Breaking Point

Jessie has been upset lately by the lack of support she thinks she’s getting from her family. In her eyes, they don’t think she’s capable of making wise decisions and resort to telling her what to do. She’s been complaining that she can’t even make the choice of which doctor to visit and where she wants to have the baby without having someone throw in their two cents.

Being the youngest sibling of three sisters is probably pretty rough. Everybody thinks you’re the baby of the family and can’t do anything by yourself. I experience the same treatment, but unlike her, I really do act like a big baby.

However, in her family’s defense, I think they’re only trying to help by offering advice to her. After all, her mom did have four kids and her oldest sister, two. Obviously, when I say this, it doesn’t sit well with Jessie, who thinks that I never side or agree with her. Totally not true. Why just the other day, I agreed with her that yes, I can be extremely annoying and immature most of the time. See, who’s got your back now!

She had a long talk two weekends ago with her oldest sister, Sally, who was trying to tell Jessie the best way to raise our baby. They had differing views, and in the end, Jessie was left frustrated. Her sister could probably tell by the tone of my wife’s voice that she was pretty upset because later on, she sent an e-mail explaining what she was trying to say and that she supports Jessie in whatever she decides.

Jessie doesn’t take it that way and still believes that her family doesn't have confidence in the choices she makes. I try to convince her that no one is forcing her to do anything, but she’s having none of it and sits down to respond back to her sister’s e-mail.

At first, she tries to write the e-mail in her native tongue of Chinese, but in the end, she switches over to English because she thinks she can relay her ideas more clearly. However, because she’s not a native English speaker, writing can be an arduous task for her. I see her plodding along at a turtle-like pace and take pity on her.

I tell her that she can dictate what she wants to say in Chinese and I’ll help her write it down in English. Her face brightens at the mention of this prospect. Anything to make the wife happy, right? She immediately begins rambling on about her situation and the dilemmas she feels she's facing, and I try my best to keep up with my typing.

After I finish, she looks over, approves, and sends off the e-mail to her sister. At that very moment, a guilty feeling starts sinking in. What if her sister takes offense to what was written? What if she misunderstands what Jessie’s trying to say? Even worse, what if her sister finds out I’m an accomplice to this e-mail? (If you're reading this...surprise!!)

I tell my wife these fears and she says not to worry. Her sister won’t know that it was written by me. She says that anyone could have written an e-mail like that. Really? This being said with confidence by the person who was laboring over trying to form one simple sentence.

For the past few days, we’ve been anxiously checking our e-mails to see if she’s written back to either one of us, but she hasn’t. Maybe Sally is trying to sweat us out. I feel the pressure beginning to mount.

It’s like when you got in trouble as a kid and your mom would say, “Wait until your father gets home,” and you would sit there dreading every second because you knew what would happen once he got home. That feeling of dread was almost as bad as the beating itself.

I feel like I’m about to break… can’t… take… it… anymore! Just get it over with and beat us both silly, Sally!