My family, yeah, my family. The lowdown goes like this,
My one brother is cool, lives with his ex-girlfriend and her parents and takes care of himself. My other brother, Pat, is perpetually in trouble, and he lives with my mom in Wisconsin. My mother is a basket case, she goes from job to job and has trouble keeping friends, jobs and boyfriends because he has a crazy temper. She likes to complain all the time and she never thinks things through, her solution to any problem is to fly off the handle.
Last night my brother Pat called me at 10:30 yelling about how my mom's boyfriend was kicking them out of the house and calling the police on them. My brother and mom wanted me to drive to the Dells and pick them up, but I had my first day of work and knew I wouldn't make it back in time. They yelled and screamed about how I was abandoning them and all that stiff and then hung up on me. Of course it doesn't matter to them that it took me a year to find a job, or that I had to get up at 3 in the morning for work, they called me at least three more times and then started txting me at 1 in the morning to tell me that things had been smoothed over.
Of course no apology was ever offered by them, which is par for the course. My mother put me into bankruptcy and her and Pat have borrowed close to 5 thousand dollars from me over the past year, money that I'll never see again. I love my family, I really do, but I don't know how much more of this I can take.
Bill,
1. They are grownups. Grownups, particularly parental grownups, don't lean on their kids like that unless it's truly dire straits and there is no other choice at all.
2. You are doing what grownups do. You are taking care of yourself and supporting yourself. No one else is going to do that for you, therefore that is your number one priority.
3. Someone who doesn't recognize that and respect it, and respect the obligations it places on you, is not respecting YOU. Family or no.
4. You can't just kick someone out of the house if they have established residency. Even if their name isn't on the lease, even if you pay all the bills. You have to go through the eviction process. The boyfriend can't legally force them to leave right then and there. And even if he does force them, they have options other than demanding you drive to B.F.E. in the middle of the night, whether or not you have to work at 3AM. They can sleep in the car, or go to the Dells equivalent of a Waffle House and drink coffee til things calm down. They can call the police and get the police to explain to the boyfriend about not being able to kick them out. They can figure out how to support themselves so that they aren't dependent on a boyfriend providing a roof over their heads.
5. The fact that you considered going and getting them and only decided you couldn't because of your work obligation is to your credit.
6. But there's nothing wrong with distancing yourself from unhealthy people, even if you are blood relations. "Blood relation" doesn't mean "I get to bleed you dry taking care of my needs." They have made choices in their lives, grown ups live with the consequences and deal with it. You know that you can't change them, you can only change how you react.
My personal suggestion, if it was me, is that once the drama has died down for this go-round, express clearly and calmly how you feel about the incident, including the fact that they don't recognize that they were imposing on you beyond a reasonable amount, and the fact that they didn't apologize for disrupting your life and laying emotional bullshit on you to manipulate you into doing what they want. Then tell them how you will handle such incidents going forward and stick to that.
If you don't want to do that much because they won't hear it anyway, just tell them the latter part. If that's too much and will only open a can of worms, then tell yourself how you will handle it and stick to that.
Relationships are like bank accounts. You keep taking from the ATM without allowing time for interest to accrue or without making deposits in the account, the account gets drained and overdrawn. Sounds like your bro and mom are overdrawn at the moment.
Oh and best not to think of the money you gave them as a loan, even if they say they will return it. That way it won't eat you up when they don't repay it. If they do, it will be a pleasant bonus.
Distance is good, distance helps things stay civil when they are f'd up. You are completely within your rights to draw the boundary you need and maintain it. It's taken me a long time to recognize this and accept it for myself in my parental relationship and I still have to give myself essentially the pep talk I'm giving you (although my parents don't depend on me like your mom leans on you, there is still the emotional stuff and the guilting).
Good luck with the new job!