It's been a long time since I started a post so I thought I would give it a shot. This is inspired by KT's Post on turning 35 and the ensuing discussion about family. Seemed like that OP was going off on a tangent so I though it would be interesting to create a separate post on Family.

I find it really interesting how different families interact with each other. Some get along really well and than it seem to run the gambit to other families that do nothing but fight like cats and dogs.

I guess that you could say I fall somewhere in the middle of all that. My mom and dad passed away and my sister lives pretty far away and we rarely talk. It's not that we don't get along we just don't talk or get together much. The only person I really really miss in my family is my Dad. My mom was a lunatic PITA and my Cousins, Aunts and Uncles always lived a pretty good distance from me so I never really saw them too much to really miss not seeing much of them now.

Here is the interesting thing. I guess I really deep down inside believe that family is important. When my kids fight with each other I have had more than one occasion where I have stopped it and gave them the family lecture. I tell them that other people can come and go, Friends, spouses, people you work with, whatever. But, family/blood is forever. When/If everyone else is gone you will still be related to your family and it is a precious thing that you should protect. I don't know maybe I am just over dramatic but I think something in me wants to see my kids get along better and end up closer than what my family ended up. I mean I am OK with how things ended up but still miss the closeness I see in some families.

So, how close are you to your family?

How many people do you actually consider to be "Family"? Does it include cousins, third cousins ect... This is interesting to me because around here there are so many people who are related to each other it is silly. People have distant blood that they call Auntie and Cousin.

What is normal or is there even such a thing.

How about some family stories. Maybe good heartwarming ones and also the ugly(funerals are usually good for this. NOt because people are jst sad at missing their loved one but it seems like if there is bad blood in a family this is the time when all the crap really hits the fan)

Fish, I intend to contribute something. I just have to edit it down to less than 5000 words . I've witnessed a lot of interesting family dynamics in both my own family as well as others. To sum it up...they can be frustrating. In fact I wrote 'frustrating' but what I really meant was disappointing.

Disappointing. I understand! Not so much with immediate family but with with my extended family(Aunt/Uncles and all that). I really respected a few of my extended family when I was growing up and as I grew older and discovered things like how they felt about me, it really disappointed me. I was always kind of the black sheep and my family was the one who was at the bottom of the list when it came to income and all of that. Most of my relatives are pretty well to do and my family was really just lower to middle class. I think I ended up doing really well for myself even though I had to do more for myself than any of my other relatives ever had to do. It used to really bother me but now I have figured out who is who and what is what and don't worry about it and really do not have anything to do with those that do not think much of me. Their loss if you ask me.

"How many people do you actually consider to be "Family"? "

myself, sister, brother in law, mother, father, 3/4 best friends, uncle, first cousin...thats it...

all other family is dead or lives very far away and i rarely see them...

i consider my closest friends to be family and my "family" is quite small...im probably closer to my friends than my family, at least when it comes to opening up to them about feelings/experiences whatever, but i have a hard time talking about things with anyone...

I've always had relatives who live very far away -- most all of them really -- and so to me, they're really family in name only. I have no real contact with them nor interest in their lives, and vice-versa. I just wondered who I would pull up onto a liferaft first, this distant family or someone I knew and liked, and I didn't come up with an answer quickly. I'm not sure I'd believe any answer I gave to be reflective of what I'd really do.

Geez, don't get me started on family.

One story:
I'm 12 or so. It's winter time, and I'm taking a tennis lesson indoors with a bunch of other kids. There's a balcony that overlooks the courts. I notice an old guy (65 or so) watching us. Not a problem, as there are usually a bunch of parents and others watching.
So the lesson ends, and as I'm going to meet up with my mother, I walk past the old guy, and he says "Hi". I sort of say "Hi" back, but keep walking. I walk the 20 feet to where my mother is waiting, and I tell her that old guy said "Hi" to me.
"Oh" she says, "that's your Uncle Carl"
I'm like "Huh?"
"Yeah he's my older brother."

Turns out I had 3 older uncles and a whole half of my mothers family that I had no idea existed. They all lived in the same city (Cincinnati) as me, and were of some prominence. The two halves just never spoke.

Kind of a shame this sort of thing would be a surprise. Lots of families keep lots of secrets, and maybe this wasn't quite that, I dunno, but who your own family is seems to me something that shouldn't be a secret. That's making too many of your own life's decisions for you, without asking.

I never met most of my family. Apparently, I have twin uncles (I think one died) that lives here in California, but I wouldn't know.

