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AITA for "keeping score" with my family and ruining dinner? (lemmit.online)

submitted 7 months ago by bot@lemmit.online to c/bestofredditorupdates@lemmit.online

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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/LucyAriaRose on 2024-04-18 06:00:06.

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/SelfServeSporstwash. He posted in r/AmItheAsshole

Mood Spoiler: tentatively hopeful

Original Post: January 30, 2024

I (27m) am the 3rd of 4 siblings and have always felt like an afterthought. Laurie (33f), Chuck (29m), and Jade (25f) have always gotten the first and best from my parents and each other. I get the leftovers if I'm lucky. I haven't gotten a birthday present from any of my siblings in about 10 years, but I still get asked to pitch in for group gifts for each of them every year.

On Friday night we were having a family dinner and it honestly felt like every other sentence was a dig at me or a less than subtle brag by my siblings about something they have been given by my parents that I was denied. They talked about how nice almost all of our weddings were, but made sure to mention it was "ok" that my wife and I had a small low-key wedding. And it was Ok, we loved it. But they brushed over the fact that my parents paid for all of my siblings weddings... but not mine. Because somehow they couldn't afford it... because they were saving up for Jade's wedding.

They brought up how little student loans they have… because my parents helped them. All of them lived on campus at expensive 4 year schools. I lived at home and went first to a (very prestigious, very hard to get into) watchmaking school. I got paid to attend this school… so I paid rent at home. My parents paid for my tools. And I appreciate the help. I really do. But they paid 120-150k each for my siblings... they gave me 7k for tools. But to them it’s equal. When I went back to school on my own I didn’t ask for money and wasn’t offered it. When my brother went back to school they covered EVERYTHING without him even having to ask.

There were many other small moments (comments about cars and other lifestyle choices) but what made me snap was my brother and his wife mentioning their marriage being so great because they do things like spontaneous dates, like the one they had the prior Friday night. The Friday night where my parents called my wife and I last minute to cancel plans they had to eat dinner at our house because they had to watch Chuck's kids because of an "emergency". Turns out that "emergency" was a dinner for Chuck and my SIL at Texas Roadhouse. I had spent HOURS making my grandpa's ziti and meatballs with homemade marinara because its my mom's favorite.

I wanted more than anything to scream at them but instead I got up and left without saying a word and my wife followed me. when my mom called me later to ask why I left I just explained exactly why. I explained the favoritism, the unfairness, and the fact that it doesn't feel like they care about me. She didn't say much and I wasn't really looking for an explanation or an apology in the moment, I just felt like it was self evident but if she really didn't see it I'd spell it out. Evidently at least parts of what I said have been shared with my siblings because now Chuck and Laurie are furious at me and saying I ruined dinner and my mom is upset that I am hurt. They say I'm immature for "keeping score"

AITA?

Relevant Comments:

Commenter: NTA. Your siblings are keeping score as well. They use that score to belittle you every time they see you. Your parents, including your mom who is all of a sudden upset that you are hurt, have allowed that to happen. Your mom is only upset because you finally stood up for yourself and called them all out. Keep on keeping score, they certainly will.

OOP: honestly on the phone she didn't seem agitated at all, but when I started explaining everything she just kinda got... sad I guess? She got real quiet and didn't say much.

Commenter: NTA. I don’t know if this is the best solution. But, if I were you I would write everything down just like you told us. Then send it to each one of my family members in a group chat. Then block them. I would move on from a relationship with them and love them from a distance. Sidebar: Do you and all your siblings look exactly alike?

OOP: Jade is adopted… so no. But she has always been the baby and been treated as such anyway. My first draft had a lot more background but it was waaaaaay over the character limit. I look almost exactly like my paternal grandfather, I even have the same thing with my eyes where they were blue when I was born but have formed a brown ring around the outside as I’ve grown up. So there’s almost no possibility that I’m not my father’s son if that’s what you are getting at.

Jade is on my side incidentally, and she feels awful about the wedding thing, but she didn’t find out about them not paying for my wedding until about 6 months ago, which is 6 months after her wedding. She assumed that they had paid for part of my house or something, because verbally that had always been the deal. But no, I got to pay for my own wedding and my parents never honored the long standing agreement of “we have money saved for each of you and you can either use it for a wedding or anything else you want as a wedding gift when you get married”.

This is not Jades fault. She didn’t ask for any of this. She didn’t even get to plan her own wedding, my mom and Laurie did that. It was extravagant because mom and Laurie wanted it to be extravagant. Jade and her husband mostly hang out with my wife and I when they are in town. That has been a pattern for a loooong time. Family gives her stuff she didn’t ask for to I guess make up for her early childhood sucking, and it’s often at the expense of me. But since she was like 6 she’d always then share it back with me. Jade and I are fine, she shouldn’t have been responsible for policing the fairness of the adults in our lives.

