How can I get over being jealous of people with family?

[sweetkitty]

DHs parents both dead, we have. SIL we seemqybe once every 2 months. My Dad is really useless, was a useless Dad now a useless grandparent seen him twice this year. My mother is an emotionally abusive narc who I've been NC with for 9 years. I have one brother but we're not that close.

It's so hard when I hear people talking of the help they get from GPs with childcare and the lovely Relationships their children have with their GPs. I've even been called lazy as I was a SAHM for 12 years as with 4 DC I couldn't have afforded childcare and this is from people who's GPs provide free childcare so they can work!

It feels all my DC have are DH and me.

OP I really feel for you. I am in a very similar situation. I have maintained a contact of sorts with two family members. While I've been aware of it a long time, recently I got fed up that it was always me ringing them,and decided to wait and see if they might ring me. I waited over a month and of course nobody contacted me. I rang one last night as I knew if I didn't, they would most probably never again contact me. I ended up getting a voicemail and left a chirpy message saying hi. Of course I never and won't get a response.

There isn't a 'backstory', there isn't any reason for this lack of contact apart from them not being bothered.

When I visit (five hours round trip), they don''t offer a cup of tea, they don't even look up from their newspapers. It is as if I don't have a family even though I do have a small one. They just aren't particularly bothered either way.

While I'm sad for myself, I am doubly sad that my children will never get to know their grandparents as their grandparents don't care one bit about them. I had a nice relationship with a grandparent myself so this saddens me even more.

Four DC and a DH? You have family. Concentrate on making more friends - you're actually incredibly lucky.

You have a family,as grobags has said! My family are on the other side of the world, I saw my mum in April for the first time in over fours years, but we do Skype a lot so there is that. Sounds to me like you need to build up your friendship circle, many people live a long way away from their parents these days or don't get on with their folks. I think you are also slightly romanticising the close family ties thing, yes some people have lovely close relationships with their families but I'm bloody glad to have half a world between me and most of mine (except my lovely mum who I miss a lot).

I have lovely parents that are also lovely grandparents that help with childcare but due to one reason and another ( including failed (abusive ) relationship , miscarriage ) I'm not sure that il ever have anymore (much longed ) for dc. I don't mean that to sound catty just that you shouldn't compare yourself to others . having 4dc and a dh sounds lovely to me

I know I'm extremely lucky to have a DH and four DC (part of the reason for having four was due to us having very small families).

I just listen to all these friends and workmates going on about childfree weekends, free childcare, holidays with GPs and I think wow I would just love my DC to have one GP who cares about them, someone who phones up and asks them about school or remembers their birthday.

Not that I want free childcare or childfree weekends, we always holiday with the DC and would even if we had GPs.

We have two adopted aunts. Friends of mine who are like blood. We also have friends in a similar situation and do swaps.

I can relate. My dh’s Parents have passed away. My parents were very abusive. My sister is mentally ill and heavily medicated. My dh’s sisters are on the other side of the world.

So, no relative ever watched our kids or took them anywhere or anything. It’s weird. It’s a whole part of most people’s lives that just does not exist for us.

People who have support networks don’t get it. Do you have any friends who are transplants? I seem to click with them more. I’m not sure how I stopped being jealous of others who have extended family. I used to be, but I’m not now.

Create your own family with friends and others in your life. We are in a similar situation to you. I have a relationship with my mum (though it can be tenuous at times), but she doesn't live in the UK and is an 11 hour flight away so we only see her ocassionally, though keep in touch via skype. We have no relationship with my husband's family (MIL/SFIL) and they have no contact at all with our children. Both of our dads died when we were teenagers. I feel it most acutely at holidays. I miss having a big Christmas, buts sadly it isn't an option for us any more as we largely aren't invited to Christmas celebrations (because for safeguarding reasons, due to SFIL's history of child sexual abuse, he has no contact with our children and he is invited to all family celebrations, so we can't be there) and we can't attend family weddings unless we have childcare (which we really don't unless it was a local wedding). It's pretty much just us.

But we really make an effort to create a family from our friends. This doesn't help at Christmas, because frankly our friends have their own extended families and they don't want to come over for Christmas. But the rest of the year, we really try to invite people to come to stay for weekends, travel and meet us with friends, really reach out and create a family for ourselves where there isn't one. I've also found that in every dysfunctional family there are usually others who distance themselves from the dysfunction or who are also thought of as the black sheep for not putting up with people's foolishness. If you can reach out to them, they are also often as lonely and feeling as disconnected as you are. My dh has a cousin who is lovely and has equally cut ties with her parents and I've tried to reach out and connect with her and make her part of our family in a way. It is sad though, but if your family is dysfunctional, you're doing the right thing. Even though it sucks.

I sympathise but you have to deal with you get dealt.

Same situation here OP. It's hard but as other posters said, you are a family. I do feel wistful when I see several generations out for lunch etc but I try to accept that that isn't what I have. I think many are in that situation.