High Maintenance Family (grab tissues!)

[Hevn]

[COLOR=RoyalBlue][SIZE=1][B]I know... they're family and I really should give them more consideration.

But what if you have tried everything to make the relationship with someone (with several ones in my case) in your family work? You get along so well one day and then the next day you just despise them all. You tried to shrug it all off hoping that someday they'll change they're uber not nice attitude? You can't fight back because you know that they won't ever understand. And to think they're older than you and they're you're dad's sisters or whatever. You're relationship with them is so difficult and requires high maintenance.

I'm 20 and I learned a few years back that my happy-as-a-fairytale's-ending family, including relatives, is a wreck and something I can't be proud of. And they're so old they won't listen to us younger ones. And in the end we are the ones paying for the wrong things they've done.

One day, should I just go off alone and leave them like they never existed? Life like that could be sad when I think of happy memories Ive had with them. Back then, when I was too innocent to mind all things that's happening. But now, underneath all those smiling faces... you just know that everything's not alright and the sadness won't ever fade away.

[COLOR=Purple]Now the fun part... I need help.[/COLOR][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Inuyasha311]

I don't think any family is picture perfect,mine is not for sure. I have tried to work with them and work but nothing I do for my family ever works out. My sister is 8 and she acts like a 2year old my mom is so out of it dealing with my sister. My dad ,don't even get me started he is the worst and the cause of it all. Some days its nice others I wish I was dead.I'm 22 and I really can't stand to be 2 feet from my dad he drives me crazy. I have tried to ignore all the things that have happen in the past and so many bad things have happened. And I know to this day my parents feel bad about the things they have done or for that matter haven't done. So my advice to you is its family they will always love you no matter what. And I'm sure if you were ever in trouble they would be their for you. I know some days you want to just disappear but don't run off and leave then yes you may regret it. Thats what I did just ran off from my problems instead of working them out. But now even today nothing has been done but I guess time will have to take its place but in the mean time I have learn to live and forgive. I hope I could help you out alittle but I know some more people have some good advice too.

[Hevn]

[COLOR=RoyalBlue][SIZE=1][B]It's nice of you to reply to that dramatic rant of mine. But, really, I'm more concerned not with my immediate family but with my relatives. And I need to tell you I can't just walk away ignoring them because marrying my dad is like marrying his whole family. No decisions in our family can be made without them. I owe my education to them. I also know for a fact that they are hopeless. I can't change them coz they can't be changed. They've been tried and tested by a lot of people already. The worst thing I can describe them would be "crazy hopeless fallen angels". Lol. (I don't have the guts to say "devil")[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[DeathKnight]

[color=crimson]First of all your description of them makes whomever they are come off as naive. Any person who deems themselves too wise to listen to people based on their age, or someone else's age in comparison to their own, has immediately compromised whatever wisdom they have attained or think they have attained. You should try setting them straight, if you are so bold. If not, just realize that isn't the best path to take in your "journey" to being a wise old person.

As for your family, I suppose you could keep waiting it out. How many options do you have though? If they are that unreasonable about listening to you and that obstinately opposed to changing their attitude to one that doesn't set you off so much, then what can you do?

Family is as imperfect and, sometimes, dumb as any other human organization. It's the human element that makes it that way. Sometimes the human element makes it better, sometimes worse. Not your fault or anyone elses, really.

Either way, I don't advise you to just run off. That doesn't cure any of your problems. That just leaves the possibility that they will crop up again sometime in the future, which is not the best of situations to land in.

Anywho, the best to you and your relatives. I hope my advice was applicable to your situation. You were kind of vague- haha. Oh well, did my best. [/color]

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[color=darkviolet]I know the wonderful feeling of knowing your perfect family is skin deep. I found out when I was fifteen that my family wasn't all that they seemed. My wonderful paternal grandmother makes offhanded comments about everyone especially my brother and I since we're adopted (it's her fault because she didn't get my dad help when he had this high fever when he was younger and it made him sterile) She thinks my mom is a bad Christian and now she thinks that my husband will be an unfit father because he smokes and has both piercings and tattoos. Never mind that he's a wonderful person.

But really, what are you going to do? You can't pick your family. Hell, you can't even pick your inlaws (well, you can, but then you don't end up with the person you decided that you loved).

I suppose you could just walk off and be done with them, but how would that end up in the whole sceme of things? You lose a bunch of people you grew up with because of a few things. What if you suddenly decide one day that you want to get back in touch with them but it's too late. Then where are you?

