I have tried to talk to her about this, but it's difficult because she just denies it. I try to ignore it when she says things like this, but it makes my blood boil. I just don't really get it because I wasn't raised like that and my mum has always lead a pretty simple life herself. She did move to another city when we were adults and she's in a different social circle now, full of people much wealthier than she is. Maybe they're a bit of a bad influence.
We have an unwritten but getting to be a well worn rule in our home, it is better to have others waste their energy being mad at us then to waste our energy being at them. It is mostly used with family members.
I won't give much detail: arrgh, the more I wrote the more detail I gave, so here are the details. The 'family' wanted us to sponsor another part of the family consisting 4 members into the states. Because our life was very busy owning our own business (plus I'm retiring) and knowing how little help the family is to the family, we opted out and would not do this. There was much discussion and even hand written letters begging. But NO!
I told one family member that everyone in the family relies on my wife to do way to many things now, (she speaks the best English and they use their lack, as an excuse), if we did what you are asking, we would not have time to run our business, because there would be no help from the family.
This was passed to other family members and pissed everyone off. When a family is sponsored, you need to take care of everything from housing, food, doctor, dentist, car, insurance, school, documents, money, etc. So No! It was quiet year with the family mad at us, but then more and more contact was made. (I enjoyed the time off as did my wife, for a while)
Then out of the blue with zero mention, 1 member of this family shows up, he is accepted to at an out of state school. This family member is going to spend three weeks at the sponsors house before school starts. Everyday my wife gets a call with all the complaints about the lazy do nothing young man, how he is afraid of the dark and leaves the lights on all night, how he won't clean up after dinner, how he demands a fresh towel everyday, won't eat the meal they cook, needs something else cooked, how he spends all day on his phone playing video games, and much more. A week of daily complaints!
At the end of the first week the husband of the sponsoring pair came over and I see he is having a very animated conversation with my wife in their native language. I usually ignore most of what is going on, but after he left I ask my wife what that was about. She got a grin 1/2 mile wide and said, he apologized for the whole year of being mad at us and how he now understands what he was asking us to do.
The next two weeks there are several attempts to get other family members to pitch in and help pay for the the young man's rent, food money and school tuition, also several attempts to get other family to take in the young man for a few days, this never happens, as I said no one wants to help.
By the end of the 3 weeks they are trying to find ways to send him back to the home country. He is now at school, but I wonder how much support they will give him.
I have pointed out to my wife how unfair it is for them to commit to this and then within 3 weeks decide they don't want to. She agrees but has made it clear she does not want to hear anymore about it from her family.
I have this desire to tell them they did nothing compared to, bringing the whole family, but I won't do it.
Also during this first week, the sponsor, my wife's sister, tried to point out
SHE was the
only one that could have sponsored the young man, because she had $40,000 in the bank to prove she could handle the responsibility. My wife held her tongue and didn't point out we have savings to generate over $75,000 every year for the rest of our lives.
The apology was, as they say, priceless!
I might add, now the relatives do get it!
Topic: Relatives who just don't get it (Read 3768158 times)