Blarg: Some siblings simply grow to hate each other. I made the conjecture in the other post that many families grow apart and then come back together in life. It is not uncommon to hear how a teen disliked his parents and then ten years later became very close. I imagine that this would be harder as siblings, since people move when they are younger, and older people stay in their own home. Their phone number never changes.

This is a really timely topic for me. I'll try to articulate why, but as I have a raging headache and a 10 page paper due tomorrow that I'm delaying doing (thanks Lounge), this may not come out well.

All of my life, I have been very family oriented. My parents divorced when I was 2 or 3, but remained civil on my behalf and I spent time nearly 50/50 with my mother and with my father. I really don't think I could have asked for better parents, especially given the situation. It made it hard at holidays because they both wanted me to spend it with their families, and so I did.

On Thanksgiving and Christmas, I wake up at my mom's, travel to my maternal grandmother's house and hang out there with family until 1 or 1:30. Then I would go to my dad's house for about an hour, before we would leave for my aunt's house an hour and a half away, where most of his immediate family resides. Because I've spent so many holidays with my families, I had come to take it for granted in some ways...

I didn't take it for granted in that I didn't appreciate them or love them. That part is something that I learned well. When I left UIUC after my freshman year, part of the reason was to be with my family again for the year at juco. I love my family.

However, I took for granted how involved family would be in my life in the future. I had always just assumed that I would spend all of my holidays with my immediate family (including aunts uncles first cousins, etc...just like I did with my elder family). However, I am starting to realize that this is increasingly unlikely.

My mom is moving 6 hours away from my hometown on Saturday. That alone has really made me realize how wrong I will probably be about assuming I'd always have family around. This combined with my recent (last couple weeks) thoughts about moving states after graduation to teach anywhere I want....it is all just a lot.

I cherish my family above almost everything and three of my closest friends the last year or so have been my parents (stepmother included). It really sucks that in the last week or so I've realized that my thoughts about the future involvement with my family are becoming "more realistic."

I hope this contributed something to the discussion. I'm not really sure if it did. If anyone can fish a question or two out of that, I'd be more than willing to try and elaborate on specific things.

Shrug.

I think one of my big problems with family are my unrealistic expectations. Don't get me wrong, my expectations are pretty low. I would like them to ask me how it's going, maybe even include me in their little outings or their little whisper sessions in the back bedroom. I can't believe my family still whispers. What the hell are they talking about? They all do it. I'm wondering if this is normal.

Like I mentioned in Kilgore Trout's thread, being the youngest I feel kind of transparent. I'm often the one that ends up baby-sitting while my sisters go shopping or out to the book store to buy each other gifts.

When I go to see my mom (which is not very often) she never wants to sit and laugh, and she never asks me how I'm doing. She asks very specific questions and they're almost always about finance or sunscreen. Usually she'll come over to the sofa and sit down a little too close to me and look me in the eye and then say "Katy, how much money have you managed to save this year? How much of it have you put in your mutual fund?" I'm like "Mom do you mind? I'm trying to watch LOST." Then she gets all pissy and sits there frowning. There's never any talk of "how do you like your job?", "where are you going on vacation this year" or anything like that. She would be happy if I never went on vacation.

Now I'm depressed. I feel like getting a rope.

When I was a kid we spent almost every Christmas at my maternal grandparents' farm in western Illinois. Our family and my mom's two sisters' families. It was [censored] great. From those days I consider my first cousins on that side close family.

Now that we're all grown and such the only times we've gotten together are at funerals (the dads are all dead now and of course the grandparents; my cousin and his wife live in their house and farm the family land which is now in a trust). We do the funeral and cry, then all get together and laugh and have a really great time. Then we feel kind of sad that we only get together anymore for funerals.

On my Dad's side, my cousins are virtual unknowns. I knew some of them as a kid; now they're just information on the internet. I have two half sisters through him whom I don't know well, though I have made some contact with the one who lives here in California since I've lived out here. She keeps her distance; I think she has some anger left over toward Dad's 'second family' and I understand. I don't press her.

I've done some research and have found quite a bit of information on my Dad's side. Other, unknown to me, members of Mom's side have researched the family tree back to the 1500's. It's amazing to ponder how many relatives one has that one knows nothing about.

My wife's side is a little more what I suppose is the typical family. They fight, they're petty, they hold grudges, a few of them are just miserable people. Oddly, they have a lot of money as well. Live in west L.A. and such.

I find it interesting in a clinical way that a person can live in a penthouse on the beach in Santa Monica and still be [censored] wretched. On a more personal level, while I get along with them OK, I don't particularly look forward to being around them. When we're down there I pretty much stay half drunk around the clock; and I'm not much of a drinker except for those times.

My mom and my sister don't care for my wife and she returns the feeling. My wife and my mom don't speak to each other unless they absolutely have to.

