The Ramblings Of Jenn Shuey

I’ve been married for so long that I sometimes forget what it was like to be a giggly girl in love for the first time in my life.  I had a moment to sort of relive that phase of my life last night through my little cousin.  She brought her boyfriend over to hang out with us for awhile, and we had a great time.

While the guys played some Green Day: Rock Band my cousin and I headed into my office to chat.  That’s when she confessed to me that she’s really head over heels for a guy for the first time ever.  It did make me feel a little warm inside watching how she lit up when she talked about him. 

The downside is that our family doesn’t like him, and she’s having to deal with the crap they’re throwing at her over who she’s chosen to be with.  She wanted to confide in me because she knows I’ve been there.  She wanted advice on how to handle the what those people threw at her, and I basically told her to ignore them, let there words slide off her back, and do what makes her happy.

When Hubby and I started dating I warned him that certain family members would probably snub him.  I remember looking at diamond engagement rings while shopping with my Mom and aunt one day. I had a feeling I had found the perfect guy, and I was daydreaming about what it would be like if he proposed like I hoped he would. I was basically drug away from the case as both women went on and on about how he wasn’t good enough for me and I was too young to think about marriage.  Almost 7 years later these are the same people who love my hubby to death even though they judged him this way so many years ago.  Did they ever admit they were wrong about him?  Of course not! 

It wasn’t that he wasn’t good enough for me. No one seems to be good enough for some of my family members.  They turn their noses to the air and act as if they are all high and mighty, yet they are no better than the people they are snubbing.  Oh they act perfectly fake when face to face with the person they are snubbing, but the second the person leaves the room the comments and gossiping begins. 

They talk about how the person isn’t good enough because they don’t have the exact same values or beliefs.  They don’t make enough money (not like my family has a right to judge that as I grew up poor), they don’t have the right educational background (yet again hypocritical as I was the first person in my family to attend college), and so on.  There is something wrong with every single person that anyone brings around, friend or date, because that person is not a member of our family.  My dad said it best when he said “No one will ever be good enough for them, and they are doing nothing but pushing their own family members away.”

In my cousin’s case she is being told her boyfriend isn’t good enough simply because his mom has made some really bad choices in her life.  My grandmother even felt the need to call me to gossip about it.  She made mention of the fact that his mom came from a “good family”, and she didn’t know what happened to the woman, but she turned into an “evil drunk”.  Then she went on and on about the woman’s poor parents and how they were good people who couldn’t be judged based on their daughter.  I came right back at her with the fact that she’s judging this young man based on his mother’s actions, and she is being extremely hypocritical.  In fact she’s the hypocrite she’s always preaching to us about, and she needed to start following her own advice.

Of course she isn’t speaking to me now, but I don’t really care.  I stood up for my cousin not because she is family but because no one deserves to be treated the way she and her boyfriend are being treated.  Our family hasn’t even taken the time to get to know him.  They are all judging him based on someone else.  If they took the time to get to know him they would realize he’s someone who had a hard life growing up, but he’s risen above it to be a great young man.  They are the ones missing out.  They will never take the time to get to know him.

People like that really make me mad.  I don’t understand why some people are so judgmental.  You can’t judge a person based on how much money they make or who their parents are.  In fact I fully believe it is not up to us to judge anyone.  Sometimes I wonder how I even came from a family like that.  I am a complete opposite, and I’ve become a black sheep for it.  My little cousin is now feeling the same way.  She has been nicknamed as a mini me, and apparently that’s a bad thing according to my family.

My advice to her will stand.  Ignore what they have to say because they can’t think, feel, and act for her.  If she is happy that is what matters.  If I had actually listened to my family I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today.  I wouldn’t be making plans to celebrate my seventh wedding anniversary to the love of my life, and I wouldn’t have my beautiful daughter who is a mini version of her father in so many ways.