Since my childhood, one thing that really bugged me as a child was how the parents of other kids blindly supported their own. If I was at fault, I couldn't rely on my parents to battle for me blindly. If the other child was wrong, I never saw their parents correct them publicly in front of me like mine did for me.
I understood their sense of fair play better as I grew up, but when I was younger, I thought they didn't care for protecting me that much. That really hurt my ego, that the behavior was never going to be good enough. As an adult, more I see how adults enable bad behavior by not nipping it in the bud. This is not just with adults with the kids they raise, but their own adult siblings and family. Where you would think that as a mother, father, son, daughter, sister or brother, you would have the leverage to speak truth to powers and guiding them to their better selves.
While how my parents correcting my behavior with tough love was a hard pill to swallow, I learnt the sense of right applied to everyone. As an adult, I fashioned my own moral compass to be, justice is blind. This made me the harshest judge of my own actions as well. I inherited the blunt tongue along with sharp words to accompany me as a prick.
In my own family, I see my spouse's sister laying claim for the validation of their victimhood. I don't entertain their personal problem complaints of marriage. I'm not in any of those marriages for me to be involved. Where I draw a line to force them to confront and solve their marital rift, I don't see that being the case from other adults with influence. Specifically, her own parents or brother. Instead of correction, they massage her feeling of being wronged constantly.
My spouse, for instance, backs his sister unflinchingly. He along with his parents have created and maintained an echo chamber for her fragile ego. This unhealthy poking and parking of noses in business they don't belong in, has just widened the rift between the couple who are adults and should be given the space to fix their own problems.
While this didn't matter for a long time to me directly, I saw the problem intensifying with time. This woman is a known pathological liar with tendency to exaggerate, project the worse of her mind onto others's actions. Instead of being the rational tongue that stops her wild fears, they are letting it run free unchecked, empowered.
The problem with creating this safe space for her stupidity is that it directly ties back the enablers to support her stupid victimhood. They no longer have a leg to rebut her, instead end up becoming her crutch for as long as they enable. Such malicious victims do not stop with just passive complaining but actively turn to them to support all kinds of mad plans and own guilt on her supposed condition being their fault.
On top of the blind support, it's their willful blindness to facts today contradict her victimhood.
In the end, both as a functioning adult, and a functioning parent, she is failed by those who should set her straight on the right path, but constantly serving as a trampoline instead of a safety net, they are making her perceptions a game and a contest of becoming sufferable.
Today, I had a quarrel with my husband about this. How It started was the way he is blind to all his sisters faults, her victim hood, her exaggeration and lies. How he never tells her she is wrong, and backs her even if she is wrong. He rebutted that he will always believe her, she is his sister. I told him that she is wrong in her so many complaints about her husband.
We don't get to pick our family, but we are very much adult when we choose who we marry. No matter how much she gripes, no one forced her into her marriage. For better or for worse, that's her life.
They refuse to learn any facts to her both sides. To them, her side is enough. To my parents in law, to open their eyes to the mistakes of their daughter is a personal reflection on their own upbringing. The alternate having done nothing less than a great job is a massive blow to their own ego. They have enabled her complaints, willingly letting her burden her unhappiness as their doing.
The brother seems to be lost. Saying the truth and doing the right thing is too hard. And it requires a thing called spine and guts.
Not one of them is able to call this self preening complaining for what it is. To be part of this family that is both cowardly, cherry picking facts to suit their echo chamber and willingness to lie preserve their facade, it's not what I was raised with.
The more I see their moral weakness, the more I want to get out of this marriage. These are not the morals I want to teach my own kids or be part of. But this is what they are. Once upon a better time, my husband shared my moral compass. Now he shares the dysfunctional one of his family. To me, this is very much a deal breaker.
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