'AITA for putting my foot down on being treated like a free cook for ungrateful people?'
"AITA for putting my foot down on being treated like a free cook for ungrateful people?"
I live in my ancestral home, with my elderly parents. I have a sibling that lives on the same property in a financed trailer. Some years ago, I paid to build a rather nice shop building and I installed a BBQ pit on it, for socializing.
My sibling's spouse apparently loves my grilling and, for the last 4 months, every Sunday I have been pressured into grilling. They bought only the first time. They washed dishes only the first time. Every time since it has been - our mum buys and preps the patties - I clean my grilling flatware and grill the patties - my sibling walks up takes three patties for his spouse, says 2 words and leaves.
I have been very vocal with our mom that this is not how communal dinners are supposed to work. I have told her I don't want to do it, but every time she pressures me into doing it again because she is just about the nicest person in the world and will do anything for the sake of avoiding conflict, whereas my sibling will blow up and not talk to someone for months for the simplest thing...his spouse isn't any better.
Which brings me to today. Suffice to say, I wasn't in a good state of mind to begin the day, in the middle of going from a night schedule to a day schedule, I would have preferred to be in bed instead of being expected to grill.
Our mum was still awake at 4AM making the patties. I was going to grill them at 10AM so I could get to sleep, my foot was hurting (I didn't tell anyone) and I have a sizable job on Monday. So the lot of them go to church service (I don't really attend anymore), leaving me here.
So I bring all my dirty utensils in from my shop to wash them in the dish washer and I can't find soap anywhere. I wait until they come rolling in from service at 11:30, I'm used to being in bed by noon at this point. Then, my father gets out and they...leave...to go shopping. By this point I am royally pissed off because, IMO, communal meals shouldn't be this kind of crap.
Months of this taken for granted stuff kinda came to a head. I texted our mom, after multiple failed calls: "This is some BS. I have no clean tools, they're all in the dishwasher and I can't find your soap, and I'm really tired. I'm going to lay down in 15 minutes. You guys either come back and help or I'm saying to fucking hell with the hamburgers."
She begged me to make the [sibling's wife's] burgers. I replied "Parties or shopping, you f--ks have a choice to make. I'm tired." I admit that I feel guilty about the language I used in those texts to our mom, I shouldn't have done that, but that's not the problem.
The problem is my psychotic sibling and their even more psychotic spouse read the texts over my mom's shoulder in the car, without her knowing, with the former grabbing the phone from her and apparently they've gone bat crap crazy over them, painting me as the bad guy.
Now our mom is looking at me like the bad guy because I didn't just make the patties to appease them, saying I ruined Christmas. AITA?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
kinkyrebelution wrote:
NTA...if they want food and specifically request it they should help in the preparing of it. when was the last time they made something for you that you liked to eat. Stop being a door mat...unfortunately your mom won't cause thats her kid...and stand up for yourself.
OP responded:
To be honest, I'd never eat anything from them. They have sent up food items they didn't want and it's straight into the garbage. I was not exaggerating when I called my sibling's spouse psychotic, to the point that I don't trust him/her based on past events. That aside, I have stood up for myself, but my mother is my weakness.
She really is the nicest person in the world and I benefit greatly from her generosity, as my parents do from me, but I have a terribly hard time telling her no when she lays on the guilt. Nice as she is, her flaw is the "anything for the sake of peace" mentality that she has always embraced. I have no trouble telling my sibling to eff off...until she gets in the middle of it.
PerturbedHamster wrote:
NTA, of course (although you could have been politer to your mother). I suggest you read don't rock the boat, which perfectly encapsulates what's going on here. Your brother/SIL rock the boat and expect everyone else to jump to keep the boat stable.
You might want to share it with your mother to help her see a bit more clearly what's going on. Right now, the boat-rockers have no incentive to stop, because your mom lets them get their way.
OP responded:
That was a brilliant read. Thank you. I will share that.
Fearless_street5231 wrote:
NTA, but you should stay up if you are switching to days. Going to bed at noon will have you up way too early.
OP responded:
I've found that switching gradually over a period of a week or two has longer lasting results. I've tried the sudden switch and, aside from the weird "wide awake euphoria" that pops up around the 30 hour mark, that makes it hard to get to sleep, there is a high chance of relapsing to the old schedule, at least for me. Noon, here, is a midway point in the 10 day long transition.
BlondDee1970 wrote:
NTA but why haven't you messaged your brother and told him to do x, y, z if he wants burgers???
OP responded:
I actively try not to message my sibling. It doesn't end well. Some months back I texted asking my siblings to "step up" with helping with our parents and got treated with just about the nastiest replies from this sibling that they could think of, just shy of being considered terroristic in nature.
In this particular case, my mom said they "threatened to sick the fbi on me", what exactly for...I've no clue, after they read the texts that I sent our mom and their spouse claimed she could "read mom's text messages" on her phone, as in she claimed to have illegal access.
They truly are a psychotic couple. Fun fact, the spouse actually has been institutionalized several times...yeah, so, burgers have only happened this long because mom got in the middle.