Blood and water.....

As the saying goes...  Blood is thicker than water.  Well, in the scientific aspect is it true.  When it comes to the concept of family, well.....  it is all in how you see it.

Mixing of the two elements is just basically thinning things out.  Families become bigger when a marriage is in the mix of it all.  I guess that is where the line gets blurred.

Just recently, my family has taken a blow that I am not sure it is going to recover from.  Crying has been the only release... until now.  This blog is my release of it all and to make my thoughts clearer, so if this seems a bit long, I apologize in advance for it.

Secrets and contradictions are to blame for this latest drama that I call... my life.

My husband is a mechanic and happens to own his own garage.  He is quite brilliant when it comes to fixing cars.  When it comes to family, he tends to be more helpful than hurtful.  His character is built on being everyone's friend.  Sometimes it bothers me that everyone else gets help before I do, but I know that I would not want that aspect of him to change because that is where he and I are the same.  We are more generous to others than to ourselves.  I can only gather that our generosity is what makes us less than popular when nobody needs anything from us.  I guess our less than attractive attribute is that we listen and follow through with what people ask of us.

Here is where the contradiction and secrets part comes to play....  My husband's garage received a call from my brother.  My brother asked for an estimate for fixing his truck and stated that he wanted to be quoted as if he was a customer.  That means, quoting everything from parts to labor charges.  Well, the service rep that works for my husband was a little confused about the request and went to my husband to inform him about the request and to be completely clear about the intentions.  My husband was told that my brother wanted an estimate for repairs and that the estimate was to be made as if it was for a customer and not for a family member.  My husband told the service rep that he is to do the estimate as requested.  Well, quoting everything that included parts, labor charges and tax made the estimate seem really high.  I never said that my husband's shop was cheap, but they have not implemented a service charge increase in over 5 years, so they are not the cheapest, but not the most expensive either.  Well, that just started a snowball of complaints from my family and my mother put it upon herself to tell me all about it and stated that I was to not tell my husband what was said.  I am capable of keeping a secret, but I knew that the whole story was missing details so I decided to say nothing to my husband about it.  I figured that if there was a real problem, my brother would say something to him.  Well, much to my surprise, my husband comes home from work and decides to tell me that he knows that my mom had a talk with me about that estimate for my brother.  I turned pale when he confronted me because I was told that it was a secret and to not tell him...  I honored that promise and got slammed anyway...  nice, huh?  Well, needless to say, stories were told about the contradiction over the estimate.  My husband told me that if my brother wanted him to fix his truck, he would have done it on his own time and would only charge for parts plus tax and that the labor charges would not apply since he is family and he would do this on his own time. That is how my husband is when it comes to helping family.  He does stuff and does not charge them for the work, just the parts.  There have been a few times he even paid for the parts and asked for nothing in return.  Now, he is hurt that my family had a complaint and did not go directly to him, but decided to share their disappointment to other people which will eventually end up being heard by customers that will decide to stop going there for their repairs, thus killing his dream of having a successful garage.  My husband is brutally honest and hard working and thought he had enough respect that people can be honest with him, now he is not so sure anymore.  Basically, the whole concept of helping family that is not really his is over.  He decided it is better to be an ass for doing nothing as opposed to being helpful and getting slapped in the face for doing it.  He trusted that people were honest and forward with him, now he is not so sure and I can't blame him.

I just wonder why people tend to jump to conclusions and never get all the facts before ranting their issues if there were no issues to rant about in the first place.  This whole story was blown way out of proportion and fingers were pointed without all the facts.  I thought that when I heard about the estimate that it was done as if it was being done for a customer, but I was told that it was for family by my mom.  I tried to get more details, but I was stopped for even trying.  That is where I was a bit put off about it, but decided that it was best to say nothing and let this iron itself out, so keeping the promise to say nothing is real easy because I saw this as a disaster waiting to happen if I opened my mouth.  I guess I was wrong because I was slammed for keeping my mouth shut and was somehow blamed for opening it when it was obviously closed.

Now, I wonder who told my husband about the talk I had with my mother because I am the bad person in my own home.  Since I now know that it is all out in the open once I heard the secret that was told to me by one person being mentioned by another, I thought I could try to clear the air and be open about it all and maybe see if I can fix the damage that was placed upon my husband's reputation.  That turned out to be a complete and utter failure.  Now everyone is mad at me, people are fighting and threats were made that I know will be followed through on.  I sure hope my family is happy because they just did not hurt my husband, but they hurt me, too.