Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If being around someone is not a positive experience, just do not do it. When it is obvious someone could care less about you, do not feel any obligation toward them regardless of your blood relation. Look forward, not back.
You need do what is healthy for you. It might take some time with a therapist to determine the best way for you to do this. Do not put all that old junk on a shelf and not deal with it. The sooner you get it dealt with, the better you will feel. And the better marriage partner, friend, and future mother you will be.
I am sorry you have had such a lousy family. Please know you are not alone in this. You can make friends your family. And you can build a warm & loving family with your husband. I wish you peace.
I'm a 37 year old married female and I have little to no relationship with my siblings and parents. I have been the "scapegoat" of the family my entire life. I'm the oldest of 3, I have one sister and brother. My mother got pregnant with me at a young age and my birth father signed away his parental rights. She married the man that raised me when I was one years old. He adopted me and I have always considered him my father.
Even though I'm older and married, things haven't changed. I have come to the conclusion they never will be different as I wished for many years. My mother is very difficult and says what she wants, when she wants, no matter how much I tell her it bothers me. She has no respect for me as a woman and I have done everything but beg for it. I have come to the conclusion she will never love me as she does my younger half-siblings. So then there are my siblings - they are what I call my mothers "flying monkeys". My younger sister is married and successful - my sister enables my mothers behavior. They are besties and I tried for years to forge a friendship with my sister away from my mother. But it wouldn't work. My mother was always getting in the middle and running to my sister whenever my mother and I had a fight. I just wanted my mother to leave my siblings out of it but she has always played them against me. Then there is my brother - my parents enable him. He is 32 years old and living with them. He doesn't work and all he does is smoke pot. I gave up on him awhile ago. He is a 16 year old in a 32 year old mans body. He doesn't work but manages to go on cross country trips and trips to Europe - I have no clue how. My parents make constant excuses for him.
I was kicked out at 19 - at my mothers demand. She even threatened my father with "Its her or me" when I was as teenager. Well..It was me who had to go. Of course it irks me that I struggled from the age of 19 - 29 financially but yet my parents enable my brother to no end.
If my mother and I have an argument she tells everyone and I'm the bad guy. The thing is I'm not the bad guy. I stopped putting up with my mother and her antics years ago. I don't let her push me around anymore and I stand up for myself. I have tried to go no contact in the past but that would mean I wouldn't be able to talk to my dad - because he sides with her every time. She hates that I don't sit back and let her disrespect me anymore.
I have an amazing and fairly successful husband that would do anything for me. We bought a beautiful home 1.5 years ago and we have a good marriage. We are currently trying to get pregnant. But even with all of this I'm sad. I'm sad that my family sucks. I'm sad when I see my acquaintances/friends have these amazing relationships with their parents/siblings. My dog of 12 years passed away 6 months ago - I was devastated (still am) and my family knew how much he meant to me but I never heard a word from my siblings about it. They didn't care. That really hurt me. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Of course people say to me "but shes your mother" and "they are your family".. ok and? I should let them treat me like crap? I have aunts, uncles and cousins that watched me get treated like **** for so many years but no one ever stood up for me.
Thanks for letting me vent. Does anyone else have poor family relations? if so how do you handle it?
Just want to point out that even though your loser brother lives at home and is enabled, 19 is beyond a reasonable age to leave the nest. It's actually a positive that you left home then, despite the struggle.
I'm a 37 year old married female and I have little to no relationship with my siblings and parents. I have been the "scapegoat" of the family my entire life. I'm the oldest of 3, I have one sister and brother. My mother got pregnant with me at a young age and my birth father signed away his parental rights. She married the man that raised me when I was one years old. He adopted me and I have always considered him my father.
