kaysventingspace

[kaysventingspace]

Family... What does that word mean to me? Glad you asked... let me tell you.

This is going to be a long one, so I suppose I should start by summarizing why I was excited to marry into what I thought at the time was a big close-knit family.  I was sadly mistaken, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

You see, growing up while my parents were still together, I was an only child. After their divorce there was a few years where I was still an only child dealing with the volatile fights of splitting custody between my parents, but that’s a story for another time and possibly a licensed professional…

Skipping ahead, eventually both of my parents remarried, and I gained a stepbrother. After a while we mutually agreed to take the “step” out of the title, he’s just my brother, my big brother, both in age and height. Seriously, the man is six-foot-four. And I am just his sister. Anyways, long story short, we hung out in the same group of friends before we even realized our parents were dating. From day one my brother assumed the protective role of me.  I didn’t complain, I relished in it.  We both grew up as only children, so finally having a sibling and one we considered a close friend first definitely made the merging of our families very easy.  Even my mom views him as one of her own, I know it sounds odd. In fact, this December, she’s accompanying me to his wedding. Weird, right?  But that’s who he is.  You meet him and you instantly love the guy.  I’m proud of him and I hope he’s proud to call me his sister.

Fast forward 21 years, we’re still there for each other even though we live an hour apart. I have two kids, a husband, a business, and I work in real estate. He lives with his soon-to-be-wife, their dog and bunny on a nice piece of property in the middle of no where close to our mom and dad.  Well, his mom, my dad – just to clarify, but I call her mom too. I know this can get confusing, so try to keep up.

Drop a comment if you need some elaboration, I’ll do my best to answer your questions.

My brother and his wife work full-time and travel every chance they get, they have no kids and financially, they did everything right. I envy them, but mostly, I’m proud of them. His fiancé is as sweet as can be and I’m excited to call her my future sister.  I wish I saw more of them, but obviously we lead busy lives, however, we talk as often as we can. Regardless of our hectic schedules, there is one thing I know I can always count on with my brother and vice versa.  If I needed him for anything, and I mean anything, he’ll be there.  He’s been my shoulder to cry on, he’s been my ear to vent to, he’s dropped what he’s doing to come move me out of an ex’s house at a moments notice. He’s kept space for me and my girls to stay when we wanted to visit just for the hell of it. If I was ever in a financial bind, he would help me. I love my brother, and I consider myself lucky to have him. He’s been my best friend over the years and I, his. I’ve been his protective, sometime scary, and crazy little sister to girls he’s dated that took advantage of him. Now, none of this isn’t to say that we didn’t have our share of arguments when we lived under the same roof in high school. Also, I’m not delusional, I know I can be a pill and at times very hard to live with.  I come with my own warning label. We did get into some intense arguments, but we grew up and gained maturity and always had that foundation of friendship to fall back on, and I never questioned whether he’d be there for me. I also tried my best never to give him a reason or pause to depend on me.

I may have been spoiled with this kind of sibling relationship, or maybe the fact that we were friends before we knew of the possibility becoming a family made the biggest difference. But no matter what, I grew up with both of my parents drilling it into my head that family is there for you when you need them.  Family is there for you even if you don’t think you need them.  If a family member is in need, we close ranks and help where and when we can, regardless of how you came to be in that family, by blood or marriage, we’re family. That’s it, that’s just how it is. My dad being a Marine put more of a military spin on it, but the message still came across the same, you be there for your family. I grew up seeing my mom and her siblings’ interactions with each other and how they showed the same strength in their relationship with one another, you’re there for your family, even if you’re fighting, or you’re not getting along at that time, you still show up for your family.

So, when I go on with this next part, I hope I sufficed in painting the background for my excitement of being enveloped by an even bigger family and the pleasure of being surrounded by that strong sibling bond I got to experience for the past 21 years.

Did I say summarize? Oops.

Well, when I met my husband, listening to him describe his relationship with his siblings excited me. It sounded like a tight-knit trio of two brothers and the little sister they watched out for.  I was introduced to the family during a birthday party for my husband’s nephew and I got to observe them up close and personal. I got to hear their stories and meet his brother’s wife as well as his sister. They all had this rich history full of hilarious stories with each other.  Their friends that they all shared were there as well with their own kids, sounding familiar? Everyone was laughing, smiling, and splashing about.  It was like a scene from a movie. It was all playing in slow motion with a yellow filter over the whole event and Follow Me by Uncle Kracker was playing in the background.

