I recently got divorced and am really struggling what to make of life going forward, there just doesn't seem to be much point any more.
Of late, I've been trying to make sense of some of the things that we argued about so I'll give you one of the lighter discussions that was never fully put to bed... What would you have done?
To give you some context, I had to leave my family home where I grew up abruptly, my younger brother who has issues with drugs, came at me and not for the first time with a carving knife and my parents just watched. I had to move out for my own safety and I did so without a penny to my name and quickly got into debt as you can imagine.
I'm not looking for sympathy at all, this is just to give you some context for the next part of the story. This start in life has always made me feel that I needed to make sure that I had enough money, that I paid my way and it would often mean that if we were going out that I'd be the first to buy everyone a drink, even if I didn't have the money right away (credit card). I didn't want anyone to think I was a sponger.
Now for the next part of the story....
Quite a few years later, I got married to the woman of my dreams. Beautiful, funny, sharing lots of the same interests but above all she was kind, like I had never seen before.
Her sister and BIL had a small house in France that they visited every year and we were often invited to go and stay 'for a cheap week, just pay for the flight'. Of course it wasn't just paying for the flight, you're family and you want to chip in where possible, why should we cost them to look after us? So we would pay money into SIL's account before the holiday for groceries, we'd paid for thanks of petrol, additional grocery bills, the odd meal out as a thank you and drinks etc. Because it always feels like they're doing you a favour, you can never really feel grateful enough. It wasn't ever a cheap holiday and we couldv'e one cheaper elsewhere but it wasn't about that, it was quality time spent away with the family.
Anyway... one evening we were out at a restaurant, myself, my wife and my BIL and SIL. The evening went fine and we were all having a good time as far as I could see. We finished our meal and both myself and my BIL went up to the bar area to pay the bill. We'd generally split it between the couples. I always like to leave at least the recommended tip but I know everyone is different. I asked the waitress if we could add the tip onto the card payment but unfortunately they don't allow it for some reason as is the way in a lot of European countries, so we had to pay cash.
I rarely carry cash (I should've remembered to take some) and so I asked if my BIL could pay the tip and I'm sort him out later as I always would. He said fine and paid the tip in cash (€10) and I said thank you. He then said and I quote " Any time you want to pay the full price, rather than the special price you often get, let me know".
I didn't know what to say so I just smiled a bit and said "ok thanks".
When we got back to our room that night, I told my wife about it. She looked quite upset and said "that doesn't sound like something he'd say but I'll handle it" and we obviously discussed a bit about recent and past bills and reassured ourselves that we always pay our way and that nothing was owed.
Two years passed. Over that time it had been needling away in the back of my mind and a few times I mentioned it to my wife to ask if she'd approached the subject with her BIL and SIL yet. It mattered to me because he seemed that he thought he was having to sub me all the time and I hated that because of my childhood and the fact that I absolutely always pay my way. During those two years, I was absolutely sure that we always paid our wy or more but it was a mental drain always thiking that they thought we were spongers no matter what. After the two years, it came to a head as we'd been invited to go to France again and all of the memories came flooding back. I asked my wife outright to tackle it as I waited patiently for two years. Reluctantly she agreed.
I don't know what she said to him but he first said to her "oh yes I remember that conversation and I'd negotiated a discount on the bill (he spoke French). That absolutely didn't happen, only me and and my BIL were present and we spoke in English and there was no discount. So I contacted him via text and said that didn't happen. He then replied "I don't what I did yesterday mate let alone two years ago, you should've come to me earlier" Coming to him earlier was a fair point and I'd wanted to but I was respecting my wife's wishes that she wanted to handle it. The point however was that now his story had changed.
Then my SIL waded in, "I'm sorry but that's not what was said" (she's telling me that my story isn't true). Neither my wife nor my SIL was present to witness the conversation, only myself and my BIL.
Then things got a lot worse. My wife started to gaslight me, she started to say that the story I was now telling was different to the one I told her two years ago. She started to repeat the story that my BIL was now telling that he'd allegedly negotiated a discount in French and she started to say "I sometimes forget what actually happened and get carried away". I remember what happened like it was yesterday and I thought about it constantly, my wife presumably never thought about it because it didn't bother her so my memories are not cloudy.
After my SIL said "I'm sorry but that's not what was said", she never spoke to me again. I'd known her for over 15 years. To date, my wife has never waivered on the fact that BIL was innocent of what he said and that I must have lied, despite never having lied to her in the past.
I gave possible explanations for him, he may have been a bit drunk, SIL may not have made him aware or may have forgotten that we used to pay in for groceries etc as she handling the finances and he was known for having his head in the clouds sometimes.
When I eventually realised that full grown, seemingly sane adults weren't going to ever give in to their pride. I said "Ok, we both have different recollections of what happened that day but this is not something worth wrecking relationships over so let's just shake hands and call it a day" They never spoke to me again.
I've always been of the opinion that you should treat people how you'd like to be treated and if a friend or family member has caused upset you should talk about ir or if you're in the wrong, listen, understand and apologise.
What are you thoughts, what would you have done? AIBU?
Sorry that turned into a long one, phew!