Even though I'm older and married, things haven't changed. I have come to the conclusion they never will be different as I wished for many years. My mother is very difficult and says what she wants, when she wants, no matter how much I tell her it bothers me. She has no respect for me as a woman and I have done everything but beg for it. I have come to the conclusion she will never love me as she does my younger half-siblings. So then there are my siblings - they are what I call my mothers "flying monkeys". My younger sister is married and successful - my sister enables my mothers behavior. They are besties and I tried for years to forge a friendship with my sister away from my mother. But it wouldn't work. My mother was always getting in the middle and running to my sister whenever my mother and I had a fight. I just wanted my mother to leave my siblings out of it but she has always played them against me. Then there is my brother - my parents enable him. He is 32 years old and living with them. He doesn't work and all he does is smoke pot. I gave up on him awhile ago. He is a 16 year old in a 32 year old mans body. He doesn't work but manages to go on cross country trips and trips to Europe - I have no clue how. My parents make constant excuses for him.
I was kicked out at 19 - at my mothers demand. She even threatened my father with "Its her or me" when I was as teenager. Well..It was me who had to go. Of course it irks me that I struggled from the age of 19 - 29 financially but yet my parents enable my brother to no end.
If my mother and I have an argument she tells everyone and I'm the bad guy. The thing is I'm not the bad guy. I stopped putting up with my mother and her antics years ago. I don't let her push me around anymore and I stand up for myself. I have tried to go no contact in the past but that would mean I wouldn't be able to talk to my dad - because he sides with her every time. She hates that I don't sit back and let her disrespect me anymore.
I have an amazing and fairly successful husband that would do anything for me. We bought a beautiful home 1.5 years ago and we have a good marriage. We are currently trying to get pregnant. But even with all of this I'm sad. I'm sad that my family sucks. I'm sad when I see my acquaintances/friends have these amazing relationships with their parents/siblings. My dog of 12 years passed away 6 months ago - I was devastated (still am) and my family knew how much he meant to me but I never heard a word from my siblings about it. They didn't care. That really hurt me. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Of course people say to me "but shes your mother" and "they are your family".. ok and? I should let them treat me like crap? I have aunts, uncles and cousins that watched me get treated like **** for so many years but no one ever stood up for me.
Thanks for letting me vent. Does anyone else have poor family relations? if so how do you handle it?
OP just know that there are others in the same position. Other than my father who is getting up there in years....I have no extended family that I ever hear from. My step family has nothing to do with me, and everyone else pretty much ignores me as well. Labor day family picnics? Ha Ha But I've come to accept it. It's just the way it is.
Well, You know, there is a reason I moved over a thousand miles away and keep very low contact with my family.
And no, I do not miss their behavior, abuse, drama etc
So, you are drowning. You have dead weight wrapped around your ankles. You have a knife. Do you use it to cut away the dead weight and live for your husband and children OR do you get pulled down with the dead weight? Choose. Pick one. Live with the consequences.
I am compassionate when people have serious problems and can't resolve them alone or need <HUGS> just to get them through the 'bleak night' they are facing, etc. However, sometimes people just whine too - which is fine but when they whine in a first post and leave out critical details so we can really see how bad things are for them, I don't blame people when they say that what the scenario is doesn't sound 'that bad' (especially if one compares it perhaps to one's own life or to situations that have been publicized that are a whole lot worse).
OP ... I too might agree with what the poster you just replied to said - but I know that you PERCEIVE things to be terrible, worse than awful and destroying your life. I'm sorry you are so ill treated. But, if you thought his post was just like listening to your mother, that could be your real problem - you may be too sensitive perhaps.
There was a lot of good advice in that post and yet you ignored that to just say it was (all? you didn't say what part you took offense at) more than insensitive. Which perhaps tells me a lot about your 'sensitivity' level and what it is you are really looking for here. I think perhaps you focussed on the dog comment but didn't really even read all the way through that before you reacted? Seems you have a bit of a hair trigger today? Anyway .. I think your response was not well done since you didn't identify what it was that so 'offended' you.
Many people have families they don't consider ideal. Many people have parents who abandoned them or beat them half to death or assaulted them - and those are definitely worth compassion, even for a first time poster. My heart goes out to everyone who experienced such terrible childhoods - and I can certainly understand how it has affected them forever.
