Family falling out - stand my ground or back down?

[Chlobee87]

My family are on the cusp of what threatens to be a huge falling out. Basically, me and my close family on one side and our cousins, aunty and uncle on the other. I can't really go into details because it would be too identifying, but essentially it's very silly and has just got completely out of hand. We have tried our level best to avoid things getting nasty but at the same time we have refused to be emotionally blackmailed into giving in - it feels very much like 'do what we want or we will stop speaking to you'.

My question is this - do we give in, even though we are not being unreasonable, just to avoid a fall out? Or do we continue our approach of standing firm but being friendly, even though our friendliness is getting thrown back in our faces now and we are more or less being ignored? I appreciate it's difficult to say without the full story, but I suppose the question is how far should you go to preserve family relationships?

In case it helps, we have always been very close prior to this, although I'm now questioning the past and wondering if things were always so one-sided. Recent events have put a different light on things and I think it's always been us going out of our way for them really rather than a 2 way street.

My grandmother is also currently quite unwell and I feel bad that her family are falling out at such a time.

If you have family members who you don't speak to, how difficult do you find this in terms of seeing them at weddings/events etc?

I have this going on at the moment.
My mum has always worked with a close family member since she qualified in her job 30-odd years ago. That family member has had a falling out with one of her adult DC. My mum is now in the wrong because she is still speaking to the adult DC
The family member in question is now not coming to my DD's birthday party because my mum and her adult DC will be there.
My mum has to go to work everyday with this horrible atmosphere hanging over them, and both are too stubborn to talk about it.

If it was my choice, I would swallow my pride, put differences aside for the sake of the rest of the family relationships xx

MyBreadIsEggy that sounds awful. Your poor mum . I get what you're saying and part of me thinks the same - just put up with the injustice to keep things friendly. But the other part of me thinks that the relationships are already damaged too much because they really have shown their true colours and been quite nasty.

TeaPleaseLouise it wouldn't have a negative impact on my grandmother if we caved in, but it would put me personally quite significantly out of pocket (part of the issue is with money. Side note - NEVER get involved with money stuff with family. Should have known). When I say it's silly, I suppose I mean that it is silly to fall out with people over money. But it's more than that. It's the principle and the fact that you don't walk all over your own family or take advantage of their good nature. I suppose I just feel that it's extremely unjust that they can do something quite nasty really, but somehow the onus is on my side of the family to suck it up and let them get away with it. It's like they are holding us to ransom with the threat of a big fall out which is a horrible feeling.