Respect is earned not given
I believe all of us have been taught by our parents and elders about giving respect to others specially to the ones who is much older than you. It has been an old practice in our everyday life to respect each and everyone because we all have different beliefs in life. In our country we have different religions so you could say that everyone has different point of view when it comes to this and that. But if people respected each other’s religion there would be no problem at all.
Now I come up with this topic because I really wanted to release this hard feelings I’ve been keeping on. I am confident to share this because I know no one from the family will be able to read this. This is about my husband’s oldest brother. I really have high respect for him ever since I got to meet him, because of many good things he has done for his family according to my husband’s story. I met him actually when he isn’t married yet and I can tell he was indeed a good brother. He loves to study too, in fact he is a graduate of UP, has double masterals and a PHD graduate in one of the university in Japan. With that I respected him more.
But when pandemic happened, the respect I have for him went down the drain. Honestly I am okay with my in laws family, except his family. Ever since he got married, there has always been an issue which caused by his wife. I can’t count how many times our family engaged in an argument because of them. That even a little problem about this and that, always seems to be a big problem to them. If I am going to lists down it all we might end up tomorrow. My husband’s siblings were all boys. Three of them including my husband were married, so I have two sisters in law. I got along well with the other one who is a teacher, meanwhile the other one, I respect her because she is somehow older than me. But honestly I am annoyed at her because she seems to hate us even from the start. Imagine the struggles we had for years. And right now I lost all the respect I have for her too, just like her husband. I know this isn’t a good attitude to possess but after years of belittling us I finally lost my last drop of respect for them.
Is it bad to talk about someone which you considered family for years? I can really say that sometimes blood is no longer thick than water. I heard a lot stories such this. When of all the people you’re hoping to help you when you have nothing, ignores you. During pandemic, my husband’s stopped working same as her two brothers. The youngest isn’t working yet. The only one who is working is his big brother who got a high paying job. It all started when he give us a 5000 php or approximately $100 because the big brother sold his second hand car, he isn’t gonna used it since he is working from home aside from that they have another car which his wife is using. It was all okay, until he wanted to know what have we done with the money? Like he was expecting we should have used it to earn profit like selling this and that. In the first place we didn’t expect money from him and we aren’t asking too. I remember also, during that time a cousin of my husband, gave us the same amount but we didn’t hear anything from him. In fact he was always vocal that if there’s anything he can helped he is willing to extend his hand.
When it comes to money why do people even your immediate family tend to ruin the relationship? Is money that important more than your family. Isn’t it supposed to be the opposite? Honestly my husband’s big brother says a lot of hurtful statements during that time, that makes us wonder where is the old him? Marriage life changed him, and a lot of his relatives can attest to that.
As of now, I stay civil to him, like last week he visited my father in law, for the first time after the pandemic began, he was living in Los Baños now with his family. Since we didn’t came, my youngest brother in law brought us some share of the food they brought. Of course, I messaged him, saying how thankful I am for the food. He told me that his wife cooked it, now how am I gonna say thanks to his wife, when she blocked us in fb for the reason I don’t know. That’s also one of the reason I am disappointed with her, you are supposed to be a big sister for us and yet you’re the one acting immature here.
Just last night, my husband told me about the message his big brother has for their cousin about posting something that has to do with politics. The message seems to be demanding too. I was like, if you want me to respect your personal views and choice, you should respect ours too. We all have different choices in life, if my views differs from you, isn’t the right thing to do is give respect to it and not forced someone to believe in what you believe.
I am sorry for venting out my feelings here regarding this. I hope you can bear with my article for today. Anyway it’s another day of the month, now before I end this up, I would like to give a special shout out to a very good virtual friend @Jeansapphire39 thank you for the sponsorship. May god bless you more and more😍 And please don’t forget to check all my lovely sponsors below.
Lead Image is from Unsplash
Malaking check.! Kaya hindi din ako masisi kung ganun ang bigay ko sa kanila