Months ago, when the whole jab thing started, my mother and father in law were determined to get it, because TV told them so.
I advised them not to, and that they are going to damage themselves, multiple times, I event told them about how I ended paralised for a month as a kid when I received vaccine back then... Nothing... They went and did it. 3 times. So after that I basically told them I don't want to talk about it anymore.
Now my father in law, months later, as expected, got a serious pneumonia, lost ability to walk, or even sit in bed, lost control of his bowel movements, and ability to talk, so we are taking care of him the best we could trying not to loose our minds in the process... Showing up with a smile, trying to make their life easier, paying for bills, paying for medication, paying for diapers, and food, clipping his toe nails, cutting his hair and beard, changing diapers...
So on top of all that, wife and I were "politely asked" last night to respect my brother in law more, since he feels that "a lot is depending on him". Same brother in law who was organising excursions with the rest of the family to go for a group testing, to see what might be wrong with them... The same guy who cannot lift a bed matrace without having 2 people help him, while wife and I are the ones carrying his immobilised father around... Same guys who can buy both wife and me with his salary but is paying way less for their bad decisions, and the first thing he came to us with was "how are we going to divide the expanses"...
So I snapped, and yelled my lungs off. So my brother in laws, hypochondriac ass was insisting on them getting jabbed. They did it and we are stoically dealing with the damage made, because they are our parents. And I am accused that I am not "respecting" him enough by not being knowledgeable in ins and outs of hospitals and doctors and procedures and not getting the ideas "first" about where to drag the patient, next...
I am not proud of myself, my friends. I did not have "I told you so" moment at any point there. But I think that even the neighbors in next building heard about the boundaries that they will never be allowed to fucking cross with me...
The messed up thing is that I feel like a piece of shit, now, for allowing myself to go full dark mode.
We've had a similar bad situation with family, only they were more conniving and destructive. I keep telling myself the only way to deal with these people is to have absolutely nothing to do with them. No face to face, no phone calls, no texts unless it's absolutely crucial and then limited to important information only.
I don't think you should be beating yourself up for losing your temper, I think you should commending yourself that it took so long. Just remember you're the good guy in this story.
I'm just trying to be decent person, you know. We pretty much over the years came to the same conclusion, every time we tried to be closer to brother in law and his wife, the tentacles reach into our life and start demanding that we have to behave in certain ways that are totally alien to us, and programming our time and putting expectations on us, while nothing is expected of them. So we find ourselves constantly expected to apologise and atone for the sins that we did not even aware we made. So strictly business relationship was a logical conclusion. But you cannot avoid them all the time, and they just cannot help themselves when they enter your orbit.
I know you're not just trying to be a decent person, you are a decent person. I would say if it's anything they say you have to do or should have done, you should ignore it.
👆 This!