An eventful weekend

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. It was really nice having half of Friday and yesterday off.  We didn't do much on Saturday. We ran out to the property for a short visit. It had rained again Friday night and DH wanted to see how bad this is affecting the slab area's. Good grief - if they don't get these poured soon, they are going to have to end up re-prepping them.  On the way back it was later afternoon and DH was already hungry for dinner so we decided to stop at the town grocery store deli and pick up some fried chicken for dinner. Another easy dinner. I just got a 4 piece and some jo's.  They make really good chicken there, it's always really juicy. Much cheaper than stopping at the restaurant.

Sunday morning we went over to the big flea market and walked through it all (showed 1.1  miles on our phone app, haha). We didn't buy anything this year. A few things we of course liked, but $200 or more was not in our budget this year. We did come across a guy selling bear chain saw carvings that we really liked. The one we both liked best was a bear about 4' tall with a fishing pole and a fish on the end of the pole. $200. He's fairly local, so we got his card from him and will check back with him after the house is built and we are ready to spend $200 for it. It would look super cute on our back patio.  We got back home, had lunch and took a nap.

Sunday evening I let the dogs out the front door. A few seconds later they barked and I looked back out the door. Two deer were in the field across the street. So, I sat down on our porch and watch them eat for a bit, until they wandered off. I walk back in the house and hear DH talking loudly (he always talks loud on the phone) and sounding kind of mad. I was like what the heck?!  Turns out it was his brother he has not talked with in years and years. Oh great. LOL. I've been expecting this call since we moved here (he lives about an hour away). DH is pretty sure he had been drinking some, but since he hasn't had a conversation with him in 10 years (and that last time 10 years ago BIL was definitely drunk) he wasn't sure if he had been drinking or was now normally a bit confusing and irrational sounding. Mostly I think he called because he thought their dad is about to die any day (he's not). But, maybe he'd know that if he ever called and talked to his dad. DH's dad said once in awhile he gets a text from him....DH's dad is 80 years old and doesn't text.

Long story: DH has 4 other siblings. Two sis's and two bro's. One of the sis's and her DH, that we were very close to, decided for whatever reason (other than it must have been jealousy) to turn on us, very badly. They even tried to sue us and when that didn't work they tried other ways to basically try to put DH out of business and ruin our lives any way they could by lies and sneaky things.  The 6 months leading up to all this we knew they were acting very strange, but no one would tell DH what was going on, even though he asked his parents and other sister many times. Of course he had even asked the sis and her DH directly, which of course they lied and said nothing. Though we found out later DH's parents knew. When they tried to sue us, DH even showed his parents they were lying by having them listen in on a phone call with sister's husband. Sure enough, he told DH something opposite of what he had been telling in-laws. Even that wasn't enough for the family to realize how bad it was. The rest of them just said "well, they haven't done it to us" or in the case of BIL he basically said he didn't want to get involved or hear about it. No problem. We broke contact with all of his family and rebuilt our lives. We weren't going to make them choose between us and them and we knew that (and still feel this way to this day, even more so) that we do not want anyone who associates with this sister and her family to have any insight or connection to what is going on in our lives. Honestly, the sister and her dh are pure evil in our book. I have disliked people over the course of my life, but I have never ever hated anyone. I sincerely hate them.

Just before we moved here and we were trying to get a hold of our son we found out he was staying with our in laws. So, DH called his dad, so we could try to get a hold of DS. Unbeknownst to us DH's parents and his other sister had also broken ties with this sister and her DH several years earlier (but several years after we did). Guess what?! She eventually, turned on them too, just as she had done to us. We do not know the whole story of what she did. One thing we were told is that she got into the parents bank account and snooped around, trying to figure out how much money they had and where it was being spent. It sounds like she thought money had been given to us and the other siblings and not her. (it hadn't - well, it hadn't been given to us, we don't know or care if they gave any to the others over the years). This sister also told them she should be the one to inherit when they die (which totally cracks me up because there will be pennies to inherit, especially once they have to go into assisted living) because: the oldest brother got all his loans over the years written off, the next two siblings got their college paid for (they had loans) and my DH got loaned money (which we paid back a long long time ago) and she never got anything. Good grief. Not to mention she and her DH are well off, they don't even need the money.

So, the past year and a half or so we have had somewhat of a relationship again with in-law parents and DH's one sister.  DH calls his dad at least every week and we help the sister who is taking care of them in what little ways we can. The other two brothers are still in good with the bad sister (though both brothers live in this state), so we certainly haven't bothered to contact them. Neither were ever very close with DH anyway. The one brother is 7 years older and has basically been out of DH's life since DH was 11.  Not to mention he's an alcoholic and pot head. The other brother (that called DH Sunday night) is 15 months younger than DH. He moved out of the state we all lived in and back to his home town/state (where we are now) over 20 years ago. While over the years we had always stopped by to see them, if we were driving through (on our many racing trips) they never made any attempt to come and see us when they were in town.

So, BIL wants to know why DH hates him and is mad at him. DH says (several times during the conversation). I don't hate you nor am I mad at you. I am disappointed in you that you wouldn't hear/listen to what our sister did to me and my family, nor did you seem to care. DH reiterated several times that we are not having anything to do with anyone who has this sister and DH in their lives. Period. Finally, BIL asked to hear the story (which of course took DH awhile to tell). DH ended the story with them 3 times forwarding our mail to a PO Box they had set up! BIL said he didn't know any of that. Of course he didn't, he didn't want to. Then BIL tried to blame DH for their parents and the other sis not having anything to do with this sister. DH ways "whoa! that's not on me! That happened years after what she did to me and I don't even know the whole story what she did to them. All's I know is that when I called dad to try to get a hold of my son, Dad apologized to me and said now he understood what we went through because that sister had betrayed them too." I think his parents and good sis somehow thought we knew they had broken ties with her a few years earlier, but we had no clue.

This brother rarely calls anyone in the family and when he does he doesn't want to know why/what happened, anyway, so that is apparently why his parents and the good sister never told him the details either. A couple of times during the conversation he even said "I moved here to get away from you all and now two of you are here (the older brother moved back here several years ago).  DH just laughed and said it's a big state. Pretty sure we can co-exist and I have no problem leaving you alone. LOL

It sounds like this brother has a ton of "issues", especially related to their childhood. Dh doesn't remember most of it that way (though it wasn't the easiest childhood) and the few things that were kinda crappy, well he grew up and got over them.  Doesn't sound like this brother has (at 52 years of age). They did talk for over a couple of hours. Dh said later in the call he did seem to calm down (probably wore off his buzz) and seemed more rational. DH told him if he did anything in their childhood that caused him pain, then he apologizes for it. Mostly it sounds like normal big brother picking on a little brother type of stuff (I don't know I don't have any siblings to know what that's like).

I don't really know where, if at all, it will go from here with the BIL. Our lives and what is going on is not going to be passed on to anyone who can keep the bad sis apprised. And believe me, she is the type that would want to know and use it against you, if she could find a way. I know I could care less if we have a relationship with this brother and his wife. We really do not have anything in common with them. We'll see. I guess BIL mentioned getting together somewhere to have dinner, so we'll see. I could honestly care less, one way or the other if it happens.