Anyone else have a family who moan and complain about everything all the time?

[IAmAlwaysLikeThis]

They literally hate everything and everyone. Of all of them (my mum, my dad, my brother), none of them have a single friend. If we walk past someone on the street, they inevitably get called fat, ugly, a stupid twat, what they’re wearing will get picked apart etc etc. Everyone on TV gets called stupid, a tory prick, a lefty twat. The town they live in is shit, their jobs are shit, the car is shit, the telly is shit.

My brother in particular loves to go on what he considers acerbic, Frankie Boyle style rants for five to ten minutes at a time about how this person or that person is a prick - telling him to shut up results in tantrums, arguments, meltdowns etc. He never does a thing to help - asking him for help results in massive amounts of moaning (he is in his 40s) yet he is very happy to call other people lazy, inconsiderate etc.

Currently watching Uni Challenge and every question is ‘fucking stupidly hard’ unless he can answer it and then the contestants are ‘stupid fucking pricks’ for not knowing.

My SIL is quite cheerful and I don’t know how she puts up with him tbh.

Luckily I live fucking miles away from them and only see them at Christmas but their constant moaning gets me down. I have depression and anxiety so I try to keep cheerful to stop myself spiralling but being around them really gets me down.

Sounds very wearing... Thank fuck you escaped. I avoid spending too much time with my family. Have avoided Christmas for 37 years 😁
Chin up and enjoy the ride home

Yeah, thats why I cut contact with them.

At the risk of being the same...- he sounds awful! I would really struggle with that.

I have a family member who tends to judge friends very hard on the things they do, apparently completely oblivious to that fact that they do the same or similar. One rule for them another for everyone else!

Mine are awful.... my DM spent a whole 20 min phone call last week moaning about a colleague organising a group xmas present. If she’d been left to organise it she’d have moaned about that too. She then moaned about the Christmas present said colleague sent her (it was totally inoffensive present IMO but possibly not the most useful)
She needs to be more grateful. It’s so wearing. She’s like the Dementor out of Harry Potter - she sucks the joy out of everything.
As soon as I realised that she would never be happy I stopped trying to please her and chilled out a lot more. Now I ignore it or directly challenge her and call her out on it.

I feel your pain. My DF isn’t any better......

ianhislop exactly, I just have to try to ignore it but it’s so draining. Can’t watch telly together, can’t have a chat etc.

I think it really made me anxious because I assume everyone is judging and nitpicking as much as they are so going outside used to be really hard for me.

Thanks for the support also, sometimes I feel really alone when I am with them.

Yes, it's called family. Mine have a bad word for everyone, other family members, politicians, famous people ya ya ya.

I guess it's because they feel that they can get it off their chest and not worry about being pc around their own flesh and blood. No, it's not ok to belittle people, including me. Just go away.

I visit for one day only over Christmas, for a couple of hours. Then I escape.

You are not alone. Chin up

I could have written your OP.

The racist comments, watching Gogglebox and them slagging off every single person... I even had to explain to them why their racism was not a good/nice thing.

I desperately consider going NC

YY to anxiety thing. Whilst at my ILs, I have to remind myself that I’m not being judged/watched/ready to be pounced upon

I too have nothing to talk about with them. I find them draining, stressful, and alien.

You’re not alone

thunder yes the racism. My husband is a different race to us and so they aren’t racist towards his race any more but they are towards everyone else. I actually hate it more than if they just continued to be racist towards his race too, it’s so hypocritical.

Oh god, do I somehow have a twin sister that I didn't know about? I could have written that OP almost word for word. My parents go on amazing holidays every year, and yet when they get back and I ask them how it was, all I get is a litany of complaints about the accommodation, the food, the tour guide, the travel... it's absolutely draining to be around such constant negativity, which is why I don't stay long when I visit for Christmas.

It was the same thing this year, we were watching Christmas University Challenge and when the contestants introduce themselves, a picture comes up showing them back in their uni days. My dad felt the need to comment on how much all of them had "gone downhill" since their youth - we're talking about 20+ years for some of them, and of course it was only the women he commented on.

I also have a misanthropic brother who does acerbic rants about how shit he thinks everything is. It's about the only time he speaks, but he certainly makes it count.

The last straw was when my dad made a comment about "negroes" while we were watching something completely unrelated. When I challenged him, he said "well, I don't know what you're supposed to call them these days, they keep changing it." I need a banging-my-head-against-a-wall smiley for that one.

Jesus, we watch UC too and everyone was a twat and an idiot haha.

It’s so draining, isn’t it? We all like a moan but fucking hell.