I feel compelled to write about my youngest sister, Mary. I don't even know where to begin (or where to end for that matter). Mary has been calling me a lot lately. This after about 2 years of only talking to her maybe once a month. Granted for a while they didn't have a phone and now she has a cell phone with lots of minutes. But I still don't get it. I'm civil and nice to her on the phone and in person. But I don't always really feel that way about her. To be honest she drives me nuts. Matt knows that, and so does my other sister, Rachel. Rachel gets it. She feels the same way.
There are just so many things that are messed up with my relationship with Mary. And what really gets me sometimes is that she likes to act all buddy-buddy and best friends with me. That's not really the way it is. I don't tell Mary everything. In fact, I hardly tell her anything about my life. I don't, because I feel like I can't. Part of it is none of her business and there are just things that I don't want to share with her. The other part of it is that Mary doesn't listen very well. Most of the time she cares more about herself and her husband, and she completely neglects everyone else in her life. I hate that. I think that's my biggest problem with her.
Mary has been married for 2 years now. Her husband is....well, I don't know what to say about him without saying something I'll regret later. He can be nice, but most of the time he's not. He is more moody than most women. He's terribly clingy. He doesn't like my sister to have too many friends or dress too nice or look too pretty. He hates staying more than an hour at anything. This is horrible for family dinners. Mary tries to enjoy everyone's company and he goes to the other room to pout. She always goes to check on him and sometimes spends the whole time in there with him. She caters way too much to him. I mean he is her husband and all, but he usually asks way too much of her. She just goes along with it, and it drives the rest of us crazy. Long story short, he can be a real jerk and she puts up with him. I hate it. (And so does the rest of my family.)
Mary works very hard...in a factory. She has always been the bread-winner in their little family. Tony has worked for less than 1/3rd of their married life. When he's not working he's an unbelievable bear. Mary's job is wearing her down, and she's only in her early 20's. I don't want to imagine how she'll be in another 20, 30, 40 years of this. She just can't do it. Tony spends their money on stupid things and runs around with his friends all the time. (And that's all he does when he's not working.) He is currently working a decent job and has been at it for about 2 months. We're hoping that he finally keeps a job.
They just moved into a new rental house. She makes it sound pretty nice, and I hope that they can keep it and make payments. They have lived in 5 different places in the last 2 years. I don't know why. And one of those places was a tent in his friends' parents' yard. Yikes.
My parents do way too much for Mary and Tony. First they were paying for their cell phone, car insurance, and other small things. Then it was money for Tony to fix up a truck. And recently (about 5 months ago) my parents gave them their truck. I don't understand this. I'm not really jealous about it, but my parents never did anything like that for Rachel or I. They are very generous people, but I have never asked them to pay my bills. Goodness, I'm still paying my students loans, because I had to pay my way through college. Mary never even went to college.
The list goes on, but I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into coherent sentences about this. The only person who truly understands how I feel about Mary is Rachel. And she feels the same way. We can talk about Mary and agree on everything. We don't understand why our parents keep helping her out again and again. Rachel and I (and our husbands) have worked very hard to get where we are. Maybe that's why our parents don't worry as much about us. I don't know. But being friendly to Mary can sometimes be very hard.
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4 comments:
My sister could be a Mary with a few tweaks. HUG.
One day I'll blog about my sister, but you did a pretty good job summing her up with yours.
I do not like my brother in law. I wish she had been smarter in that department. Her life would be much easier today if she had taken some advice.
So the thing about family is that you love them because they're family, but you don't always like them. That sucks, but you can't pick them, so I guess that's how it has to be.
Maybe Mary has been calling so much lately because she's unhappy and is hoping in some small way to reconnect with you. Granted, her selfish ways and non-listening skills don't really help her case, but if that's all she knows now, maybe she's just trying in her own way.
Or maybe she's just trying to drive you crazy.
It sounds like Mary knows you're the stable one in her life right now (not that your parents or sister aren't stable, but maybe Mary connects with you more). It's tough to love someone so much but not be able to help them. I hope she wakes up soon and decides to make some changes in her life.
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