On the flip side, I get along with her mom as best I can but I find her the most despicable [censored] I've ever met. She's coming to town over the weekend and back to L.A. for Thanksgiving. I'm getting a head start on dreading it. She is civil to my face but word gets back to me about the huge step down she considers her daughter made marrying me. Oh well.

So, I guess for me it's a wash. My family (Mom's side): pretty tight, we like each other's company very much. Wife's family: puts the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional'.

Oh yeah. My wife's parents are long divorced. I never thought about it before I got married, but when you marry someone with divorced and remarried parents, you get two sets of in-laws

Chip, can I ask where western IL was at? I'm always intrigued when I find 2p2ers that have history in my area.

chip,

"My mom and my sister don't care for my wife and she returns the feeling. My wife and my mom don't speak to each other unless they absolutely have to. "

would you mind going into this a bit? did this begin while you were dating and was something you were aware of pre-marriage? or did it begin after the wedding because of some event?

had a situation with a long term ex that i found out pretty much nobody liked, but i didnt find out till after we had broken up...

My Wife and Mom didn't get along at all. It damn near broke us up as a matter of fact. Of course no one really got along well with my Mom since she was such a meddlesome nut case.

Do you think you would have listened if anyone in your family had told you how much they didn't like your Ex before you broke up? I ask because I didn't find out until after my first wife and I divorced how many people truly sis not like her. I remember thinking, "well, why the hell didn't you say something BEFORE I married the bitch" but then I wonder if I would have paid attention anyway.

I post a lot in the strat forums and really only lurk in the Lounge but this is kind of big for me right now and I want to share.

I've never been close to my dad and his family at all. He has two sisters and I haven't seen them for fifteen years. Actually, that's the only time I can remember meeting them. Neither is he. He comes from a family you could call white trash in rural Michigan. He is very intelligent and highly successful and the rest of them are, well, white trash. He doesn't identify with them at all, therefore I rarely saw them and will probably never see them again. My brother and I don't like my dad. He's big time narcissistic and just a miserable person that would never admit it. His wife isn't much better, although I don't dislike my stepbrother and sister. I never see any of them either.

My mom's side is much better. We're Catholic, so I have a whole mess of aunts, uncles and cousins. I have actual relationships with some of my cousins on this side in that I see them once in a while. I don't dislike any of them except for their politics.

I have one brother. We are extremely close. We live about 45 minutes apart. I talk to him at least twice a week and see him frequently. We've always been good friends. Mostly this is because we're essentially the same age, being only 14 months apart. I like his wife too. He married well.

I'm closer to my mom than anybody else. She even goes so far as to claim that we are on like some sort of wavelength where we can tell what the other one is feeling like. She's not flaky at all, but I don't argue with her because she likes believing that.

I have an ex-wife that's absolutely batshit nuts outside of being a mother. That she's halfway good at, but in every other respect she's crazy. I have two kids, boys, 4 and 7. They're awesome. The oldest one is clearly very, very intelligent and he looks just like me. Which means the ladies will be all over him in 5-6 years. He gets along with everybody. His greatest gifts seem to be social. He just understands situations and people at a level that no 7 year is supposed to. I have no idea where this came from. His mother is socially ******ed and I'm pretty good with people but I clearly don't have the raw gifts he does.

My 4 year old is more average. He's a sweet kid, and very funny. Everybody loves him, and it's mostly because he's ridiculously cute. He's blessed to have his older brother around to look out for him. I shudder to think what life might be like for him without his big brother.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. My mom and stepfather are moving to Texas. This is going to be a huge change for me. I'm used to having them around and so are the boys.

chip
Do you think you would have listened if anyone in your family had told you how much they didn't like your Ex before you broke up? I ask because I didn't find out until after my first wife and I divorced how many people truly sis not like her. I remember thinking, "well, why the hell didn't you say something BEFORE I married the bitch" but then I wonder if I would have paid attention anyway. "

this is something i've thought about a bit...and im really not sure it would have mattered...i think a lot of people's gripes were things that i had disregarded, but was aware of, that i allowed to slide because we were in love...hopefully i've learned enough from how that relationship ended that if enough people told me my SO was a psycho that i would put some concern into the warnings...

funny story.....

Meh, you can figure it out. I told the dude that I couldn't figure when she was or was not pms'ing, although she loudly proclaimed the week every time.

Everyone told him how much we hated her. I think that made him want to marry even more just to rebel.

Roseville area, that's between Macomb and Galesburg.

