Long story short, my brother in law lives across the street. We live in NJ. He says he’s very concerned about coronavirus. His daughter and wife have pre-existing conditions. I totally get it. However, he tries to police everyone else. “You don’t care about my family because you aren’t doing things the way i think you should”. This includes him watching out his windows and creeping on his cameras and calling us out when our kids get too close to the other kids when playing, or if I inadvertently shake a neighbor’s hand while saying hello out in the street (yes, it’s like that). We are taking reasonable precautions, but we aren’t totally cucked. This has been going on for a year. His parents and sometimes my wife are enablers for him. They’ll say things and all but there’s never any consequence to his actions. He’s done and said some pretty mean very disrespectful things about this all. Even calling me “a fucking asshole” because I got the virus last year, from going to work to keep my bills paid. This is only the tip of the iceberg. This dude claims it’s about concern for his daughter, meanwhile he lets her go into the gaggle of kids playing “too close” outside.... lets her play for a bit, then comes over to pull her away and make a scene that no one is wearing masks and social distancing. Or he’ll let her around all of us who he says “I can’t trust you with the covid precautions”. Then complain that he can’t trust us and pull all this other watchdog shit. Sounds more to me like someone who just wants to trap people into shit he can complain about (which was pretty typical of his BS even before covid. I’m somewhat venting here, and I apologize. But I don’t really have anywhere to turn about this. Everyone around me and involved basically says “He’s over the top and shouldn’t act like that, but it’s ok because he’s only trying to protect his family”. Drives me up a wall!! I’m not a confrontational person, and I’ve given him/them the be if it of the doubt for this past year, but it’s really starting to affect our lives and more importantly our kids’ lives in a negative way and it’s causing problems between myself and my wife (who is finally starting to see it for what it is) and my in laws. For me personally, my family is basically not in the picture and these people are really my only close family and they do a lot for us. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. Anyone else have to deal with a similar situation? How are you getting through it without blowing up on people and damaging relationships?
-Sorry for any misspellings. Typing on a rush on my phone. I’ll try to fix whatever I find.
Additional Info: There's no avoiding this guy. My in laws are all so close, there's no way to cut him out, or get away from his BS. Also, there's no talking to him about anything ha already "knows".. He's stubborn as a mule. I'm not really trying to even be friends. But I have to get along to get along. My in laws are literally involved in every aspect of what we do, and now, with this, every decision has to pass the test of whether or not it' something he can start shit over or not. Fucking blows!!
Sadness kind of washed over me when I read your post. We’ve all been touched with at least some form of this hysteria. That’s what it sounds like. He seems so angry and afraid. One thing I’ve learned the past few years, and I have to remind myself constantly- you can only control the small space around you. If you drew a circle around your feet, that’s about the extent of it. So YOU control how you respond to him and other family members but aside from that, all you can do is be a good role model, try to educate others as best you can and live your life the way you see fit. You have some choices. The most annoying one would be to move away. That isn’t always practical and certainly not easy. So the other most obvious choice is to try not to let him bother you. Easier said than done, I know. But I don’t see too many other options. Is there a way to shield his prying eyes from what’s going on in your world? Is there a way to shelter yourself from speaking with him?
What’s going to happen when he finally “gets covid?” Maybe that will change the dynamics a lot. But you asked what to do to avoid blowing up on people, damaging relationships and that’s when it comes back to your circle of control. You can control that. You can walk away. You can meditate and/or pray. You can try a sport that expends a lot of energy, you can do what I do and rant like a lunatic by myself in the car (because it upsets most people and dogs if I do it near them.) You can join a church, club or take up a hobby that uses up some downtime and helps you realize you’re not alone. Idk I’m just throwing out ideas but you have complete control how you let this guy affect you. He’s the one who is helpless, stuck inside, sick with worry and anger but you’re not. So you have a big advantage.
The hardest thing for me to have learned is to keep my anger in check. Not say hateful things. Not blow up. I know so many idiots and I have to use snippets of useful info on them, rather than launching into a lecture. Like.. “if masks worked, why do we have to social distance?” and “if the vaccine worked, why are they saying you still have to wear a mask” and so on. But they tend to tune you out anyway if you give too much info so keep it simple. I practice anger control here. I see shills and even regulars with a little frog next to their names being complete assholes to others on here and it’s all I can do some days to not call them out. But I can control how I deal with it myself. Ignore for the most part and deport when is necessary. So maybe look at it like that.
Sorry, too long. You’re not alone, fren!
This makes a lot of sense and is very much about where my thinking is on a lot of this.