My (F29) cousin Nicolas (M30) has always acted like he was better than me for as long as I can remember.

From primary school (we went to the same school) to uni, to my adult years, he always has something negative to say about me and what I’m doing in my life.

It has always bothered me, but I mostly always just take it and gritted my teeth.

Nicolas was always the golden grandchild, he gets everything because my grandparents love his mom (my aunt). My mom had me when she was 16, and sadly, my family has always thought I wouldn’t amount to much.

Thankfully I have, I make over $200k a year in my career in sales, but I still live modestly (I drive an old car, don’t buy fancy clothes or new clothes often, don’t really go to any fancy places, etc.). I keep to myself mostly, my family doesn’t know how much I make.

I went to birthday dinner at my grandparent’s house, and of course, Nicolas just keeps going on and on about how great his job is. Great company, great job, he’s set for life, blah blah blah. Everyone is eating it up.

What irks me when he talks about his job is that my aunt (my uncle’s wife) got the job for him (she works there).

She got him an internship, and he abandoned his position after a few months because he got bored. My aunt still pushed some people around internally and got him an interview for the job he has now.

He failed his interviews miserably, and again, my aunt twisted some arms and got him in. I had periodically asked the same aunt if I could work there, and she had always said they weren’t hiring. Whatever.

At dinner, Nicolas starts taking jabs at me, saying how it must suck to work in sales.

He says that I just beg people for money and it’s one of the worst jobs to have. He starts talking about how I couldn’t make it as a lawyer (I planned to go to law school but didn’t) and now I was stuck in sales.

Everyone is laughing along at his jokes at my expense. He tells everyone he’s making $100k a year, gets to take nice vacations, etc. Then he turns to me and says, “maybe one day you’ll catch up to me and can afford to take vacations too! And maybe you’ll be able to get rid of that old piece of lousy hyundai you drive!”

Revenge

I laughed and said, “Haha, I’m a year younger than you and I make $215k a year from a job that I got all by myself and managed not to screw up within 3 months of working there.” But hey, maybe one day you’ll catch up to me! If Auntie continues bootlicking enough for you, that is.”

Everyone at the dinner table started laughing, and he went to the washroom, embarrassed.

One of my aunts pulled me aside to say it was not cool to put him down for his past mistakes. I think he deserved it for being a jerk.