ShinyGreenApple
01-02-2009, 03:05 PM
I want to :salmon: my oldest brother to infinity right now. About 16 years ago, he got married. To his ex-best friend's ex-girlfriend. What a great way to start out, right? He tried to be good and asked people what they thought of the idea of him asking Martha* to marry him. My parents said no. His pastor advised him with a resounding 'no'. And the friends he had not lost due to his relationship with her said "No way in hell, dude!" Obviously he did it anyways. To give you some idea of what this lovely 'woman' is like, imagine a thirty something Martha Stewart with a flaming, raging, permanent case of PMS. She's not a fun person to be around, constantly whining, making smug, snide remarks that are anything but funny, and slyly putting people down to their faces or in conversation with another person. Shortly after they were married and expecting their first child, they moved in with us. That lasted all of two months. They repainted the walls of the room they were staying in a lovely shade of poop brown, refused to come out and have meals with us, and would bring their dishes out and leave them on Mom's kitchen sink in large stacks for weeks on end. Martha was not working, my brother wasn't making much money, and they weren't giving my parents any kind of compensation or help for living with them.
Then they came out one day and announced that they were buying a $300 purebred Keeshound puppy. My parents saw red and in no uncertain terms told them to pack up their stuff and get out. Huge family spat ensues. My brother then comes over abruptly one day and tells Mom & Dad "If you can't accept Martha then you can't accept me." They eventually left to live with her parents in another state and we didn't hear from them for a while.
After that, we had an on-again, off-again kind of relationship with them, up until a few years ago when they were visiting us on the way to a Disney trip. Brother had to go off on some sort of Navy duty for a day or so, and left Martha and the three kids here with us. And I'll give Mom loads of credit here; I know she really dislikes this woman, and she was nothing but nice to her in that time. Depsite Martha taking two hour showers in the morning, then sitting around all day whining about this and that and refusing to let the boys go outside to play because "It's dirty outside and they might get ticks and spiders!" So we had four boys (my other brother's son lives her as a permanent resident) under the age of ten in a three bedroom doublewide and all of them possessing the pent up energy that kids of that age do. I also discovered that Martha's enormous makeup/travel/toiletry bag had broken my doorknob because she hung it there, and she also left wet towels all over the floor and inside the tub. Nephew and I went to Mom privately after Bro came back and begged her to please, please get this woman out of our house. Seeing as how she'd been considering doing just that, our requests were unnecessary but we figured it couldn't hurt to nudge her decision in the right direction anyways ;) Oh yeah, and when they came up for another visit a few years prior, one of the boys remarked "Oh, this is our witch grandmother, right Mom?"
This caused another family rift and it's been pretty touch and go since then. It's important to note that Martha divorced my brother for a short period of time and had an affair as well. Their third child looks absolutely nothing like my brother or our side of the family. Regardless of whether or not the child is his or not, Bro insists that he is and he's become a favorite child. Whenever Mom or Dad are on the phone with bro, he puts this kid on the phone. Not the other two, just this one.
We haven't seen my brother and his family since Mom asked them to leave our house those years ago, but he does call and email. The thing is, whenever he calls, he'll wish Mom Happy New Year, Mother's Day, her birthday (Yes, he does this on her birthday, for crying out loud!), but then goes on to say "But I'm still unhappy with you for how you treat Martha. You HAVE to accept her and love her. You're so mean and hateful, and she never did anything to you" and so on and so forth. He did it again last night. I thought they were having a nice convo at first, talking about what's going on with each other and the like, and then he started.
"I'm sorry I didn't send you a Christmas card or presents, but since you want Martha struck dead, I can't do that."
He hasn't sent anything like that in over ten years. We haven't gotten pictures of the kids in 5 or so. And the whole time he was on the phone with Mom, he had her on speaker and she could hear the kids giggling in the background. She hung up on him and then vented to me for an hour or so. I really had felt like picking up the other phone and asking my brother "Does it make you feel good, like a big man to call a 60 year old woman and belittle her at the holidays?!" I'm so sick of this. Mom tries to be nice, she really does. And yet Bro is constantly bringing up old family battles to gripe about. He sent her an email this morning saying that "I pray for your salvation because you obviously don't know God. Do you even know what LOVE is?" along with other mean and spiteful comments. Again, I'm sick to death of this. Why can't he just let this go instead of constantly calling/emailing and making her upset? My parents aren't exactly young and healthy anymore and he's forever causing stress. Dad tried calling him after he found out what happened, but Bro refused to answer his phone calls. Mom has sworn to not answer Bro's calls anymore.
