On filial interactions, translated…
There are four brothers for my house, and on my wife’s side, there are two sons and two daughters, I’m the second child, my wife, the firstborn. My brothers and I are spread out all over the places, while my wife and her siblings all lived in Taipei.
My wife has an optimistic nature and is independent, she’d put herself through college, part-timing, saved up all the money she could, what she hated the most, was “troubling others”, everything she could do on her own, she’d NOT ask anybody else to help out, she wouldn’t even ask her parents, OR her siblings for assistance either, and so, she’s not very social with her siblings, and, it seemed that they’re drifting, further, and further apart.
Looking at my brothers and I, we’d gathered a lot, we’d head over to my oldest brother’s place to eat, to spend the night at my younger brother’s house, or, get an entire bed-and-breakfast for our whole family, we’d asked one another to go everywhere with, and, whoever that’s able, puts up the money, and whoever that has the time, gives the time, we’d NOT only nickeled and dimed with one another, we’d often fight to see who would pay.
Because I don’t have a car, every time I’d gone to my brothers, I’d told them the time I wanted to be there, and so, they’d pick me up, and my siblings would also ask me whether or not I wanted to eat in their homes, and what I’d wanted to eat, where I wanted to go, and we feel like a “whole family”, natural, and comfortable.
In my wife’s mind, however, she felt, that I was bugging them, and questioned why my siblings would fulfill my requests, and had clean out the bedrooms in their houses, to treat us to eat out, to put off all other activities that they were doing. I couldn’t find a good reason, but we all know, that we’d cared too much about the affinities we’d come to share, so, we’re not afraid of getting bogged down, and so, my siblings and I are becoming even MORE closely knitted! And so, there’s the comparisons of the two families, the wife’s and the husband’s, and it is normal that the wife would feel bizarre, because she’d NEVER had this close relation with her own siblings, and, it may have to do with birth order too, and, the point here, is that the siblings should NOT nickel and dime what they are giving, and what they’d gotten in return, after all, they ARE, one family!!!
JUST the Unwinding of Thoughts 