tell me your stories about families who don't get you

[boundaryRider]

I've moaned on here before about my parents and siblings. They thrive on negativity, affluenza-type consumerism, and inanity. They are terribly nice social people (chattering classes) who are behind the scenes a seething mix of ineffectual whining hippie-ness, absence of credibility, narcissim, controlling freakery and victorian prudery/perviness.

Increasingly I am trying to see them as people who live in a very different society, with very different interests, values etc. I'm trying to create distance between myself and them so that I don't engage with them and spend my life getting angry over things i can't change.

Please tell me your stories of having moved far from the family home/ culture, and how you relate successfully (without having to engage much) to the parents who don't really understand what you're on about.

(This is faintly depressing since my job is basically identical to my father's and not too far from those of my mother, DSis, BIL, SIL etc., so it really is a huge effort not to want to SCREAM whenever they say something plainly idiotic).

I find learning to tell half truths and blatant lies helps. Or nodding and ummming and aaahing at the right moments.

Letting them do most of the talking, with just occasional (false) signs that I'm interested, listening and, most importantly, agreeing.

I remember, 'You cannot change how other people think, but you can change your own way of thinking about them.'

Yep, I do the nodding/ letting them talk.

Has anyone gone and got the "wrong" career or married into the "wrong" culture or something?

I'm thinking that modelling myself on that sort of mutual incomprehension might help....

I live 700+miles from the closest family member and I have to admit (for us) there is a definite correlation between the greater the miles between us and how well we get along.

Plus its always easier to place the handset on the kitchen counter and occasionally pick it up to "yes" "hmm" and "absolutely" than it is to feign interest in a face to face conversation

omg, bounaryrider, I could have written your entire post!
I live in Germany, my family the UK. Sometimes I consider moving even further away.

Oh yes! Nod, smile, remain mute, find yourself saying "riiighhht" a lot. All too familiar. Why would you want to travel to the other side of the world, what's wrong with (insert nearest seaside town)? Why don't you come and live in our village? Why do you drive such a small car? Why do you rent? Why don't you have children? Don't you work long hours? (yes! and we pay tax, unlike you lot!!!) Arghhhhhh! luckily dh is the embodiment of diplomacy, I just want to pull my hair / tongue out every bloody time!! Our life, our choices, try judging us by what we have , rather than what we don't. Rant over!!

I've distanced myself from my family in the last year and it has definitely been a good thing for me.

I got fed up of the constant negativity, demands, guilt-tripping behaviour, the lack of equality around visiting, the lack of support and the seeming need to tell me how best to run my life.

The catalyst was my dad having an alocholic breakdown and the way the family behaved following that. I was heavily pregnant at the time and just felt enough was enough.

I do have times where I feel guilty. My dad is now in a home with brain damage and I do feel sometimes like I'm not being a dutiful daughter ringing him and going up to visit. But then I remember how he's behaved over the last 20 years and how little support and encouragement I've had from him.

Hmm.
You have my sympathy - and some empathy.

I have very little in common with most of my immediate family - other than that we are family. But I love them - including a previously violent father and a dreadfully controlling mother. So I keep my distance by not living anywhere near them and trying my best not to get sucked in. However, I have inherited mum and dad's confrontational nature when it comes to family (I'm a pussycat with friends and colleagues)so it can be very stressful having a relationship with them at times.

DSis, on the other hand, just lies to them a lot - she's always working at Christmas, has to leave family events early because of some imaginary commitments, screens her calls and always seems to be out when certain people call and so on. She can do that, and it suits her. I can't, but I don't want to break away altogether either because of the children.

Then DSis and I - we are very very different but we get on pretty well, often joking that we aren't really related. That's had it's ups and downs but I think as we've got older we've both found a middle way - and we seek comfort in our shared exasperation with our parents. We both moved at least 50 miles away from home as oon as we could, by the way.
Don't know if any of that helps.

How I relate successfully? Therapy. Me, not them.

