I've lived out of state or just out of the country for most of my adult life. After one job finished, I went back home to live with my parents and see what I was going to do next in life - get a new job, go back to school, whatever. I hadn't seen my family in years and years, and I just wanted to take some time to get my shit together.

My brother's wife never liked me. I'd said some rude things in the past, mostly on accident, putting your foot in your mouth kinda incidents. She never really forgave me for it. Anyway, every weekend, my brother and I try to hang out, but for one reason or another, he can't - always because his wife dropped some plan with her family on him, always something more important than me.

Note that all this time, she's constantly talking about how important family is, and how her husband and her kids are important. Yet she can't let her husband get away for one weekend to see his brother?

But he still met up with me during his lunch breaks, and every. single. time. he spent the better part of an hour passionately bitching about his wife. How controlling, demanding, just generally awful she was.

Fast forward a few months later. I'm back overseas, in fact I'd gotten married and gotten a new job. I've gotten away from my brother and his wife, and I'm thinking about it, and I send him an email. Just saying, like, "All that stuff you told me is really awful. Your wife totally owes you an apology for all that." I actually got really upset and kind of unloaded on him. "She's really shitty for doing all that stuff to you, and I really hope you can figure it all out." I may have suggested counseling or divorce, I don't remember.

She reads the email. I don't know if she was snooping, or looking over his shoulder, or if he just showed it to her. But she sees it. And she. is. pissed. I don't give a fuck. I message her directly. "You shouldn't be reading people's emails. It's between family."

And she just unloads on me. Like, every tiny little grievance she's ever had against me - something like ten years of petty bullshit, just like, "You did this, and did that, and said this. When we first met, you said this." Just dredging up ancient history and unloading it on me. I honestly felt bad about some of the shitty things I had said to her, but I wasn't going to be the bigger person and apologize for it after all that.

The funny thing about the story is, as I left home heading off to get married, I asked my brother for advice. He said, "Don't keep score." As in, don't hold grudges with your own wife. Don't keep score of the things she's done that bother you. Just let go of that.

After my sister-in-law unloaded years and years of petty grievances on me, I understood what my brother meant by that.

Haven't bothered trying to reconnect with either of them. He put his wife ahead of me - I put him ahead of his wife. She puts herself ahead of us all. I don't think anybody won.