My brother in law is a dick (in some ways both of them are, but J much more so and this rant is about him) and I'm just grrrr.
He and my sister have a 2 year old (nearing 3 now), and he's not super involved. He likes to play with A (my nephew), but gets annoyed when A won't just sit and watch TV for hours-- hello, he's a toddler!!! Toddlers move and play and it's healthy! I understand wanting a little down time, but how about encouraging a book? And you can't expect him to sit still with you through an entire movie. But since A was about a year and a half that's what J seems to expect. To be fair, J and S (my sister) have some assigned duties, like they alternate nights to give A his bath. But S is the one who takes him to school and picks him up every dingle day. And S works M-F while A's at daycare, but J works Sundays and has Wednesdays off, so he gets one whole day a week to himself. Yet he still does anything he can to wiggle out of his responsibilities with A-- and a lot of the time S lets him, because she knows she gives A better care than his dad does. He does almost nothing around the house and he's just very irresponsible.
Now my sister is an amazing singer. Most of my family members are musical, and a little over a year ago my dad started a band with S, our brother, and a couple of my dad's friends. S LOVED it, even though it was a strain right from the start, because being in a band meant J had to watch A for 2-4 hours every Wednesday. And J does not seem to believe that he should have to be responsible for his own kid, so that his wife can do something she loves one evening a week, even though he gets one whole day to himself to do anything he wants. In addition to practice, the band has occasional gigs-- usually 1-2 times per month. So that's another evening to either have J watch A or get a babysitter. And he complains every damn time. He texts her every 10 minutes during practice, calls during shows, pesters her to come home. (And it's not just with band stuff he does this-- he also calls or texts and pressures her to leave family gatherings, even if she has A with her, and it seems really controlling to me, but it's worst when she's doing something for herself.) So all this had been going on for a year, with S haven't to cancel last minute more and more often, and getting more and more vocal in her complaints about her useless husband. And finally, she quit the band. And I do understand, because she's a busy working mum and she gets sick of fighting with J all the time. But it was the *one* thing she had in her life that was just for her. When she quit she just said it was too much and she couldn't do it, but my dad knew full well it was J that was making it too hard.
Classiest of all, a few days after S quit the band J called my dad to yell at him, insisting "she's all yours!" Really dude?? Calling and yelling and your wife's stepdad because *you* made her miserable?
I found out about all this a couple weeks ago, but tonight I was listening to a recording of their band and it just made me so sad, because S is wonderful and I know how much it meant to her. And it just really sucks that the stress came to outweigh the fun, all because her husband can't stand being responsible one evening a week and play with his kid instead of getting high and playing video games.
_________________ "To days to come." "All my love to long ago.
I hope, we'll have more happy ever after I hope, we can all live more fearlessly...
~Jas
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