There are times on here when I’m so glad I have recorded petty grievances, because if I hadn’t, new developments would make them seem even pettier, more convoluted, and harder to explain, It’s better to record everything so when new insight comes to light, analysis is easier.
In general, in life, I have a very, very, very long fuse. I don’t generally get mad at people. I usually look the other way about small disagreements, and assume the best from people. I don’t really pay attention to perceived slights from others, and I’m mostly happy with my friendships. I have a long fuse, but on the very few occasions when that fuse is spent, after years of either abuse or neglect, I am fine walking away. Once someone crosses a line, I can abandon ship without worrying about it, or even giving it a thought, because at that point the act is so egregious, and the person has bared their ass to such an embarrassing and irredeemable degree, that I no longer care.
I’m at that point with my SIL, L******. I never really thought I’d get here because I don’t care that much to begin with, but recent developments have shown me who she is. She’s not as harmless as I previously thought.
I was dishing with my nail tech today. She also does the nails of the mother of the bar mitzvah boy, S***** who I mentioned in the last post. My nail tech was doing a little digging about the whole out-of-town gift bag situation. She knew I worked hard on the bags, and she was investigating to see if this was S******’s way of micromanaging me. (I never really thought that, but I appreciate her investigative spirit.)
In the course of the conversation she had with S******, my nail tech said that S****** denied trying to micromanage me, and seemed truly grateful for the gift bags I made. (She did seem grateful.) But S****** revealed that my SIL, L******, had mentioned to her that the $200 Venmo that she sent to my husband—instead of to me—had been on purpose. As in, she intentionally Venmoed his account and not mine because he had “paid for everything in the gift baskets.”
Well I guess he did pay for everything in the baskets, seeing as how I don’t have a job. So why ask me about it at all? Why not go directly to him?
This, dear reader, was what led me to the end of my fuse.
First, let’s go over the text exchange:
L****** (a propos of nothing): Hi, Twinkle. I wanted to reach out and see if I can contribute/help with hospitality bags for J*****’s bar mitzvah. I can send some items to you or split costs. Whatever works best.
Me: That is super sweet! I have already gotten everything and didn’t keep track of costs. You can Venmo me whatever you want and I’ll let S****** know you wanted to be part of it. (Three heart emojis)
L******: Okay. Sorry I’m late to the game. Have any inkling of cost? Anyone else help out?! How many bags were there?
Me: There are 28 bags and I’ve got a Diet Coke, water, a Chips Cookie, a mini Sissy Cake, a box of assorted candy in J*****’s color palette, and a salty snack.
L******: Fun ! Does $200 sound okay?
Me (not needing help—being GRACIOUS): Perfect! Thank you!
L******: Done!
Me (twelve minutes later, not seeing the Venmo come through, send her my Venmo info)
L******: Oh crap. I already Venmoed [husband]. That ok?
Me: (crying emojis, laughing emojis) It’s ok.
—-
Ok, so I thought it was sort of funny and I assumed the best intentions—as I always do. It was slightly annoying, but it’s all going to the same place so I didn’t make a big deal. It would have been nice to have $200 of fun money in my Venmo account, but at the end of the day it’s either going to my nail tech or housekeeper, and if it doesn’t come from my Venmo account, it’s coming from the bank account that I share with my husband, so it’s not like I can’t get to that $200 just because she Venmoed it to him and not me.
However, hearing that she intentionally sent it to him and not me—and the fact that she discussed this with our mutual friend S******, who discussed it with my nail tech, is hugely insulting and enraging, and it has resulted in me being at the end of my fuse with her. Suddenly, I see that she’s not all sweet and harmless. She’s not an understanding ally who also faces persecution to a lesser degree from my overbearing MIL (the way I have mentally framed things these last few years). She’s just as much of a sinister bitch as my MIL has always been, and now I can’t unsee it. I can’t go back. The fuse is gone and there’s nothing left.
Here are my problems:
1). She said my husband “paid for everything.” We both took pride in the gift bags and brainstormed them together. He went and got the Sissy Cakes because it was fun for him to visit the UK coach’s mom’s business. He coordinated that one small part of it—and I appreciated it— but *I* did the bulk of the work, including physically putting each Sissy Cake into each bag, along with the rest of the contents that I organized and procured. I wanted to do this, because, again, I care about the bar mitzvah boy and I also have fun with creative projects. I suspect she knew all this, as implied by the fact that she reached out to me at all about it. For her to reduce this work to a monetary amount—that she cut me out of—when I spent a lot of time and energy on it was an insult. To text me about what help I might need and intentionally then go around me with the money part of it feels gross.
2). I do actually have a business account where I keep my money from selling my fabric pattern designs and other items. I make significantly more than zero dollars from this each month. I theoretically could have used some of these funds to pay for items that went into the baskets. It’s possible I did, and if I did, a replenishment of $200 would have meant a lot more there than it did in the real bank account. If L****** had ever bothered to get to know me, asked me a question about myself, or paid attention to what I’m interested in, she might know this about me. Instead, she just made assumptions about who paid for the items. Our accounts are not her business, and it wasn’t right of her to assume. I’d never discuss any of this with her, but if she tried to know me better in these twenty years I have been married to her brother, she might know about this little side hustle of mine. If she actually cared, she would know that I could have contributed monetarily, too.
3). Possibly the worst and most hurtful aspect of this is that she didn’t assume good intentions from me. She texted ME, and she said she would Venmo ME, and then she Venmoed my husband because…did she assume I would steal the $200, or hide it, or go off and have too much fun with it, never telling my husband about it? When it happened initially, I was slightly annoyed, but laughed it off because I assumed the best of intentions from her. It never occurred to me that she would try to keep it from me and then discuss her reasoning with a mutual friend.
It really feels like this family doesn’t assume the best of intentions from me. And they don’t try to get to know me. They simply do not care about me. I actually wear a necklace with a cross that that says the letters IC XC NI KA—it’s an ancient Christogram that means “Jesus Christ conquers death.” I wear it right in front of their faces because I know they won’t ask me what it means, because they’re not interested in anything about me. And they never have. They. Do. Not. Care. Today SIL went from being a boring and beige sort-of ally, to someone I no longer trust. She clearly doesn’t trust me with the $200 I never asked for in the first place, and only accepted to be nice. She doesn’t consider me an equal member of the family. So the fuse is gone, and I’m not even sad. She exposed herself, and now I know who she is: one more person in this family who treats me as less than. I’m honestly glad, because once someone burns through my fuse and pushes me past the point of caring anymore, they no longer have the power to hurt me.
