When did you realise your extended family just weren't bothered

[LittleMissUnreasonable]

When I was younger I had a lovely childhood surrounded by aunties, cousins etc. Then when one of my parents passed away suddenly, the family meet ups went from every month, to few months, to years now. I just feel like noone is interested anymore, they all stay in their own nuclear families now and don't like mixing outside of that. One cousin even moved to my current city from our hometown for 4 years for work and made no effort to meet up. I suggested a few times to let me know when she was free, but it never amounted to anything.

I think the last straw was I saw aunt, uncle and cousins having a meet up on social media in my city... I've lived here for 8 years and they've never asked me meet up with me, see my house etc.

Just feels like as well as loosing a parent, I lost a lot of extended family too. Does anyone else feel the same? When did you recognise it?

I totally hear you. I also grew up with an amazing extended family - aunties, uncles, cousins, grandparents all part of my life regularly but they dwindled away as I grew up, grandparents died etc. and as an adult our extended families are crap. Both mine and DHs parents are a disappointment as grandparents and largely disinterested and our siblings are dispersed so there’s not the same nuclear family feel from few meet ups a year. It makes me feel sad if I dwell on it but I make a concerted effort to appreciate what I do have and not compare.

Im sorry to hear some of these stories! Sounds like we're definitely alone.

To the poster who said arranging meetups which dont happen, I understand. One aunt was like a broken record; "you'll have to come for tea/stay in our holiday home/ we'll have to come and see your house". I'd always respond saying that it would lovely and X, Y, Z days work for me so let me know. Nothing would ever come of it. I must have been having a bad day one day after several years of hearing these broken promises, as one aunt said "oh aunt X said she'll have to come and visit you soon" and I snapped, saying Im sick off people saying things and it never happening so to either arrange something or stop banging on about it (to be fair I wasn't mentally 100% well at the time".

Funnily enough nothing was ever said to me like that again .

*definitely NOT alone!!

I just think sometimes people are very busy OP. It is really hard for my family to meet up together and that is immediate family. We all work FT on differing schedules, nights etc. I wouldn't take it personally.

My OH's parents don't work and we barely see them. They show little interest in our kids. It's upto them really. I don't see any of my friends as I'm busy and It's not personal, it's just for most people life is extremely busy and stressful. We shouldn't blame each other, but maybe question why we all need to work so many hours just to keep our head above water. We probably don't need to, but society seems to be designed that way.

I think this happens in a lot of families I found this happened once both my grandparents died. X

My cousin's don't bother with me. I used to think they cared as we spent so many holidays together when I came to visit Grandparents after my Mum died.

They never had to make any effort with me growing up as I was always there and I was the one who would make more effort as we got older.

I got a bit fed up with being the only one to put in effort to see each other and so stopped and since then I've heard nothing from them.

I've found out that they've been my way and not called in and it hurts.

I'm from a small family - mum and dad are one of 2, their siblings only had 2 children each. When my parents and aunties/uncles die I'll be at Christmas card status with my 4 cousins I think. I don't think it's that unusual really as I feel like every generation adds in some in-laws and branches further "out".

We used to see a lot of the extended family when we hosted parties and gatherings. It was all one sided though. Once we stopped, primarily because we had babies and toddlers we stopped seeing them. They are no invitations extended to us.

My parents weren't close with extended family, so I've never really built much relationship with any of them, and these days I feel like my close family aren't really bothered with me tbh. The past year has been hellish for me, a big personal crisis and gone through an immensely hard time all on my own, been fairly obviously not well mentally...my brothers don't even send me a what's app, and my mother put off visiting me for months and months because she didn't want to pay for a PCR test. It's been very hard.

I don’t think it was that they weren’t bothered in my case, just that the relationship was between my parents and their siblings, as kids we were just there because we had to be. My parents still see their siblings but I could probably pass most of my cousins in the street and not recognise them. That’s fine by me, we weren’t that close to begin with and the ones I do know, I’d rather not spend time socialising with.

Recently with ex mil...!
Her DS ( my exh) was nc when we got together ( he lived with her at time) it was a s awkward as it sounds!
I always got on with her though and when dc came along , we remained close....but I soon realised when eldest dc was 12..., that I did all the meeting up and contact.
It took mil 3mths to contact me, after I stopped making the effort.

New mil just isnt the type to be bothered from the start..., so ive not made much effort either really.

Each Mil has 2x GC from 'me', their only gc and still neither is overly bothered.

My aunt and I were close. She heavily relied on my Dm (Her DSis) for everything..., then I had my 1st Dc and she was so jealous that dm was giving attention to her 1st dg.., she went nc🙄.

With extended family, its always been meet ups at weddings tbh , so I feel I havent overly missed out there.