Over the years the resentments started to make their appearances. Seeing this really put things into perspective for me and I quickly realized that the relationship between them that my husband described must have been relevant when they were all way younger and in high school or before.  Because now they had friends, wives, in-laws, and kids.  These were outside influences that helped shape their sibling dynamic into the hell it is today. The brother my husband described as independent, outspoken, creative, enthusiastic, and laid-back was based on someone he was before he married his wife. The sister my husband described as wild, outgoing, carefree, untamed, opinionated with a sprinkle of bipolar tendencies was still all those things but now tainted by a drug-induced past her family would never let her escape from. She was constantly living under the shadow of her mother’s mistakes and her brother, sister-in-law and father rarely let her out into the sun.  The father my husband painted as the strong, caring, independent, and accomplished who raised three kids on his own was overshadowed by his hoarding tendencies he hoped would fill the hole his ex-wife left decades earlier when she abandoned the four of them because of her addictions. Yes, he was still carrying, so long as he didn’t have to face the conflicts amongst his children and daughter-in-law, those times he retreated into his sea of retail therapy that he’ll one day drown under until the problem is swept under the rug for someone else to handle.

I saw a family just as dysfunctional as my own, but in drastically different ways.  Regardless of all the water under their bridges, I still held out hope that because they were blood, they would still be there for each other in times of need.  I figured that since these problems were clearly here before I came along, it wouldn’t affect the possibility of being enveloped and embraced by more people that would have my back if I needed them and without say, I have theirs, because in my eyes, that’s what family did. I was wrong. I was very, very wrong. Over the years it became abundantly clear that my husband’s brother and his wife would only contact us when they needed something, otherwise we were not to depend on them. I firmly believe that had his wife not stood in his way, my husband’s brother would have been a fantastic sibling. To this day, anytime his brother calls him to go disc golfing or just to hang out, I urge my husband out the door to go, because it’s too rare an occasion to miss out on. Ironically, the little sister that my brother-in-law’s wife warned me about repeatedly, has become the one that I view as my sister. We have had our disagreements over the years, but we have gained a mutual respect. She’s also soared out of her mother’s shadow and continues to work hard everyday to be the one apple that falls far from that tree.  

I don’t want to mislead you all here, without going into much detail, their mother has since gotten her shit together and is doing better than we all could have imagined. She must constantly work at it every day, but she’s doing great. That’s the thing about parenting, we all want to make sure our kids don’t repeat our mistakes, we want our kids to find their own path, but we also want them to do better than we did. So, I know their mom couldn’t be offended with her daughter’s resentment of the pre-destined path her mother unintentionally laid before her. If anything, she’s proud that her daughter learned from her mistakes faster than she was able to. The best thing she could have done for her children was leave when she realized she couldn’t be the mother they deserved.   

The thing is, I’m pissed off that my husband is missing out on the bond him, and his brother could have had because his wife has a twisted perception of what family should be to one another. I feel bad for my husband, it’s not fair to him because all he’s ever wanted was strong ties with his brother and sister. He’s desperate to have the security of their support the same way he would love to support them. I don’t blame him for misleading me in his original description of his siblings and father.  It’s who they were and always will be in his eyes. He described them from a time he enjoyed their company the most. His and his sister’s relationship is slightly rocky sometimes but has otherwise remained consistent and handled with grace. I still hold out the same hope for him and his brother, but so long as he continues to let his wife stand in the way, there will always be that glimmer of a rift between the three of them.

As much as I wish I could speak my peace to each of them, I can’t. Sadly, after 9 years of “being a part of the family” I still feel like an outsider, and I’m not confident that will ever change. The waters are rising under the rickety bridges I was “allowed” to build, and that bridge is swaying heavily, and after everything between me and my husband’s sister-in-law, I think I’m content with that little bridge slowly decaying under the pressures of the rising waters she’s placed there.

Besides, come December, I will have a new sister-in-law that I can’t wait to embrace into the arms of my family!  I couldn’t have asked for a better wife to take care of my big brother, and she couldn’t have found a better man to protect and cherish her. We’ll get a long fantastically so long as she lets me continue to scare the shit out of my brother when the opportunity arises. After all, I was only 14 when our parent’s got together, I still have some time to make up for to be that annoying younger sister.