Family Ties- unraveling thereof

My father left us when I was 2 and my brother was 6. My mom was filled with resentment then and still is almost 50 years later. He was a crap dad who made the required weekly phone calls and we took the trip across the country to see him every summer. He remarried, wife is awesome and he is by all accounts a very good dad to his 3rd and 4th sons. Didn’t know I was a lefty when he bought my a baseball glove as a kid and wished me a happy 50th when I turned 45. He’s early 80s, triple cancer survivor and has shuttled between a hospital and rehab facility with COVID the past few months. Never had a what I would call a real father/son conversation with him and I never will. I maintain a superficial relationship with him out of obligation. You don’t need to be PhD to surmise why I threw myself into my kids sports and never miss a parent teacher conference or a school play.

 

Yep. Some people will rip everyone around them to shreds if there's a dollar to be made from it.

 

While my circumstances were somewhat different, my response with my kids is almost exactly the same as yours, I wanted my kids to have the father I didn't get.

 

Long story short, my sister-in-law and my girlfriend pretty much hate each other, and I am the one that is stuck in middle. It's been going for about a year now. I'm really close to my brother, and get along with my SIL. At first, everyone got along, like most families, then it started to go downhill.

My SIL is really close to her family, especially her sister and her parents. Really nice and friendly people. My brother and her are pretty much over at her parents five times a week - some times more - for dinner and whatnot. They have two kids who I love.

My girlfriend started getting annoyed because they never make time for us. She or I will be asking if they want to do anything, often times it can be last minute, but they'll always reply with "already have plans, going to my parents for dinner". After a while, she just got fed up and started to speak her mind. Both have quite the characters so it's not pretty. To add, my GF does not believe they care about us since they do not call to see how we are doing (I text with my brother daily) and they never asked my GF how she was doing after her two miscarriages and I think that really bothers her.

Now, they've been together for about 15 years now, and it's always been like that, but I got used to it. I try to tell her it's always been like that, and not to take it personally, but she does and at times it makes her cry when they do not make time for us. I've tried telling my brother, but nothing changes. They are always over there, and we rarely see them. They do not even want to deal with her anymore so I am always the one getting the call when my GF sends them a message telling them that we rarely see you guys and that they are always at their parents house. It blows up every two months and I am so tired of it.

I know this is all over the place, but it happened again last night and I had to write something.