Commenter: Have you straight out laid all this information in-front of your family like you told us? Or have you personally been taking all this in yourself?

I’m glad your sibling Jade is empathetic with you.

OOP: The Friday night phone call with my mom was the first time I laid more than one incident at a time out for anyone. It’s also the most thorough I’ve ever been about explaining any single incident because it’s the first time I didn’t get interrupted. We were on the phone for 1.5 hours and I was talking for most of it.

Commenter: You seem like an emotionally strong person. Sometimes when people know they can’t get to you, they can’t help but keep trying. Says more about them.

question- if you weren’t related would you even hang out with these people? You do get to choose your family, you know? Don’t worry about rocking the boat, sail your own.

OOP: I'd definitely still hang out with Jade and her husband, as well as my grandparents. But my Oma (dad's mom) already sees me more than anyone else in my immediate family and my pop-pop (mom's dad) has spent more time with me that the other grandkids since I was a child. I have autism and he almost certainly would have been diagnosed had he been born today. We both need breaks from crowds and we have similar sensory issues so we'd bail on family gatherings to go play bocce for as long as I can remember.

Mini Update/Clarification in Comments: January 31, 2024 (Next Day)

I don't know where the best place to put all this so I'm putting it here if that's ok. My first draft contained some of this info but I had to edit a lot to get down to the character limit. Some of this has been shared in other comments but I'm just consolidating in hopes this is seen and answers questions.

1**:** there is no reason to believe I am not my father's child. The list of genetic coincidences that would be necessary for that to be the case is long and not worth rehashing. He doesn't have any male relatives that could explain it either. He has one sibling, my aunt, and none of his cousins have ever been in his life, or even remotely local. I look just like my paternal grandfather. I always have. He died when my father was young but by all accounts he was a good father and is remembered fondly.

2: my younger sister has been the beneficiary of many if not most of the things my parents chose not to give to me, but she did not ask for any of that and has been one of the only people consistently trying to make it right. I mean for goodness sake she was trying to fix it when she was 6. She has definitely not seen everything, but what she has seen she has tried to correct. She is perhaps guilty of assuming the best of people and not asking questions, but she isn't heartless and getting angry at her isn't going to fix anything. We talked for a long time after I posted this. She had been told she was was contributing to a birthday gift for me every year since at least 2018. She gave money to my older sister to buy my wife and I tickets to my favorite soccer team, and then when my wife and I inevitably posted about going to games she assumed one of the games we went to each year was the gift she had been contributing money towards. There is a lot of backstory there but the gist of it is Jade and I have always gotten along well, and Jade does not participate in singling me out negatively. She and her husband spend time with my wife a...

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[–] Avoly 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

there is no reason to believe I am not my father's child. The list of genetic coincidences that would be necessary for that to be the case is long and not worth rehashing. He doesn't have any male relatives that could explain it either. He has one sibling, my aunt, and none of his cousins have ever been in his life, or even remotely local. I look just like my paternal grandfather. I always have. He died when my father was young but by all accounts he was a good father and is remembered fondly.

Next update he'll be cajoled into taking a DNA test anyway and find out that his neighbor (who looks nothing like him) is also the child of his grandfather, and his mom has been having a sordid affair with him for.....

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 3 points 7 months ago

Lol if only this was a novella. I think this is just favoritism with 3/4 kids...yeah they don't like him as a person.

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

2: my younger sister has been the beneficiary of many if not most of the things my parents chose not to give to me, but she did not ask for any of that and has been one of the only people consistently trying to make it right. I mean for goodness sake she was trying to fix it when she was 6. She has definitely not seen everything, but what she has seen she has tried to correct. She is perhaps guilty of assuming the best of people and not asking questions, but she isn't heartless and getting angry at her isn't going to fix anything. We talked for a long time after I posted this. She had been told she was was contributing to a birthday gift for me every year since at least 2018. She gave money to my older sister to buy my wife and I tickets to my favorite soccer team, and then when my wife and I inevitably posted about going to games she assumed one of the games we went to each year was the gift she had been contributing money towards. There is a lot of backstory there but the gist of it is Jade and I have always gotten along well, and Jade does not participate in singling me out negatively. She and her husband spend time with my wife and I frequently, usually just the 4 of us.

