I’m going to try and keep this as brief as possible. To start: this is not a debate about vaccines.
There is a family wedding this weekend (we are not in the UK), and my parents and sisters and I all decided to rent a Airbnb for the weekend. These plans were made pre-vaccine (we have known about the wedding for a few years as it had to be postponed a couple of times due to COVID).
At the beginning of the pandemic my sister, let’s call her Julie, was super nervous about COVID. She’s a germophobe so her anxiousness was times 10000. Julie is married to a man who is a gas lighter, that’s all I’ll say. I was to visit them in March 2020 and they (he) basically uninvited me (pre-lockdown, pre anything). As airlines weren’t covering COVID related cancellations I asked them to pay half the cancellation fee. They (he) refused and told me to get over it.
Anyway, in the Spring my parents asked my sister if they could come visit (about a 5 hour flight away). She said “only if you’re vaccinated and you can only stay a week”. Mom was, dad wasn’t, so just mom went. In early summer, Julie’s PIL moved in with them, “and they are vaccinated so it’s fine”. Note that Julie and her husband are not vaccinated, and my parents are always restricted to only staying for a week (the house is huge so that’s not a reason).
Fast forward to august. My other sister, let’s call her Lauren, said that she didn’t want Julie to stay in the Airbnb with us if she wasn’t vaccinated. Julie said she understood and got a hotel room.
The wedding is this weekend. We have decided to do a wine and charcuterie board Friday night (just us-sister included).
Today Julie sent a message in the family chat saying that her feelings were hurt when we said we didn’t want her to stay in the Airbnb and that she wouldn’t be coming Friday night. I asked why and she said she didn’t understand the difference between staying with us and having charcuterie with us. I informed her that we would be gathering outdoors and distanced well which is entirely different to staying in the same house. I also asked how this was different to her “rules” that no one who is unvaccinated is allowed to visit her. Her response was that she wears a mask and washes her hands and so do the (unvaccinated) friends in her bubble, but she can’t say the same of others (e.g. her own father—who is now vaccinated). Lauren also said that she’s trying to protect our parents and that her partner got vaccinated just to attend this wedding.
Julie then became upset and said that we (Lauren and I) were “ganging up” on her and “this is why I didn’t express at the time that you hurt my feelings, because I knew this would happen”. She went on to say that we are “throwing her words back in her face” and “questioning her actions”. She said, “I just wanted you to know why I am distancing myself from you this weekend, because you’ve hurt me”.
Is it me or has her husband have her well trained in gaslighting?