Last night my cousin arrived with his fiancé. I was to tell them I wouldn't attend their wedding, so I invited them to a nice restaurant. After sitting down and asking them how the preparations were going, my cousin said "you're not coming right?" and I said that was correct, my family's visit was an unexpected expense, I burned my vacation days, I'll be busy at work at the time, yadda yadda.
I'm a bad actor and couldn't act apologetic about it. Throughout our filial friendship he has demonstrated a lack of common sense. When I first came to Spain, about 15 years ago, he asked me to buy a soccer jersey from the UK for him and bring it to Mexico. I bought the shirt and sent a photo to him "that's not what I wanted, please return it for an exchange". It was none of my fault, the business had a mixup. I sent the return but the refund never came. I wrote support and they said they didn't receive the shirt. I asked my cousin to refund me but he refused, I simply wrote it off taking note of his character, never to engage in his transactions again.
My cousin apparently let me off the hook for not attending the wedding, but then begun railing off about the people he invited whom couldn't attend, which was his way of expressing what he was feeling but couldn't say to me directly. I asked him then who was he surprised that was coming. A business contact from Argentina, another one from Brazil, paying expensive flights and accommodation. Then he said he debated a long time whether to invite my sister and I was puzzled: how could he invite a business contact but not my sister, given our families are quite close.
It feels wrong to write badly about my cousin, I feel as if this were my way of justifying not going. It happens to me when I decide to break up with a girlfriend, I start repeating to myself all the flaws, injustices and oversights I had with that person so that the decision feels justified. I'm never the asshole, the other one is. Sigh, I'll simply note to myself: I'd have to go into debt in order to attend his wedding. I'd do something like this for my immediate family and my best friends, but I'm not willing to do it for my cousin, I admit. I don't have to justify myself, much less by explaining to myself that my cousin has been inconsiderate and done me this and that.
When has he been considerate? He always invites me for dinner when he comes, asks me if I need anything from Mexico. He offered me to stay in his apartment two weeks when he went off travelling, which I took. He's a decent, well-tempered guy all around, my only complaint is that he will externalize business costs to family and friends if you allow him, and this requires firm and non-equivocal boundaries.
The boundaries were effectively communicated last time, as yesterday he didn't ask me to hold on to something, or to deliver product to a contact, as he's inevitably done in the past. They were in Madrid for a layover and this morning they left for Mexico, with four huge suitcases filled with clothes to sell on his online store.