?

My younger brother and I grew up as best friends. Ten years ago my brother married a gal right about the time our dad died of cancer. My dad was terrific as a dad and a husband and my brother has tried to emulate him the best he can. My mother and I are both proud of his efforts but he's still not over losing dad. Meanwhile his wife has developed this princess complex. Rather than understand that we had a broken family that needed to reinvent traditions and come together once dad was gone she started to dictate terms and would make my brother tell us what to do. I had tried to take over the "mending" job for my family and she f**ked it up beyond words.

Now my mother keeps asking me to "get along" even though my brother and SIL can't even get an invitation date straight. They conveniently have something else "important" to do when we invite them, but change the date three times on us when they invite us to something.

The worst part is they have a kid that is my mom's only grandchild and they play him like a poker piece. He's technically my nephew but I can't stand seeing him because it's always under bad circumstances. How sad is that?

I take care of my mother when she needs help. They do nothing, even when asked.

I let myself be jerked around for the last seven years but I'm done. Mom's blaming me for "not getting along" but I just want to ignore my brother so I don't have to hate him. It's the SIL that's the problem anyway.

BTW of all the people that I know who have met her, not a single one likes her in the least. Oddly enough to a man everyone has commented that "someone needs to knock that tiara off her head," so it's not just me.

Since I can't make them happy I can't make Mom happy and she doesn't have that many years left.

Any thoughts?