As Tom’s drama commenced yesterday, and again today when a marathon phone call from the (wo)man of the hour kept going and going, I was reminded of Deana Carter: “Did I reenable my notifications for this?”
Having heard from the horse’s mouth the reasons for this breakup, I fully support it and hope they don’t get back together; Tom’s ex can do much better. Writing something like that is awkward, even when it’s pseudonymous, but thinking it is worse. I love my siblings and was close to Tom when we were younger, but in several key areas of her life — notably, those where integrity matters the most — I feel she has no honor.
It’s nothing new; our parents’ indulgence of her princeling shtick has caused them financial hardship since she was a teenager and there’s never been a trace of gratitude for it, only demands for more. Her entitlement became a thorn in my side during the years I worked for my dad, causing tension at work and at home. It’s hard to separate any of that from what she told me earlier.
I never thought I’d delve into this here because there’s no more incendiary family topic I could broach, but in my view it’s inextricably tied to current events. The long and short of it is that I began working for my father when I was in grade school, just as he’d done before me. Was it legal? Probably not. Though we weren’t in the restaurant game, Bob’s Burgers is an accurate take on how small family businesses historically survived: by putting the kids (and spouses) to work.
Or, in our case, ‘the kid.’ My siblings refused to work (for our dad or anyone else), so I was expected to take over the business one day even though my interests were elsewhere. The moronic sense of obligation I felt toward my parents, who often struggled to keep themselves afloat, might’ve permanently gone unchallenged had Ex not entered my life. You might assume from previous posts that she was perpetually irrational but she wasn’t; it was her illness that was irrational and it wasn’t always in the driver’s seat.
She had Tom’s number right away when she started sniffing around the company (which was previously beneath her), and Ex urged me to quit before an already painful financial crunch worsened. But the economy was still in shambles and I felt trapped, afraid to walk away from pre-ACA health insurance. While pursuing an expensive undergraduate degree she had no intention of using, Tom — despite warnings there was no room for her at the table and that she’d be taking food from our mouths — elbowed her way onto the payroll.*
Her work ethic was as underwhelming as her lack of experience. The only job she’d ever held was a work-study gig that wasn’t renewed after the first year due to chronic lateness and other professionalism concerns. She continued that practice at the family business, where our parents’ reluctance to confront her about padded time cards they privately bemoaned permitted the problem to worsen. Early in my relationship with Crankenstein, I calculated that, conservatively, Tom was helping herself to the equivalent of a full six weeks of paid vacation each year on top of the two already allotted.
Initially, Crankenstein assumed I was just blowing off steam and that my complaints were exaggerated for comedic effect. As she got to know my parents better and understood how miserable the situation also made them — and how unlikely they were to change it — we began plotting the exit I’d make once we could financially swing it. My dad, who felt guilty about that turn of events, repeatedly tried to lure me back, but I entertained none of his offers. I would’ve worked practically anywhere else, no matter how awful the job, before resubjecting myself to Tom’s laziness and increasingly childish outbursts about money.
I kept thinking of all that history earlier, as Tom glossed over the same old chestnuts that irritate practically everyone in long-term relationships and barreled directly toward something so staggeringly selfish and idiotic that when she asked for my opinion and told me not to pull any punches, my first words were either “That was incredibly stupid and you’re a giant fucking asshole” or “You’re a giant fucking asshole and what you did was incredibly stupid.” She didn’t disagree, but I couldn’t quite gauge her sincerity — though she tried to sound regretful, she seemed almost proud of what happened.
Without being able to come right out with what that was, it’s hard to explain the primary reason for my disgust. The gist of it is that her ex-girlfriend has significant mental health issues; she’s been through treatment for BPD that made her happier and more functional, but problems with maladaptive schemas, codependency and self-worth persist. Those problems recently worsened, and Tom took advantage of it in the most pernicious manner possible when the girlfriend wasn’t in her right mind.
Being in a relationship with someone like Tom’s girlfriend isn’t easy; I know that as well as anyone. But you have a responsibility to respect and uphold your partner’s typical rules and boundaries when a mental health crisis causes them to endorse behaviors that are both completely out of character and an obvious extension of their illness. Tom failed that test in ways I find morally repugnant.**
As I told her after calling her an asshole, “This was a form of self-harm for [Girlfriend]. Instead of doing it herself, she handed you the razor. And you knew that’s what was happening and hacked away at her anyway.” After we hung up, I turned off my notifications again; I’d heard enough to last a few years.
* My dad pretending he had no control over that series of events was part of a larger pattern that caused (and still causes) him near-constant anxiety at work and at home.
** If you think that’s strong language, or if you can read between the lines and worry I’ve turned into Pat Robertson, I assure you it isn’t and I haven’t. Tom took a lot more than she gave throughout this 10-year relationship, and that this is how she chose to end it — in a way that’s sent her sick partner into a half-dozen additional spirals Tom saw coming and chose not to avoid — says a lot about her, none of it good.