my cousins because they are so far away. When my aunt visited a few years ago I felt the warmth and love I'd never really had from my direct parents and unquestionably my life would have been better with her in it.
As for inconsiderte relatives, lets throw my brother and his wife back into the fray. They seem to think it's entirely acceptable and amusing for their kids to act like a wrecking crew and to not do anything about it or pay for any damage.
Their kids come over, tear pages out of books, mash up DVD cases and covers, scratch discs, throw things about and even carved a 7 inch line into the front of plasma tv. It's all fun and games though to have your precious collections torn to shreds though.
And sometimes it happens when I'm not even in the house, so aside from buying a locked cabinet...
I have had to shift everything to the highest of high shelfs but my CDs are still at the mercy of them. The parents also think, its fine for their kids to mash up and grind various foodstuffs into couches and carpets.
robio said:My friends... this is why you marry an orphan.
Plus, it guarantees you're never going to be her last priority behind her entire family.
Everyone has a fucked up family because people are just fucked up. Anyone who denies it has the most fucked up family of all.
I'm wondering how many of you may be in the same boat as me.
My sister-in-law wanted to make a brisket for us. She was going to bring her family over and wanted us to prepare the sides. She texted us and said she would be at our place by five and to have everything ready. So I prepare the sides and have everything ready a few minutes past five. They don't show. We wait and at 5:30 she texts that they will be there in fifteen minutes. At 6 pm, she says she's almost there. Meanwhile, we have two starving kids screaming that they want to eat. SiL finally arrives at about 6:10 with a half done brisket.
She's pulled the old bait and switch on us plenty of times when she's invited us for dinner, then we end up having to bring dinner over. Or invited us to a birthday party at a train station and claimed the children's train ride tickets were supposedly paid for. Until we drove there and found out this wasn't the case. She even went as far as to edit her original invitation she sent via Facebook.
My mother in law can be worse. She's flaked out plenty of times when we've invited her over, even if we have prepared meals for her. She's missed parties for her grandchildren. My mother in law stays with another sister in law and her three children. We invited them to my son's birthday party that started at 11am. They lived an hour away, so even if they slept late, they could get up at 9 or 9:30 and still make it. We get a call at about 12:30 and she said they weren't going to make. They couldn't get up in time.
I don't know, maybe I know I'm considerate of others time and their financial situation, possibly to a fault. If I have an obligation, like teaching in the evening, ill try to be at least half an hour to an hour early. Part of that is because I live too far to just go home. I certainly picked this up from my dad. He always made it a habit to show when promised.
What about you guys? GG, we know of your situation with an inconsiderate brother.