Yes yes all of you.
sunshine mummy: I agree that my family are really hard work RE the constant negativity, demands, guilt-tripping behaviour, the lack of equality around visiting, the lack of support and the seeming need to tell me how best to run my life.
They don't get why I got with my OH, why I moved out from their home to live in the same city I'd been studying and making friends in "but why do you have to go to London Dominique, why?" moved in with my boyfriend, got pregnant, refused to have them pay for me. They don't understand when I say a flight is too expensive because my mum has decided, on a whim, that I should come for a visit, and then for the next 3 years say how poor I am and how I am struggling. They don't get why I would want to be with someone who has no 'money' and their family has no 'money': "But Dominique they wont even be able to help you buy your first house, so we wont be able to offer you any money to help out either."!?!?!?
Mainly I don't 'get' them, but they don't get me either.

I'm taking a contrary view and would have to say - try harder. If you consider you have found a better way to live and be, you should take some comfort in exposing them to that, and subtly make them aware of how they don't have to be. Maybe you think it will never rub off, but at least you are setting an example for your own kids (if you have kids).

I think people too easily dismiss their families and don't want to deal with uncomfortable weekends or conflicts, when they wouldn't dream for a second that the dynamic could be repeated with their own children.

you are wrong, chandellina, one of my biggest fears is repeating the split from my parents with my own children. For that reason, I will make damn sure I dont try to control them, criticise everything they do that isn't MY choice in life, or have a favourite, or take them for granted, or other mistakes made by my parents.

As for making more effort, I am past it. There is a limit to the number of times you can hurl yourself against a wall and fall down. I really went out of my way for years to try and please them, my reward was their contempt.

Oh wow - thankyou all for the replies.

Chandellina - I'm trying to find a way of dealing with my family that doesn't lead me to be rude to/ impatient with them in the short term; and lead me to relationship breakdown and suicide in the long term.

Cutting them off entirely is what I'd love to do. But I share your views on abandoning family, so am not prepared to do that.

However... Issues around my family have been the focal point of my severe depresseion and bouts of suicidal thoughts/ attempts since i was about 9 years old. My unreasonableness regarding my expectations of my family is a point of tension in my relationship with my partner.

Basically i desperately need a way of not caring.

I get along much better with my family now that there is an entire ocean between us.

I think chandellina is right from a "moral" point of view. But you have to balance that morality with another moral obligation, which that of being a good parent.
I believe being a good parent is our main duty when we choose to bring kids into the world. In my case, my parents actively work against me in my attempts to be a good parent.
Dealing with them results in depression, anger, confrontation, all of which have knock on effects on my children. I now have no contact with most of them, which saddens me to the core, but I will not allow my daughter and son to suffer the misery and unhappiness I went through as a child due to being raised by people who were self- absorbed. Interaction with my parents makes me self-absorbed because it upsets me so damn much and I believe my kids deserve a mother who puts them first.
Obviously my situation is extreme, but I would say to anyone: analyze the effects on your kids and if you are happy with that, then by all means keep on trying with your family. If not, time to break the cycle.

I have to say Chandelina's response was mine instinctively and that is what I started to write at first.

However, I have come to the conclusion that there is often a fine line to tread between showing your children a broken relationship with your own parents and then hoping they won't think that is normal, and showing them that unacceptable behaviour is even unacceptable in your own parents, so they don't learn to put up with crap from people just because they have a relationship with them that might imply duty. So when my DF had a massive, public temper tantrum in front of my children because I wouldn't do what he wanted I walked away calmly with the children, explained to them what I was going to do and didn't contact him for several weeks until we had a conversation where he accepted how wrong he had been (a very big step), and the children knew, because I discused it with them, exactly why I'd done it. In fact I had a thread about it boundary which you might find useful - about New Year's Eve 2009/10.

