The Pattern

I took several deep breaths as I went into my garage to get a screw to fix the door. My mother had taken time to point it out on her way out, and I had intended for weeks to fix the latch, but just hadn’t taken the time. As I said goodbye to them, I figured the task would help me unfurl my tense muscles after an intense conversation.

The conversation wasn’t really that intense, but my parents had taken time out of their day to “come check on me” and visit while they were in the area, and proceeded to talk about, and even to, my older brother most of the time they were with me.

I wondered if they did the same about me to my sibling. I knew it was a no. They only speak to me perhaps once a week and never seem to ask me how I’m doing. They just talk about my eldest brother and his children, and what they have going on, making it perfectly clear whom they favor and why.

I kept my mouth shut and internalized my feelings until they left, and proceeded to fix the unscrewed latch of my storm door as they drove away. As they turned the corner I exhaled, trying to release all that negativity and those feelings as I did.

It didn’t work of course. I’m still feeling rather bitter.

I’m continuing to see time and time again that my parents seem to not really have time for my husband and I. I’ve written a little about the sort of things I’ve been seeing lately, and the discrimination I feel I’m starting to see because my husband and I are childless and intending to remain so. I see them making a lot of accommodations for my brother that he wouldn’t necessarily make for them because he has children, and quite frankly, ran much of our house since he was young anyway.

It’s not a great pattern. My brother had an anxiety disorder as a child and took a lot of our time and attention, the family is used to him instigating things. So of course, when he has a wife and children, he’s still controlling the family through the appeals to my parents emotions and his intense personality. It’s a dynamic I don’t expect to see change in my lifetime. Mainly because his children are a great incentive for my parents to do his bidding.

I don’t think my brother is intentionally doing this. I think it’s just the way things have always been and the family just falls into he pattern when he and his family are involved. My parents do what they can to accommodate him and his family because not doing what my brother said when he was younger meant the whole family suffered either form his tantrums, or other lashing out. So of course my parents don’t want to upset him or his wife, they’re terrified of him keeping them away from their Grandchildren.

The thing is my brother has done a lot of growing up, and the fear of him lashing out is considerably less now as he’s matured than when he was a child. He’s wiser, he’s made better choices, and he’s a good dad. I doubt my brother or sister-in-law would do anything like that to my parents.

Still, the pattern was set long ago, and everyone just plays into it because it’s what we are used to and what is comfortable.

Today while my parent’s visited me, my brother called, and of course my parents picked up without regard for me. They ooh’d and ahh’d over my cute and sweet little nieces. Then when they got off the phone, all they talked about was my brother and his family…and I hardly got a word in edge wise.

Why visit me just to spend a majority of it to talk to my brother? Because I’m the middle child who has always been willing and able to make concessions for my older brother and his anxiety disorder…which he claims not to have anymore, but still has the control issues of.

It’s the pattern.

My youngest brother is getting married, and as the day draws nearer and nearer, I keep rolling my eyes at my parents for the bending over backwards they’re doing…for the wrong brother. Everything is about my eldest brother and making his family comfortable, when they have a son to console and congratulate in the stress and triumph of his wedding.

I keep trying to disrupt the pattern, but I’m getting tired and I don’t want to be the one who is seen as rocking the boat and causing disturbances in the family. I’m already the black sheep of the family in a lot of respects, and as angry as it makes me to see the pattern cause discrimination in the family, I’m constantly questioning myself if it’s worth it to even try to get past it and set a new pattern.

Maybe keeping the peace is best.

.