Do you bother to keep in touch with your cousins?

[Allthenameshavegone1972]

Just that really. I really miss the old days of the 70's when we user to have big family parties at my grandparents houses. I have 5 cousins & a few second cousins. We keep in touch on Facebook & that's about it. All of our grandparents are dead, most of the parents are dead too.
I try to initiate a meet up once a year and these always seem to go well. However, none of them ever initiate back. It makes me question whether or not they really want to meet and I think why bother. It seems it's the grandparents are the link that keeps everyone together. Once that link is gone then it all falls apart.

No I never meet up with cousins, nor does DH. Mine are mostly abroad and I'm only in touch with one on f/book. I think when people are abroad you naturally lose touch as there is little in day to day life in common and travel can be expensive.

No.

My Dads side of the family we lived a long way away from them so I don't really know them.

My Mums side, we had great family Xmases when my GPs were alive in the 80s and we were all a few years apart in age but now we're in our 40s and 50s, we have nothing in common and I wouldn't choose to spend time with.

Things change, families change. Being related to someone and having had lovely Xmases in the past doesn't mean you want to hang out or be friends 30-40 years later.

I've no cousins on my Mam's side because she was an only chid. I've a lot of cousins on my Dad's side (30 approx.). We used to meet up occasionally at my Granny's house as kids (not all at once) or on the obligatory First Holy Communion visits, when we'd do the rounds of the aunts and uncles. When we got to the difficult teen years, visits tailed off. There were one or two big family parties (for my Granny's 70th birthday maybe?) where we all got together. I'm close-ish to maybe four or five of them. That's not to say that we meet up very often, but we exchange messages and birthday greetings etc. I think we'd be closer if there were less of us. I mean, you're not going to invite 30 cousins to your wedding, but you might have invited them if there were only three or four. Also, there's a very big age gap between the oldest cousin and the youngest cousin. These days we're starting to meet up at funerals a lot .

I have 4 First cousins on my late Mother's side. 2 I have never met, 2 I have not seen for 45 years. On my late Father's side: 7 or 8 : I'm not sure? I have met 2, briefly, at a Funeral.
Not a close or happy family.

My mum used to work at her sister’s house with another sister, so my brother and I spent lots of time with their kids over the holidays. We stopped seeing those cousins regularly when my mum stopped working there and we moved further away from them.

My mum has two other sisters. We were never close to the kids of one of them and, while we did live beside another set of cousins for a while, we were too different by then to have any kind of relationship.

My mum’s brothers and my dad’s family live too far away for us to have spent much time together.

I hope my own daughter will have a relationship with her cousins though. She has no cousins on my side, but a few around her age on her dad’s side.

Yes. There are a few that I catch up with regularly. Larger groups meet up very occasionally but we always enjoy it when we do.

Yes I try to and my kids are very close to their cousins at the moment as they're all in the same town, I hope they always stay close.
We come from a family who tends to stay close and make an effort with each other.

Sadly, despite my efforts, it continues. I have a half brother who I have not seen since 2001. He has 2 kids who my two have never met. My exH has a sister with three. My kids have met them but they broke contact post Divorce. My kids have 5 cousins, much good it does

Yes, in touch with all cousins from time to time on Facebook / WhatsApp

See them in person when we can manage. Not as often as we'd like

Always get together as big group for big birthdays, approx once per 3 years

Our parents made a LOT of effort to promote these relationships when we were kids

I have three cousins. Two we saw a lot of in our teenage years but their mum stopped speaking to the rest of the family in our late teens (we’re all the same age) and even as adults they didn’t come to our grandfather’s funeral. I would love to talk to them now to understand their story but I’m also very resentful of their mother’s actions.

my third cousin is 24 years younger than me; I see him rarely.

DH is one of seven cousins, one of whom died at 39. All the cousins turned out to her funeral despite not having seen each other for 20+ years. There’s been more of an attempt at an annual meet up since then.

DH’s brother is a twit and makes no effort at contact so my children hardly know their cousins either.

On one side of the family I only "know" two of them, one has passed away. The others I wouldn't know if I fell over them in the street despite there being loads (parent had lots of siblings)

The other side, I meet up a few times a year with three of them at one of their houses, 2 others occasionally join us too. However I am the baby of the group as they're my grans siblings kids. One is the child of one but was in her mid teens when I was born so we didn't 'grow up' together as it were. We do have a great time though.