"Plus, Sakura, it is often forgotten that one has a moral obligation to oneself. If I can't ensure my happiness and mental wellbeing, how can anyone else be expected to do it for me.
I personally needed those 2 years in order to become a person who can model a good relationship with my parents.
I just couldn't do it while I was enmeshed in it. "

Butterfly effect, sorry, I don't understand your post.
MAybe my post was unclear, sorry. I am advocating cutting contact with your parents. I have had zero contact with my mother for almost 5 years no so I understand more than most that you needed 2 years to free yourself of the enmeshment.
Part of having an obligation to your children is the obligation to look after yourself. So you must put your mental well-being above that of your parents, for the sake of your kids.

going by your op, they will probably be relieved if you distance yourself from them

As I grew up with no self respect whatsoever, (my mother didn't think that girls needed it, as they are expected to hook a rich husband, and then spend their lives enjoying themselves and making him happy), I definitely do not want this pattern of negative teaching repeated on my children.
Also, my parents hated my ex, and were already making a favourite out of dd (whom they identified as being more like "our side of the family"). Toxic, toxic stuff.
Yes, a split is bad, but it's like saying that you are going to stay with an abusive husband, because divorce is such a bad example to set to the children.

Anyone who hasnt been a mile really should butt out.

I have fairly limited contact with my parents, after about 5 years of no contact. I needed the break from the manipulations and guilt trips. I only just recently started up contact with my parents, after a request by my sibling, as my parents had a very tough year - father almost died in an accident and his health is still touch and go, and mother had cancer - and wanted to be in contact with me again. But the contact is on my terms. The first 10 months of contact was strictly by post or email, as I could think carefully about my responses without feeling pressured or pushed to answer questions that they invariably ask that are none of their business. I did call my mum and spoke to her just before Christmas, but kept it relatively short, as again I didn't want to be pressured. They do not have my telephone number, and I plan on keeping it that way. And no personal visits are planned, as they live abroad anyway. But this seems to be the only way I can have any type of relationship with them.

I haven't had contact with my Mother since Christmas 2008 and have limited contact with my Dad and brother.

I have come to the conclusion that she is toxic and damaging to my mental health to come into contact with. Even if she weren't toxic we are just two very different people, she is inherently lazy, thinks it's fine to claim benefits even if you are not entitled to them, racist, highly mysogenist, thinks it's fine to smoke round children, swear, feed them nothing but junk etc. She has told me in the past that DP will leave me if I dare earn more than him or cannot "give" him a son as all men want sons afterall. Women should not have careers but instead be "kept" by a man and have to put up with anything he throws at them as he is the man and as long as he provides the cash that is good enough.

In the end I thought "what am I getting from this relationship?" if this person wasn't my mother I wouldn't talk to them so why do I put up with her just because she gave birth to me? I did all the contacting even phoning her up arranging for her to come and see her grandchildren etc. In teh end because of all of this and other things I simply stopped calling her and it has been great no more depressing phonecalls about her and her latest woes.

It's sad that I don't have a mother in my life but good that I have cut ties with her if that makes sense?

Oh this is all such difficult stuff to deal with
It has only occurred to me recently that my elder sister has taken on the role of mother/parent in the absence of any adequate parenting from our mother. (Father died nearly 20 years ago but she's never been able to do it).
I do the vacant agreeing in the face of monologue rants but all this does is make me feel invisible. No one makes me feel less successful as a human being as she does.
We are financially bound together due to extremely complicated businesses set up by my father which are taking forever to unravel.
there is no way out of this relationship.

BUT - I have heard several times recently of middle aged people who have cut themselves off from their families through distance and non contact who becoming terminally ill and dying have had the estranged families land on the friends who have supported/loved/enjoyed these people for years and taken over funeral arrangements etc declaring 'But we're family.'

All I'm saying is if you want distance you have to make sure you mean it and think about what you would want should this happen to you.

Hmm. I think what I really want is mental distance. My parents and siblings get something out of hearing from me (even if it's only more fodder for their whining bitchiness, some days) - they are relatively friendly most of the time - it's just that I find them all irritating and depressing in the extreme because I don't share thair attitudes and I feel utterly stifled around them.

I want to want to be nice to them. Thus I need to stop caring every time my father doesn't live up to the imaginary great scientist great thoughtful Dad I used to think I had (until he let me down enough times, gave me enough completely rubbish advice, said enough stupid things, drawn the contempt of his colleagues once again....) - and so on.

BariatricObama: I am not proud of disliking my family. But I don't think that anyone would defend their actions or points of view if I listed them though.

If they were anyone other than my family I would be able to mentally distance myself, make excuses, and not mind...