3: I was definitely favored by my maternal grandfather growing up, but its not like I got extra gifts or anything. He and I just have very similar personalities and that showed at a young age. I am on the spectrum and I feel very strongly that were he my age he'd have been diagnosed as well. We both struggle mightily with a lot of sensory things, but loud crowds and being surrounded by a lot of disparate sources of noise (like, perhaps his loud Italian family) overwhelms both of us, so both of us hide for a t least some portion of all family gatherings. Over time we started hiding together by just leaving to play bocce or locking ourselves in the kitchen to cook. As an adult he has made comments that indicate he sees that I'm not being given as much and in the last 2-3 years he has definitely given more items to me than anyone else; things he wants me specifically to have if/when he passes and that he wants me to enjoy now. That was definitely a source of tension on Friday. He is quite wealthy and my older siblings are accusing me of trying to enrich myself based on inheritance. I have no clue what his plans are and I have not, and will never, ask. Its not my business, and he has always had a pathological need to make things even. (everyone gets the same number of boxes at Christmas, with as near as possible the exact amount of money spent on each recipient) so I do not expect him to behave differently with his estate. I honestly expect that anything that doesn't go to charitable causes will be divided evenly, but I really really thinks its all going to charity.

But where my older siblings see the monetary value of his record collection and view it as a financial windfall... I just see a beautiful collection of music I get to keep listening to, I'd never sell that. They feel that I am "hoarding" the antique watches he gave me... the most valuable of which is a 60s Timex Marlin. but again, they just want me to sell them and divide the cash. First of all, they aren't valuable except in sentiment, second of all poppop is very much still alive and only gave them to me because he knows I will repair the ones I like and wear them. Selling them would be extremely rude and entitled.

They are angry that he gave me his first nice car... because it does have nominal value even now (too old to be valuable as a reliable vehicle, not old or rare or desirable enough to be a collector's item). But to me its a sentimental item. It was his "sunday" car for years and while I've had to put a lot of work into keeping it running well its in excellent cosmetic condition. My older siblings are contesting that actually I am the favorite and the very measurable and extremely generous financial gifts given to them by my parents are somehow dwarfed by their (IMO very inflated) estimation of the financial value of the gifts my grandfather has given me recently.

4: My paternal grandmother has openly favored me more and more as I've aged. Again, this is not financial and to my knowledge she isn't in a position to leave me an inheritance, not that I'd even ask that of her. There is an old clock of hers made by a local clockmaker and housed in a handmade cabinet that I used to spend hours looking at when I was really young that she actually put multiple labels inside of as early as when I was 5 or 6 saying that it belongs to me. But I didn't ask for that. I appreciate it, and I will gladly accept it if she still feels that way when the time comes, but I don't spend the time I spend with her as some sort of plot to steal her clock. I just like hanging out with my oma. She's a really funny lady, and she likes walking with my wife and I and our dogs. She stays with us in our house on holidays in lieu of staying in the guest house my parents had built for her. My siblings are under the impression that she has somehow supported me financially. Again, unless there is something I am not aware of she is very much not in the position to do this.

5: My wife and I will be meeting with my parents at some point over the next week to talk. I do not know what to expect but will be taking the time to write stuff down in preparation. I don't even know what I want from it, but I will be bringing up family therapy.

OOP is voted NTA

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 2 points 7 months ago

OOP is voted NTA

Update Post: April 11, 2024 (2.5 months later)

So, update time. About a week after that post my wife and I sat down with my parents and cleared the air. As several people suggested I wrote down my thoughts and compiled (to the best of my knowledge) a listing and full accounting of the disparity in what my siblings were given over the years and what I was given. I did actually sit down and do the math and it turns out that while I was at the Technicum I actually paid my parents more in rent than they ever paid for my tools. But the final reckoning came to between ~$370k on the high end (Jade) to ~$190k on the "low" end (Chuck) for how much my parents directly gave to my siblings that they never gave me. Sitting down and seeing the full amount all spelled out like that is probably the angriest I got during this whole mess.

My parents had been aware there were discrepancies but really pushed back on the actual amounts until we sat down and went through each major gift/incident case by case, by which point my dad admitted my reckoning was likely conservative. That was more or less the end of any productive talk that night, my dad just claimed they didn't think it had gotten that bad but wouldn't give any details about how they could have possibly not noticed.

In the interim Chuck and Laurie continued to escalate their anger, continued to call and text me, my parents, and extended family. I have not spoken to either of them directly since and don't expect to any time soon.

Roughly a week after that first sit down my mom and dad asked to meet again. Lots was said but the gist is this: they felt I was doing well and didn't need their help. Basically they thought I would be fine without them. They admitted they probably live outside their means and gave more to my older siblings than they should have and could never have given me that much. They claim the timing of my wedding lined up with probably the most dire of their overspending/lack of saving and that they literally did not have the funds to live up to their promise, especially as they were paying for Jade's tuition, car, and apartment at that time. They have offered money, they have offered to pay for vacations, a car, all kinds of stuff but I think they don't really get it yet. My wife and I don't want their money, but we aren't really sure yet what an ideal resolution to this looks like. At least they have admitted they were unfair and are open to working things out.

My wife and I spent Easter with Jade and her husband and my grandparents, my mom and dad came over in the evening. This seems to be more or less the new normal for now.