I have 2 cousins also from that side on Facebook who are my generation ( kids of the cousins kids) but we aren't "close" because we didn't grow up together because I was roughly teenage years when they were born but we do get on when we do see each other at family things.

I wouldn't know what they looked like if they walked past me in the street.

I haven't seen my cousins in about 30 years, since our parents fell out. I used to love seeing them when I was young. I look them up occasionally secretly on Google! to see how they r doing and check they r ok? One seems to have similar interests to me :) I couldn't get back in touch though for various family dynamic reasons...

My children see their cousins a few times a year and get on very well. We live very far from both sets of cousins so more regular meet ups are hard. They sometimes chat in online games! They are all a similar age. I hope they stay in touch as adults, but they are all quite different so it's perhaps unlikely they will as they each grow up and form families of their own.

If it makes you happy and they seem happy to meet up - then carry on.
The grandparents were the glue and are no longer there. You are the glue now - if you wish to take that role and it adds to your life.

I meet some of my cousins, others I wouldn't know. I met a number of them many times throughout my life and we have a shared history so it's fun to talk about old times. As I get older there's less and less people I can do that with.

“In my experience, relationships with cousins tend to drift off when you and your own siblings form families/have children. The "cousins" that matter become your own children's cousins.”

I totally agree with this - it’s the grandparents that keep the cousins together, because they’re all their grandchildren, whereas once the cousins grow up they lead much more separate lives. Once, you could have guaranteed seeing cousins at weddings; these days, as they have become more about friends and people marry later, even that isn’t a given. I certainly don’t keep in touch with my own cousins, but even as children, we didn’t have much in common.

No, but I only have 1 real cousin and he's 15 and last time I checked he was a road man 🤔

All my other "cousins" that actually live close to me, are my half sisters cousins. So no actual relation to me. Or my grannies sisters grandkids, confusing I know, so they're similar ages to me, but we only share a great grandparent, is that second cousins? God knows. But no, I speak to them if I see them and have most on social media. But as far as actually keeping in touch. No

Vaguely on Facebook. I do live in a different country to them. When I go back to birth country I always meet up w some.

All 21 of us I think was 30 years ago at our grandmother's funeral (and we were missing 2 for that)

Only one. Cousins on my dad's side, I've never kept in touch with.

My mum was the youngest of 11 children, so all my cousins on her side were more around her age, so I had little in common with them. I don't even know how many I've got - and I know that several are dead.

Only one cousin keeps in touch, and that's more due to effort on their part.

No, they are just random people. I've never met most of them, and don't know some of their names.

All of my cousins have moved away from our home town and have children now. They're also older than me so we're at completely different stages in life and don't have much in common. I miss the relationships I had with them.

No, my cousins are all pricks

I never really knew them tbh. My mums siblings didn't live in the same place as us or any other relatives, and dads sibling moved around a lot (forces) and due to sad circumstances there was never family gatherings on that side anyway.

My ds has 7 cousins but couldn't pick them out in a crowd and I don't think could name more than 3 of them

Nope, could probably walk past them I'm the street and not recognise tbh. Don't talk to my dad, or his side of the "family" , cousins on the other side are older than myself, one in UK one not both very successful, don't think I've had a spoken conversation with either in 20 years , no fall out just no crossed paths if that makes sense

I agree with the grandparents bit. When our remaining grandparent died, my cousin's got grabby and took stuff in secret that wasn't discussed and then never helped with the bulk of the clear out. We'd agreed set days to go in and clear out but they took a key in secret and went in separately and took some bits.
They also never saw or spoke to them during COVID, with excuses and then we're posting all over facebook all sorts on how much they miss speaking.
We used to be really close but it was tense at the funeral.

I have 8 cousins from 3 families - 2 on one side, 1 on the other. One lot I am not really in touch with other than FB but we do talk and we would be happy to help each other if we could. The next two - one lives in the UK and the other lives abroad but I am close to both of them. The one who lives in the UK is particularly close to our family and we love to meet up. Whenever we are together we toast Granny who would have been delighted to know that nearly thirty years after she died we still choose to spend time together.

My other two cousins live near me, sister and brother. We would drop anything to help each other. My cousin and I spend time together every week. We're each other's first port of call for good and bad news. Her teenage daughter comes to stay with me, my adult children stay with her when they visit because she has more room. We are like sisters. Her brother is wonderful too and has been a great support to my son in law and we would do anything for him as well.