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People are rightfully asking @_alexaubry and me what we could have done to offend my dad's wife so much. Well…
It all started in August 2019 when we nicely asked her to stop spamming the family group chat with ~9 Bitmoji images in a row every morning. (This is Jen's Bitmoji persona in a Superwoman outfit, btw.)
She was furious! She wrote a 40-message tirade about how it was disrespectful because we were trying to take away her voice. She even ended it with a Bitmoji to top things off. This was all sent starting at approximately 4 AM local time.
In September, my grandfather passed away. We all rushed to Florida for the funeral, us from Berlin.
We spent a week in the same house with her. Her temper was unbearable, she was unbelievably controlling and wanted to be included in every single part of the planning, against my grandmother’s wishes.
For example, she was upset when the cantor didn’t ask her to join the meeting with my father, grandmother and uncle. She thought she was immediate family and felt like she had to be there.
She also took us to CVS at one point because we needed some shower gel. She was walking in the aisle with us and, completely unsolicitedly, said: “Look Alex! That’s the lube I use with your father. It’s organic and edible!” One word: ew.
After the week ended, she stopped talking to us. We knew something was wrong because she never stops talking. So we tried to get some info from my dad and my sister. She was indeed furious.
She was convinced that the whole family had mistreated her in FL. No one saw it coming. We were literally walking on egg shells and put up with all of her crap for a week so she wouldn’t get upset. Guess that didn’t work out…
She never talked to us. The only thing we hear is my dad begging us to apologize to her. But we don’t know why! We finally manage to schedule a FaceTime with her, but it's at 5 PM (11 PM in Berlin).
She wouldn’t tell us what we did. The only thing she said was: “I raised my hand and said ‘OW IT REALLY HURT’ so now I need to get an apology from you.” Except: she never raised her hand, she just stopped talking to us. And also, what hurts?
One day, my dad sent us the 80 handwritten pages that Jen had written about the family (which he scanned page-by-page for us at her request), and we finally found out what her grievances were:
1/n. We didn’t thank her enough for everything she did during the funeral week. (She was posting pictures of the coffin on Facebook without asking. She wanted us to help pay for a $9k obituary so she could have the byline and start advertising an obituary-writing service.)
2/n. I tried to eat some bacon from her plate when we went for breakfast at the diner with my grandfather’s closest friends in honor of his memory and the Friday-morning “ROMEO” (Retired Old Men Eating Out) breakfasts he used to attend. She wrote about me as “THAT FUCKING KID”.
3/n. We didn’t get out of the car to hug her goodbye at the airport. My dad walked her to the TSA security line and we were asked to deal with the car because the drop-off lane was really busy. Frankly, after the entire week, you can’t blame us for wanting her to go home.
(Forgot to attach this photo to the previous tweet.)
After that, she started sending e-mails to the whole family. They were especially mean and vile. She called my grandmother a fraud, accused Alexis of trying to destroy the family… It was unbelievable. Most of them were sent around 4 AM EST.
My dad did nothing about that, he said he didn’t know she was sending those. Alexis tried to apologize again to end this situation. She replied with a myriad of text messages.
We also learned that she was upset with us because we didn’t set up her new devices. (Editor's note: the surgery referenced in the second image was a routine procedure while awake without any local anesthetic.)
At that point, Alexis and I started going to therapy to find solutions. Our therapist told us that the best way to deal with clinical narcissism was not to engage. So we stopped trying to make things right with her, in order to protect ourselves.
But one day my dad begged us to get on a call with them while we were at work. It lasted two whole hours. We said that we were sorry for all these things and that we’ll be more careful next time. That wasn’t enough: we didn’t follow her own apology methodology.
She said she was so f-ing happy to blackmail us because it’s what we deserved. She also said she wouldn’t come to our wedding because Alexis and I were doomed if we didn’t know how to apologize properly.
After that call, she kept sending e-mails saying that with Jewish high holidays coming up, we would need to apologize to her. Her message was that, as “G-d’s miracle”, her gates of forgiveness would close forever after Yom Kippur.
After Yom Kippur, she sent us one last e-mail saying she was going on an “Akers-fast” for a month. We could still wish her Shabbat Shalom, but she wouldn’t reply. We were glad to finally have a break.
We didn’t message her Shabbat Shalom. We also didn’t wish her a happy birthday, because we were afraid of starting another fight.
But the day after her birthday, she broke her vow of silence and sent messages to my sister, who was on Jen’s company health insurance plan back then:
My dad went to my sister’s office to make her sign the papers that would remove her from his wife’s plan. He knew that she would be out of coverage, but he said that he couldn’t do anything about it.
The day her silence vow ended, she wrote on Facebook that we all showed our true colors by not wishing her Shabbat Shalom every week during her silence vow. That’s the day we finally decided to block her.
During Thanksgiving, she overnighted a package to my grandmother’s house where Alexis and I were all staying with my sister. It contained cards and a gratitude guide.
Forgot to attach the photos, the best part. Note that she sent my dad a card, even though they live together. We never did find out what was in his card.
My dad drove down to my grandmother’s house and we talked. He told us about how hard Jen’s life had been and how she deserved an apology just for that. We found out her motto was also “I had cancer, I win.”
My sister recently tried to organize a talk with her to put an end to this, but Jen won’t talk to her until she reads “The Four Agreements” book that she talks about all the time. Funny how she’s breaking every single one of those…
Sidenote: Alexis gave away our copy of The Four Agreements at a gift giving event at his work's holiday party themed “things you want to get rid of".
Sidenote 2: I think I am the only person in the family who has actually read the book cover to cover.
Sidenote 2: I think I am the only person in the family who has actually read the book cover to cover.
Now she keeps sending these cards because we don’t want to “audition to be on [her] #BLESSED #HEALING team” by following her self-created “apology methodology”. Her gates of forgiveness are still open!
![Now she keeps sending these cards because we don’t want to “audition to be on [her] #BLESSED #HEALING team” by following her self-created “apology methodology”. Her gates of forgiveness are still open!](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVLYV2vU0AEzVLH.jpg "Now she keeps sending these cards because we don’t want to “audition to be on [her] #BLESSED #HEALING team” by following her self-created “apology methodology”. Her gates of forgiveness are still open!")
Anyway I hope this has been entertaining. @Netflix hit us up if you want to turn this into a show ;)
Other things worth mentioning: My sister came over to their new apartment (they moved in December) and my dad showed her the whole building up to the door of their apartment, where the tour ended. Apparently all photographs of us in the apartment are turned upside-down.