Relevant Comments:

I bet they'll ask you for monetary help with end of life costs:

That’s a bit of why I don’t want to accept any gifts from them right now. As it currently stands if nothing changed about our relationship between now and when they retired I wouldn’t feel any guilt about leaving them on their own (although I’d bet anything Jade and her husband would make sure they didn’t become destitute). I just really don’t think I’d be in a position to be guilted into helping them. If I let them pay off my mortgage though… I know they would try and use that as leverage. I know them too well not to know that’s what they’d do.

Right now I don’t wish any ill on them… I just wouldn’t step in to help them, at least not monetarily. They spent recklessly, I think they still spend recklessly. I don’t think any of my Pop Pop’s frugality or understanding of being poor made its way down to my mom. I think she doesn’t remember when she was really little and his company hadn’t taken off yet, or if she does she refuses to take any lessons from it. I don’t think they have robust retirement savings, and I don’t trust them to live frugally even if they do. I fully expect them to be broke within 5 years of retiring, and I don’t want them to have a way to try and guilt me into helping.

I know Chuck and his family aren’t going to feel like they are in a position to help (even if they are. They make great money but always complain about being “broke”. By no definition are they broke, they just have expensive tastes and trashy friends) and unless there is a mending of fences Laurie will likely be too mad at them for “babying” me by doing the bare minimum and listening to my grievances that she will be glad to see them suffer. Especially if she doesn’t think there’s going to be anything for her to inherit I really truly think she would discard her own parents without a second thought if they blew through “her” inheritance.

More on Jade and the birthday gifts:

I don’t really have time to address everything but the birthday thing with Jade was addressed in comments on the first post. The short version is she and her husband had been giving Laurie money (and a really size able amount of it it turns out) every year to buy my wife and I tickets to see the Union play. Then, when we inevitably posted pictures of us at games she assumed that at least one of those games was the gift. She even pointed out one of my instagram posts last year explicitly called it a birth gift, I didn’t specify it was my gift from my wife and to be fair the comment Jade left on it at the time in retrospect very much reads like she was glad I was enjoying her gift to me. So the reality is Laurie was just straight up stealing a couple hundred bucks from Jade every year for at least 5 years.

I love Jade and her husband, and they are very sweet… but they are very naive. Both grew up wealthy, both grew up spoiled, and neither has any real sense of how much things cost. They just genuinely thought tickets to a Union game cost multiple times over what they really do and didn’t blink when Laurie asked for money for my birthday gift every year. Jade and her husband are not speaking to either of my siblings now. They were both genuinely astonished to hear I hadn’t been getting gifts from my siblings. Fun side note they took my wife any I to a game this spring and paid for everything, unprompted, and not thinking it made up for everything, they just wanted to do a nice thing.

I will not pretend Jade is perfect or that you can’t tell she’s been overly spoiled, but my god does she try hard not to be entitled. She and her husband do well financially in their own right and they share freely. I know she got a leg up, but it’s not fair to begrudge her that, she didn’t ask for it and she has never rubbed it in my face, unlike Chuck and Laurie. She is mortified at how uneven things are, Chuck and Laurie are mad it’s not continuing.

Are your parents aware that Laurie has been stealing from Jade?

They are. I know they are still in contact with her and her family as well as with Chuck and his. Laurie and Chuck are the two that have given them grandchildren and I don’t want or expect my parents to turn a cold shoulder to them. I don’t intend to pry into their relationship. My parents know what Laurie did, how they want to approach it is their business. In the meantime my own relationship with my parents is strained and pretty low contact and I’d rather focus on that.

I don’t really have any real relationship with either of my older siblings and I can’t see myself ever caring enough to try. If either of them has a come to Jesus moment and genuinely wants to make things right they know where to find me.

One more thought from OOP on not wanting money from his parents:

I believe if I let my parents give me money, which I'm not even sure if they have, they will consider us "even" and not actually address the fact that even without the money I was treated differently. Until I have reason to believe the offer of money is coming from anywhere other than an attempt to get back into my good graces and buy my forgiveness I'm not interested. My wife and I both work and earn good money. We are by far the least well off of my family but we are comfortable and we have savings (and retirement savings... which may be more than can be said for the others except Jade and her husband).

I don't see or speak to my parents as much as I used to and so far that's been fine by me, if they want to actually self reflect and try and make amends I am very open to it, but not until they acknowledge the non monetary favoritism as well.

Do your grandparents know?

My grandparents are fully caught up. They already knew it was skewed. Part of why I’m not overly concerned with “settling the score” for lack of a better phrase is that I have now been told in no uncertain terms I will come out of this better off. I know now that any relationship with my brother or older sister is almost certainly beyond repair. I’ve accepted that. I think letting my parents ease their conscience by throwing money at the problem will only lead to them not actually taking accountability for their actions.