That's my $.02 put in for review.[/color]

[Hevn]

[COLOR=RoyalBlue][SIZE=1][B]Hey, DeathKnight... thanks for that. I'm actually thinking now how wiser I am compared to them... I'm not that wise but I think I have a more kind and pure heart than them. Also, I am not yet that bold to set them straight. Maybe I'll wait until I can make my own money and have my own roof before I can speak my heart out to them. But until then, I'm gonna have to sit here and learn more.

And CHW, my family is close to yours. Only it's not just the paternal grandma but the whole paternal family side except for my grandfather (he was a nice person whom I didn't have the chance to get to know really well since he died last year, oh well)

But yeah, maybe the source of it all is my grandmother, she hates my mom for being a Christian and she has favorites when it comes to her children. (surely my dad isn't one of them) She totally manipulates the life and every decision her children should make.

One reason for not leaving is my cousins, I love my cousins ^_^x[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[QUOTE=`hEvN][COLOR=RoyalBlue][SIZE=1][B]And CHW, my family is close to yours. Only it's not just the paternal grandma but the whole paternal family side except for my grandfather (he was a nice person whom I didn't have the chance to get to know really well since he died last year, oh well)

But yeah, maybe the source of it all is my grandmother, she hates my mom for being a Christian and she has favorites when it comes to her children. (surely my dad isn't one of them) She totally manipulates the life and every decision her children should make.[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[color=darkviolet]I can sympathize with that. But my dad is her first son out of seven children, so if he told her to back off she would. She just doesn't like my mom becuase she doesn't think that my mom is a good example of a 'good Christian woman' because she doesn't defere to her husband (Who does? I know I don't) and when there was some tensions between my dad and my brother my mom wouldn't go along with what my dad wanted to do, which was kick my brother out of the house (we've alliviated that problem)

My mom has strained relations with my dad's side of the family ranging from things like completely ignoring trying to have a baby shower for her when they brought me home from the hospital to always bad mouthing my brother. Yeah, he's not always doing bright things, but he's not a bad kid.

But hey, as long as your maternal side of the family isn't too bad, there's no reason to run off completely.[/color]

[Hevn]

[COLOR=RoyalBlue][SIZE=1][B]Yeah, mom's side of the family is better. I'm just thankful they don't intrude like what the other side is doing. Everybody from the other side just badmouths her even in front of me. I remember from the very beginning they didn't want my dad to marry her but she got pregnant anyway... 2 times and one abortion I think. They got married anyway and I'm proud of my mom coz her faith kept her strong after all the storms she went through from my dad's family.

Now that I realized all that, I guess my mom's another reason to not run away. ^_^x Thanks so much CHW, you're just great and don't worry about being "The Most Talkative". It helps for some of us. ^_^x[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Swordsaint]

Well, in they end...they're family. For the most part you can't help but feel for them, no matter the things they've done or said. Sure they may say or do something hurtfull, but in my expirience you forgive and move on. Me and my brother don't always see eye to eye, and sometimes we go on arguing about something for so long that we break out into fistfights ( childish isn't quite the word, it's more like stubborness) We forgive later and move on to the next argument :D
Why? Cause I love the little turd no matter what.

Though I know there are some exceptions to this, sometimes a relative or immeadiate family member says or does something really mean, or awfull. It takes time to heal and forgive those wounds, and when you finally do ya just want a little less to do with that particular person. Like my dad, he was an alchoholic and a drug addict, and he would beat me, my mom and my little brother, and after she divorced him and he continually broke promise after promise to try and make himself better, and to have more to do with us as a father figure. It wasn't until recently that I forgave him. I want little to do with a person like him (until he gets better) but I still feel something there for him.

I dunno i kind of went on with my own feelings and expieriences here, not sure if this will actually be helpfull to you. Your family as much of a wreck as you say it is, though overly opinionated and to proud to recieve wisdom from someone younger, still loves you. (unless they are totally ice hearted freaks, but how many of those people are there?)

[Hevn]

[COLOR=RoyalBlue][SIZE=1][B]Thanks a lot, I've realized quite a few months back that my dad wasn't all that bad. He's just...brainwashed. And I know that in the end he is family and that when he needed someone to be there for him, who else but us, his children, should be there for him. I mean not all sisters or brothers really help each other and I on't expect that from his siblings. Sure he's stuck up sometimes and commands "power" in the family but he's good and lately he's been changing.

God, the real problem is his family. ^_^x[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Morpheus]

If you're 20 then get your own place and let them visit you. If they come into your home and mouth and whatnot to you then confront them. If you pay the rent/morgage then you can tell them to leave and stop doing this. The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree but you need to get out of the tree first.