Minutia: Mom's family and actor J.K. Simmons' family were among the first white settlers in this area. My mom and Simmons' dad were high school classmates (J.K. was born in Michigan). My great-great grandmother was a Simmons, so I'm pretty sure J.K. and I are some kind of distant cousins. I think I should contact his agent and get some kind of Hollywood hook up

Eh, a couple things. My dad died when my sister and I were teenagers. My mom, sister and I got really tight as a result. I drifted through my 20s dealing with depression and drug use/abuse. When I hit my 30s and moved to California, and gained access to more (and more potent) drugs, I cracked a little bit and wound up in jail a couple times. Then I met my wife.

The best way to describe what happened is my whole personality kind of shattered. I was developing a reputation at work as kind of a nutcase. I figured 'I must really be in love this time because I'm going insane now'. It was a long distance relationship and we married nine months after meeting, so I think she didn't realize the extent of my, um, issues until it was a done deal. I didn't realize what I was getting into in terms of her family either.

So I think my mom and sister have some resentment toward her for taking me away from them, and 'remolding' me if you will. We might have some of the peasant's "You think you're better than us?" issues going on as well.

Chip, are you one of those board psychologists who explosively hated on me for saying spanking your kids isn't both bringing on and itself proof positive of the apocalypse? If so, you sound more human now.

No, I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few who have never hated on you.

I'll admit to finding some of your posts tl;dr though.

Ok I've always wondered how this happens. I don't mean any disrespect truly. But how do you manage to marry a batshit nuts woman? Did she not reveal herself early on? Did she turn this way from hormones after she had kids? Don't take this as me giving you a hard time, I'm just trying to figure out men. How do so many men end up marrying crazy bitchy women? I mean are they sweet when they start out or were there ominous signs? (And if we were to get her take on it would she say you were batshit crazy too?)

He said "ABSOLUTELY batshit nuts"

All women are nuts, some turn out to be absolutely nuts after they get married.

jk of course katy.

I think I can take a run at an answer since I am one of those with am Ex-Wife we refer to as "The Bitch From Hell"!

When I first met her I was 20 or 21 and had moved from Ohio to Wisconsin with the goal of getting my act together, spunging off of Mom and Dad and getting back into school. Problem was twofold.
One was I was just miserable after leaving a pretty serious girlfriend back in Ohio. I actually laid in plans to move back to go to school and be closer to her. I went back to Ohio and got a place to live lined up enrolled in school had financial aid all worked out and a job lined up. Then this gal breaks up with me. Just crushed me. I turned around and left Ohio that day even though I had everything lined up to stay. Went back to WI and that is when problem number two cropped up. I was now used to living away from home on my own and just couldn't stand being at home with my parents, well my mom in particular. I spend a lot of time miserable, depressed, drinking a lot and just working my ass off.

So, I meet this girl and she seems nice enough. Lives on a farm with really nice parents (who I actually get along with really well still to this day). She is into me and she has sex with me and after being so lonely and miserable she was like a lifeline back to sanity. Only problem was I didn't see that she was a dumbass dullard with a chip on her shoulder. We get married and I think everything is great. I am working we have a kid and things seem OK but I start to notice she is way more worried about herself and "things" than me or our son. I think the thing that finally opened my eyes was a car wreck we were in together. We were coming back from a dance and hit a patch of Black Ice and slid through a "T" intersection, going through a barbed-wire fence and hitting a tree. We were not going all that fast but it still hit the tree fairly hard. My first though and statement is to see if she is all right and the first, and only, thing she does is start yelling my about wrecking her car!

After this the light kind of went off over my head and I started to see what a nut case she really was. We end up divorced and things never got any better after that. I might have to post some of the stories about her they are good ones!

Anyway, I think a lot of guys are blinded by a woman that they are "in Love" with. Especially if you throw in a woman who will actually sleep with him and he loses all rational thought. Kind of like lust or love goggles if you will.

That's my take on it.

Fish, I don't know if this is for this particular thread but I'm really confused on an Ohio/Wisky guy turned up in SE Montana.

Also, how soon after the start of the relationship was the wedding? It seems to me likely that if you had somehow waited longer you might have found out before marriage she was nuts. Then again, love can pretty much blind you for an indefinite amount of time it seems like.

That car story is really weird. I have a feeling that a situation like that would be telling of a lot of relationships with a selfish partner. I'm definitely glad that you found yourself out of that relationship and into a good one now and everything.

Chip,

The one thing I'm not getting from your story is the resentment of your family necessarily. It sounds like your wife "remolding" you was a good thing at that point in your life, no? Was it a case where even though it was a good thing your family was thinking something like "we could have managed this on our own" sort of thing?

I guess I understand them being upset at the distance created, but that could be natural of a lot of relationships I would think.