I have good parents. Heaven knows the bullcrap they've put up with raising four kids, and now one grandchild. They loved us and gave us what they could, and this is how my stupid brother thanks them. I love my parents dearly and it just hurts me to see them upset :cry: :mad: :censored:
Then they came out one day and announced that they were buying a $300 purebred Keeshound puppy. My parents saw red and in no uncertain terms told them to pack up their stuff and get out. Huge family spat ensues. My brother then comes over abruptly one day and tells Mom & Dad "If you can't accept Martha then you can't accept me." They eventually left to live with her parents in another state and we didn't hear from them for a while.
After that, we had an on-again, off-again kind of relationship with them, up until a few years ago when they were visiting us on the way to a Disney trip. Brother had to go off on some sort of Navy duty for a day or so, and left Martha and the three kids here with us. And I'll give Mom loads of credit here; I know she really dislikes this woman, and she was nothing but nice to her in that time. Depsite Martha taking two hour showers in the morning, then sitting around all day whining about this and that and refusing to let the boys go outside to play because "It's dirty outside and they might get ticks and spiders!" So we had four boys (my other brother's son lives her as a permanent resident) under the age of ten in a three bedroom doublewide and all of them possessing the pent up energy that kids of that age do. I also discovered that Martha's enormous makeup/travel/toiletry bag had broken my doorknob because she hung it there, and she also left wet towels all over the floor and inside the tub. Nephew and I went to Mom privately after Bro came back and begged her to please, please get this woman out of our house. Seeing as how she'd been considering doing just that, our requests were unnecessary but we figured it couldn't hurt to nudge her decision in the right direction anyways ;) Oh yeah, and when they came up for another visit a few years prior, one of the boys remarked "Oh, this is our witch grandmother, right Mom?"
This caused another family rift and it's been pretty touch and go since then. It's important to note that Martha divorced my brother for a short period of time and had an affair as well. Their third child looks absolutely nothing like my brother or our side of the family. Regardless of whether or not the child is his or not, Bro insists that he is and he's become a favorite child. Whenever Mom or Dad are on the phone with bro, he puts this kid on the phone. Not the other two, just this one.
We haven't seen my brother and his family since Mom asked them to leave our house those years ago, but he does call and email. The thing is, whenever he calls, he'll wish Mom Happy New Year, Mother's Day, her birthday (Yes, he does this on her birthday, for crying out loud!), but then goes on to say "But I'm still unhappy with you for how you treat Martha. You HAVE to accept her and love her. You're so mean and hateful, and she never did anything to you" and so on and so forth. He did it again last night. I thought they were having a nice convo at first, talking about what's going on with each other and the like, and then he started.
"I'm sorry I didn't send you a Christmas card or presents, but since you want Martha struck dead, I can't do that."
He hasn't sent anything like that in over ten years. We haven't gotten pictures of the kids in 5 or so. And the whole time he was on the phone with Mom, he had her on speaker and she could hear the kids giggling in the background. She hung up on him and then vented to me for an hour or so. I really had felt like picking up the other phone and asking my brother "Does it make you feel good, like a big man to call a 60 year old woman and belittle her at the holidays?!" I'm so sick of this. Mom tries to be nice, she really does. And yet Bro is constantly bringing up old family battles to gripe about. He sent her an email this morning saying that "I pray for your salvation because you obviously don't know God. Do you even know what LOVE is?" along with other mean and spiteful comments. Again, I'm sick to death of this. Why can't he just let this go instead of constantly calling/emailing and making her upset? My parents aren't exactly young and healthy anymore and he's forever causing stress. Dad tried calling him after he found out what happened, but Bro refused to answer his phone calls. Mom has sworn to not answer Bro's calls anymore.
I have good parents. Heaven knows the bullcrap they've put up with raising four kids, and now one grandchild. They loved us and gave us what they could, and this is how my stupid brother thanks them. I love my parents dearly and it just hurts me to see them upset :cry: :mad: :censored: