Does anyone have no close family

[JustDanceAddict]

My parents died when I was relatively young, I'm an only child and only have one living aunt and her two DDs as my closest living family. Aunt is by marriage, but she is like a 'real' aunt. They don't live in the U.K. Though. Another close relative of mine also passed away this year and I was gutted. This means that apart from dh & 2 dcs (teens) I haven't really got close extended family and it's a very weird feeling not to be 'tethered'. I have in-laws, but it's no way the same and I don't really like them!! Anyone else in a similar position? Most of my friends still have at least one living parent/siblings, etc.

No one can understand how it feals to be alone until you are, I think which sounds trite and stupid but I think you get the gist. People say things which try to be empathic but just end up missing the point. Not their fault.

agree Parsely, thats just it, trying to explain how you feel when it sounds a bit "poor me", but you dont want sympathy, just someone to get it all, my cbt counselor said to me last week, "why has your health anxiety got worse since your kids have got older" and I thought its not since they got older its since my mum died, pure and simple, since mum died and I've been alone.
I dread Christmas every year and the gut wrenching isolation I feel and have to hide it from everyone. Me and dh arent very social at all , we've never had babysitters or spare money to spend on a social life and our lives revolve round the dc's and work and the dc's are teens now and dont need/want us around them and work closes down and theres no distraction from each other/the house. I hear of workmates having lots of family round or going to family and I ache to do this, to go to another house I feel familiar and comfortable in, or to have people over and still slob around and not to feel embarrassed for the state of my house. Though I read on MN a lot of people who dont want family around so much so maybe its not all ideal. Again its the fantasy life thing with me.

Other family must dilute your own family a bit, without this I feel its all too intense a lot as theres no one to bounce off except each other.

I get what you mean about not wanting to sound 'poor me' because if I say to anyone about how physically alone I am they either point out all my friends or say something like family aren't great anyway and because I work really hard - like most of the time to probably run away from being alone or fealing lovely then I get patronised re that oh you're so good you have such a great work ethic and sometimes I feal like screaming Stop being so fucking patronising you don't know what it's like to be so lonely and alone !! Just stop for one minute and imagine having no family bar a child, having to make do with other people's families, and the reason I work so hard is to pay for school fees that you take for granted because you have families who help out but obv if I did say that I wd look and sound batshit crazy !

parsley and ssd, I know exactly what you mean. I agree with all of it.

Only blood family I have left is one brother who is the other end of the country and I don't see often. No fall out or anything but neither of us are ones for chatting on the phone unless there's something that needs saying so probably only speak twice a year.

I only have one dd and Dh. Dd calmly informed me the other day that when she's left home in a couple of years she won't come back to visit as she doesn't like me or her dad! 😕

I don't even have any close friends. If I had a problem or was upset there is literally nobody I could ring. I do feel very isolated.

parsley, the families who help out bit kills me.

we are on a very low income and we do our best to give the teens what they need but I'm finding as they get older it gets harder.

ds recently passed his driving test and is the only one (and I mean that) of his friends who hasnt been given money for a first car from his grandparents (he hasnt got any). and these grandparents also paid for most of the driving lessons and the insurance, which is sky high at his age. we just cant compete and its beginning to bite.

I try not to say anything to the dc's but a few people at work love to tell me how their parents gave their kid £1000 for their car insurance or gave them their own car.

It just kills me, not only do my kids have no grandparents to have a relationship with but they never have anything at xmas or birthdays except what I can save in the credit union account all year long( I put a tenner a week away).

I know that sounds like I'm materialistic but I'm not, not at all, I cant afford to be.

And I know in a few years down the line it'll be flat deposits....

Hugs and (and probably and too) to everyone on this thread.

I've even gone as far as thinking of advertising for surrogate grandparents. Just so the DC can have that kind of a relationship with an older person.

And is anyone else going to switch Facebook off for Xmas?! The happy family stuff from friends that appears during the rest of the year I can just about tolerate, but at Xmas it's hard.

Maybe we should start a surrogate family group! I'd willingly be there for anyone in similar circumstances to mine.

Df left when I was a baby and died a long time ago, dm died a few years ago but our relationship was difficult, grandparents have died, I had no aunties uncles on dm side, no brothers or sisters and I don't know any of dd family. Dh has a large family and I'm fairly close to my sil, I have two dcs and recently decided to have another as I don't want my dcs to ever be in the situation I am, it's very lonely and I find there is nobody to ask about things from childhood etc, if I could afford I'd have another two dcs but that's only if I win the lotto

wriggly, that's why I had two DC. The loss of family memory, through not having anyone to share it with, is a surprisingly sad thing I find. I wish I'd written down some of the stories my mum told me about long ago relatives, before she became too ill to talk.

Morning everyone ! Yes to switching off Christmas Facebook in fact Facebook full stop - I think social media definitely makes you feal worse about life. It is isolating because I find I can't say what I want to without being pitied which I don't want. My ex mother in law really pities me hence why she includes me in everything luckily my exs wife is very relaxed and we get on really well I think their religion helps she is Hindu and my exs wife is bahai. Everyone here have some nice 🎂 and a Cup of ☕️

oh yes facebook is a nightmare, I came off it after mum died and it hurt me too much..its bad enough at normal times but Christmas is torture

does anyone else absolutely hate the supermarket adverts at Christmas time? they are full of groaning dinner tables full of extended families of all generations having Christmas dinner, I hate them with a passion!

Yes indeed ssd. Thing is, I know they're bullshit and that few families actually have that kind of Xmas, but part of me still buys into that idealised fantasy.

I generally have a glass-half-full attitude to life, and remind myself that many folk don't have ideal happy extended families, but somehow it's getting harder as the DC grow older. They're 6 and 4 currently, so still think Xmas is magic even if it's just me and DH. I suspect that will change in years to come.

My DF died three weeks ago, I lost my DM 25 years ago.

I do have brothers but they all live abroad and see them very rarely.

But

I have realised my extended family is my descendants

I have a son, a Granddaughter, and a great grandson.

I have a beautiful DDil carrying my second Grandaughter

My 1st is carrying my 2nd Great Grandchild

And a wonderful DH

As much as I wish there were older generations, generations that we held on to, I have realised that it is the circle of life, and at 57, I have become the raft the younger hold onto.

gosh shosha, I'm not much younger than you and only have 2 teens. I feel I still yearn for the older generation who has gone as I dont have a younger generation to look to..yet... hopefully some day.... your family sound lovely...you must have started young?!

and slippery, you are right, its right not to get sucked into the idealized version of Xmas thats designed to sell us an image...but its hard not to, isnt it...and hard not to feel inadequate too...I hear my teens saying "so and so" go to their aunties/cousins/grannies on Christmas and I just dont know how to give mine a warm loving family when theres no one there....I even send them cards from my siblings and I put money in it for them to make them believe they have extended family who care, I dont do it for my siblings who know nothing about it and couldnt care less, I do it for my dc's....its easier to hide this stuff when they were small...

I have dh and two secondary school aged boys. One is off to uni next year. Apart from them I have nobody. I worry a lot about the future and what will happen when dh dies - he's ten years older than me.

I totally love this thread, I've never actually spoken to anybody who understands how I feel. I'm sorry that you are all feeling bad but it helps to know I'm not the only one! I think cbt definitely doesn't address the reason for anxiety which is why i stopped, even bereavement counselling didn't really help. I too find it really difficult to control my feelings of jealousy when work colleagues speak about everything their parents do for them and give to them. The other reason I want more children is for the future family gatherings i.e. Christmas, and selfishly when I am older I want to have people to visit me etc I do worry about that. I often feel guilty when it's dcs birthday because they just don't seem to get as much fuss as other children no matter how hard I try. Ditto the fantasy world, I have a little scenario in my head that I think about when drifting off to sleep, sad isn't it!

SSD yes, I had DS at 19, he had DGD at 16, she had DGGS at 20.

I'm actually now after DF going, finding looking down the line rather than up, quite lovely x

But ssd I'm not trying to sound difficult but kids start driving at 17 - it isn't uncommon to have lost grandparents by that age. All mine had died long before my seventeenth birthday. I wouldn't worry about that, honestly!

my husband doesnt have any family other than me and the kids his mum died 11 yrs ago and he hasent seen his dad in years [ we are not sure if hes still alive ]and his sister died suddenly last yr and because of a falling out they had her children and his step dad blame him so that it .

yesterdaysunshine, I know you must be right but I dont know any of my kids friends who have no grandparents, ds was 11 when they'd all gone...I really dont know any other kids now without any, even now ds1 is driving.

but I know you are right

All my children's grandparents were dead by the time the eldest was 3. They have no aunts, uncles or cousins either.

Also, we were mid 30s before we even started to consider kids so we had them late 30s/early 40s. So I continually worry what will happen to them if anything happens to DH and me. To complicate things, ds3 has autism. I spend my entire life feeling isolated.

And it's little things like school not allowing us to bring siblings to the nativity play meaning only one of us can go. Or school holding 'grandparents day'. When ds1 went through it, only about 12 GPs showed up which was bad enough but in ds2's class, he was literally the only child without GP that morning. School kept saying 'oh you must have someone who can come in? If not a GP the an aunt?' Eh, no!
It literally exhausts me. Christmas depresses me and I can't help but feel that my children miss out on having the joy of extended family and someone else to love them other than DH & I.

Even on MN Christmas threads people go on about not understanding why people buy lots of stuff for their kids when they also get so much else from other people. Never stopping to think that that's not the case for everyone.

And YY to people saying they understand as they lost their Grandad/Nan last year. It's not a grief competition but it really really isn't the same. Likewise, I would never suggest that the loss of my parents was in any way comparable with the loss of a child.
I'm just tired

It's just me and my two DCs. My mother disowned me years ago and thus so did the rest of my family.

I see a few people saying bereavement counselling hasn't helped. I'm about 6 sessions in with a very nice counsellor, but it's not really making any difference to anything. Should I just chuck it?

Also, I'm really struggling with whether or not to have another baby. I'm 37, and my IVF baby turns one next week. I've no family left and my husband's mum is in her 80s, so won't be around forever. My dilemma is that I hated the baby stage (my lo had colic and reflux), and, had my mum not died, we'd probably not have had another.

But now I keep thinking that she's already missing out on having grandparents and an uncle (my brother died 4 years ago), would it be immensely selfish of us for her not to have a sibling? I don't ever want her to feel as alone as I do now, and because my husband and I are both older, we won't be around as long as we'd like. But the thought of going back to having a newborn fills me with dread.

I don't know what to do for the best.