“Unsafe”

 

            My husband’s family epitomizes every aspect of our American culture that makes me feel unsafe whenever we interact. Their narcissistic personalities mean they lack empathy. In their narrow worldview, you are either with them or against them. Alcoholism adds into their dysfunction and layers on an element of unpredictability. For many years, I struggled to find common ground with them. We turned up for the weekly dinners and most of the holidays. If we spent a holiday with my family, I received a stern reprimand from my mother-in-law about ruining her Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Fourth of July . . . because we didn’t obey her commands. I tried visiting with them more, babysitting the million nieces and nephews, and cleaning up on my own after huge family gatherings. I stopped asking for inclusion in the girls weekends away (or even a trip to the wineries north of town). My mother-in-law announced on one recent visit that she has access to the banking accounts of all of her adult children and a handful of her adult married grandchildren, but not our accounts. Although I’m on one of my single brother’s accounts and my single son’s account in case of emergencies, I’ll drop access once someone else is in their lives. The point with my in-laws is their need to control everyone and everything around them.

            A difference in beliefs, religions, lifestyles, and thinking brings an immediate and visceral response from people like my in-laws. Physical intimidation becomes a go-to response if you stray too far from their bold coloring book lines. My mother-in-law slammed me against the wall and choked me when I stated every woman has a right to safe abortions. One brother-in-law tried to pull me from the car window because I didn’t follow his commands. After those attacks, I limited in person contact. However, in a family that operates on gossip word comes through on a different brother-in-law’s drunken fight with his first wife with him threatening her at gunpoint. The family does suicide watches for him every time his relationships explode. Guns play a role throughout the family with all of them having a mixture of handguns and hunting rifles. Imagine my shock, though, when a nephew posted on Facebook a few years ago a picture of his awesome Nene with an AR-15 strapped onto her.

            My in-laws don’t reflect a fringe part of today’s world. Their “Us VS Them” life philosophy means they’ve closed themselves off into in incest-type cycle that feeds off of a closed system. They all vacation together. They watch the same news. They eat at the same places. The listen to the same music. They marry the same women or men. They foster the same fears.

            They buy the same guns.

Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman