I am not from the UK bit have been here over a decade. I met and married my husband fairly young and we now have two children. My family are OK. I could never rely on them for anything but they're attentive to childrens birthdays, events etc. Unforunately, they are not very interested in Skype so my children mostly know of them anecdotally from me and as the buyer of presents. They all get together for celebrations and have an OK time but no one is close to another. My British husbands family, on the other hand, are awful. His mother has cut him off and has never met our children. Even before she cut him off, she was pretty horrible to him (e.g. took her new bf to his 21st birthday party - DH never even knew she was having an affair). His father sees us for an hour and a half four times a year, at best. His sister makes plans to meet us, then cancels last minute (countles times over the last 10 years). She has no interest in her niece/nephew while we send her kids cards and always ring (used to also send presents but i got fed up a year ago). We havent seen her for over two years. We have met her eldest twice, her youngest never.
My kids are watching cbeebies and starting to realise that they have a pretty raw deal, family wise. The image of my son clinging to his grandfathers leg during a recent visit, imploring him to stay a bit longer and watching my FIL push him away gently as he had a date with a pint or ten will stay with me for awhile. I know my family are better but I think we would be quite a lot financially worse off if we move home. Plus, we like it here, despite family blues.
Will the lack of family leave a gaping hole for them? Is this a no brainer and we should just leave? But we really could move there only to find we only see my family too a couple of times a year. How important are family, in the end? This is probably complicated by the fact that i was not close at all to my family (theyre pretty stand offish) and im absolutely fine. My kids are only 4 and 2, and i worry that more questions/resentment etc will come out when they're at school. Anyone else have anything similar?
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Do family really matter?
7 replies
verbeier · 09/08/2014 21:32
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