But, I still don't really understand how your mother was so horrible, although again I can see you PERCEIVED she was (and, perception is everything, right?). She says what she wants - and that is bad? You say she favours the others but how? And your father .. you have a great relationship with him you say (which is wonderful) but he stands up for his wife - wouldn't you want your husband to do that for you too? Either you left out a lot of details or maybe, compared to real travesties, you are not so badly off? I don't know but you didn't really give much information to go on here.
You 'tried' to go no contact? I don't quite understand that - you either did or you didn't, right? You can resolve your own problem right now by going no contact with your whole family, including your father who apparently is more concerned anyway about his wife than his adopted child who is out on her own and is well taken care of. I would bet no one, especially from such a horrible family as you have, would protest if they even notice. After all, you have a wonderful husband and new life. And you want to dwell in the past not look to the future?
That said, I am again sorry for your troubles. Not quite sure why you would post to the world about it, mind you, but that seems to be the way things are done today. I give you a gold star trophy though. Does that make it all better?
Wow, I can see why you have problems with your daughter and I question why are you living vicarously through your friends sons death? Drama much...and are you jealous when people post stuff like this to take the drama off YOU or YOUR friends or YOUR family? Irony on what you posted above about people going on and on and on about their troubles??? What the heck are you doing here then???
I have tried my entire to find love and acceptance. My father died when I was 7 years old, and sadly, my mother was extremely narcissistic and quite probably bi-polar. One day she was calling me "precious" and the next day she was pinching me or slapping me for something I said or did that she didn't like. SO controlling and self-centered was she, that 10 months after my father died, she took me and my brother to the other side of the country, away from all of our family who could have just been there for us growing up, and in the end, I lost all of them, too. I have relatives that I don't know at all, and many of them have passed away. I've contacted a couple of cousins the past few years that I found on Facebook, but they were not interested in communicating with me or getting to know me.
I've read many self-help books and have been in therapy for years to try and get past the emotional abuse and the feelings that I was never a worthwhile human being. I finally divorced my mother and my brother when I was 43 years old because she started heaping that same abuse on my daughter who was 8 at the time. Come to find out when my daughter went to "grammy's" house for a visit and I was not there, she was being used as the maid, being forced to clean my mother's house in order to earn her grammy's love. OMG - I cannot tell you how I felt when my daughter finally told me. At long last, my heart turned to stone against my mother and I did not love her anymore. That was in early 1999 and I never spoke to her again. And unfortunately, my brother was the true love of her life, the quintessential mama's boy - and I had to give him up, too.
Unlike the OP and others, I was never able to find that happy ending in any relationships. Sadly, people like me always seek out what we are "comfortable" with, and that is emotional abuse from men and friends alike. Anyone with a less-than-happy childhood and no real relationship with parents or family who is able to find real and true love and be able to start a new family is beyond blessed.
For me, I was blessed with a wonderful daughter and I am thankful every day to have that one, perfect relationship. But I have no real friends and no one to grow old with and to say that it doesn't hurt me would be a lie - it hurts every day.
I don't want to steal the OP's thunder or deviate from her sadness and loss - I have felt all of those things, asking WHY couldn't I have what my mother took from me, all those Italian, hot-headed and passionate people that I never got the chance to have in my life? But of course, you cannot change other people - and after a certain time, it isn't worth trying anymore. It's more common than you think or there wouldn't be so many books about how to cope with not having a family that loves and supports you.
When I finally divorced my mother at age 43, my friends at the time said "what took you so long?" I guess I just had to know in my heart that I truly tried to love her and accept her, even though she could never do the same. And one day, the feelings for her were just gone. It's a very personal decision, but you will know when it's time to move on. And oh yes, I have heard all of those "how could you do that? she was your mother!" comments - but I have also met many people in the same boat. Just know you are not alone, cantgetoverit - but rather than wait for that magical day when you are able to move on, try looking for a support group online or where you live, or look online for some books on the subject. Good luck to you - stay strong.
You sound like a wonderful and decent person to me. I wish I knew you when were going through such a painful time. If I knew you now, I'd give you a giant hug! I'm sorry for what you went through and it is never too late to find love and happiness but I know it isn't easy either. Best to you!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
