About DP's family

[SummerBreeze1980]

As much as I love DP's family they are just exhausting. The family is very dysfunctional and quite broken due to some things they have experienced. I really try not to judge them but it can be frustrating.

Today was DP's birthday. I had invited all the family to lunch. DP's nephew accepted. His mum and sister said they would come a bit later and meet in a park nearby to where we were having lunch as they were coming after sister finished work.

Nephew phones me yesterday upset as he'd had a falling out with his aunty (DP's sister). At the end of the call he asked if his aunty was coming to the meal as he didn't want to see her. I said she wasn't but was meeting a bit later so he could come for lunch and then go before we met with his aunty.

We met for lunch and DP's mum had decided to come after all. As we were ordering lunch DP's mum kept worrying about if we would be late meeting his sister. Nephew explains he doesn't want to see her and then talks about their falling out and he never wants to see her again etc. DP's mum then ends up phoning sister and telling her to meet us at the café so then nephew leaves without finishing his food. Sister then turns up and starts going on about fall out with nephew. DP is upset about it. Sister starts crying. I comfort her and DP days he doesn't want to talk about it any more

Someone has always fallen out with someone else. Nobody can handle another family member needing support as they are overwhelmed with their own issues. But everyone wants support from the others and feels let down when they don't get it. DP always sides with whoever he is with - so when we were having lunch he was on nephew's side and then once we were with his sister, he was on her side. It makes him seem 2 faced. I think he just feels caught in the middle, but he doesn't seem to be able to stay neutral. Lots of these arguments involve them saying really quite nasty stuff in the heat of the moment.

I try to stay as neutral as I can and support where I can. It would be great to get all the family together without worrying about who has fallen out with who.

Oh wow, I felt exhausted just reading that! I can't imagine how it was for you. That's tough. I'm future can you just invite people round individually/in couples?

I have a family member who’s DP’s family are like this. It’s dizzying trying to keep up with who has fallen out with who, for what reason and how they are all connected to previous arguments and perceived slights.

This family member has tried to stay neutral but at times gets dragged into it, against their better judgement.

There’s nothing you can do but vent your frustration now and again and maybe not put too high expectations of expected behaviour at family gatherings. It’s going to be dysfunctional, don’t expect anything less than that.

Sorry OP, sounds exhausting

Since you know members of your DPs family are always falling out with each other, why on Earth would you purposely invite all his family anywhere? You are purposely engineering stressful events for everyone involved. I’m sure your DP didn’t want a complaint nephew and a sobbing sister for his birthday. So just stop doing that. Stop inviting all of his family to one event.

That is generally how we see people but as it was DP's birthday we invited everyone. Even individually we still have to hear about the latest.

Yes, I agree. It is what it is. I just needed to vent today!

But then how do you choose who to invite? Despite the bickering they are all very close and at times we can have a nice time all together. The point is even if we invited one person we would still hear about it.

And anyway, we thought it would be ok as we were seeing nephew for lunch and then sister later. It was just DP's mum who messed that up.