There's no way to ruin a good relationship quite like having it ruined by your guy's family (as well as, in part, by your own).
Elton and I dated for almost a year, and the last three months of it were over the summer. It was long distance on account of the fact that we went to school together, but I was from Boston and he was from Harrisburg.
For those of you who haven't done it before, long distance sucks a fat long cock. Elton and I would talk on the phone three times a day, and he would start to resent me for taking up so much of his time. We argued a lot on the phone as a result. Because of this, my parents were threatening to take away my cell phone (way to go guys-- make a girl miss her man even more by cutting off all contact with him).
Lucky for me, Elton had invited me to come with him and his family to California, where his grandparents lived. It was supposed to be a fun time; but it wasn't.
The day that I got there, everyone left to pick up Elton's sister from the airport, besides me and his grandparents. I was a little jet-lagged, and so I wanted to rest a little bit. The problem? His grandparents thought that they were alone, and Elton's grandmother took the opportunity to yell at her husband at the top of her lungs for a good 30 minutes, on account of the fact that he has Alzheimer's and makes mistakes such as turning the wrong lights on and off.
Welcome to California, indeed.
The next day, we went out for the day and had a pretty good time. The trouble came around dinner time, when Elton's mom started freaking out. Apparently we were going to a fancy restaurant for dinner, and she had failed to tell us about it until after I had gotten dressed that morning. I was not dressed appropriately for the restaurant, but I had brought clothes to change into. What had been a fine solution that morning was no longer okay, and his mom told me that I had to change my shirt IN THE CAR. WITH HIS WHOLE FAMILY IN IT.
I refused, because that was really not okay.
Even Elton's sister was horrible. Elton's mom had taught me how to knit before, but I had forgotten how to do it. I was trying to do it again, and Elton's mom had told Elton's sister to help refresh my memory. After awhile, she just sighed and said, "Mom, she just doesn't remember. She should watch videos on Youtube to learn how to do it."
Um, excuse me. I never said that I was the knitting queen. Your snottiness is unappreciated, bitch.
What's more, Elton and I were having an argument about how much the BART was costing us. The BART is ridiculously expensive compared to the public transportation in other cities. In Boston, one ride costs me $1.75, and I can go anywhere through the whole T system. In San Francisco, the BART costs are based on how far you go, with sky-high prices: a ride one way costs $4 each time. With the ridiculous amount of times that Elton's parents had told us to BART back to his grandparents' house, when they wanted to stay out later and would just drive back, I was really frustrated and had already spent about $60 on public transportation.
Anyway, apparently Elton's sister had heard us fighting. When the grandmother asked her where we were, Elton's sister said, "Oh, they're in the basement fighting."
First of all, it would have been one thing if the grandmother had heard us fighting. But she hadn't. Second of all, why would you tell your grandmother that your brother and his girlfriend are fighting?
Again, what a bitch.
As you can see, Elton's family is pretty lousy. I also had to deal with them being stupid on the occasion that I visited them at their house in Harrisburg for the weekend once.
As soon as I got there, his mom started bitching about how messy their house is (um, I don't really care about a messy house) and made Elton start cleaning it.
...Ok, if you were going to make him clean it, why wouldn't you have done that BEFORE I got there? I just drove 8 hours to see my boyfriend, and now you're making him clean the fucking house. Great.
Later, we discovered that it was Free Cone day at Friendly's, so we decided to go there. The only problem? When we went to tell his parents that we were going, they didn't let us go because "we hadn't told them about it ahead of time" even though we had just found out about it.
I've also had to deal with his mom shouting at Elton and his dad while I was in the same room. I guess it runs in the family... but really, I didn't come so far to be treated like this.
As if to make up for her horrible behavior, every time I saw Elton's mom, she would always give me a gift of some kind. This made me really uncomfortable. I didn't want a gift each time, and I certainly didn't want that to be the basis for liking Elton's family.
Moral of the story: NEVER date a guy who's family you can't stand. It just will not work.
I once read on a web article that if you don't like you man's friends, then you shouldn't be with the guy.
ReplyDeleteI think that applies here because if you don't like his family at all, then you are going to suffer ever time you have to deal with them... which will be a lot.
The sister's attitude can be attributed to Teenage angst if she's the right age. Fortunately, most people grow out of it.
Yes, I very much agree with what you've said. The family reunions and visits and such would probably be frequent enough that I would get completely stressed out and unhappy. Needless to say, I'm glad that Elton and I eventually split.
ReplyDeleteAs for the sister, she was actually almost ten years older than Elton and me-- she was almost thirty. I have no idea why she was acting that way, but she certainly did act like a teenager.