Extended families - what is yours like?

[Whatsallthisthen12]

Name changed, in case anyone recognises me from my other posts under usual name.

I have a medium sized, extended family. Aunts, uncles, cousins etc.

A while ago, there was an issue between another family member and his wife. They eventually divorced, but it wasn't the cleanest of separations. All a bit ugly. Anyway, at one point during their separation, the exw targeted me for some reason. I know her fairly well and I know she does this. Something bugs her and she lashes out at people and she really goes for it. Anyway, she did this and some of my extended family decided to side with her, although I was genuinely an innocent bystander, who she got angry with for no real reason. They are all still in touch.

Since then, I've taken a bit of a zero tolerance approach to my extended family. I no longer tolerate from them, anything which I wouldn't tolerate from an acquaintance or a neighbour. Sometimes, I think people think I'm not being friendly enough with them, but the thing is, that they really aren't anything to me anymore. Nothing more than a passing acquaintance would be. So, if one of them is a bit judgemental about my sister or something, I don't engage or tolerate their shit. I'm never abusive or anything, but definitely do the "sorry, what do you mean by that?" sort of tactic. Any snarkiness and I try to cut them dead, as I would with someone I don't know well.

Anyway, most of them don't really contact me anymore, which suits me, but there is always an underlying feeling that it should bother me, or maybe I'll regret it later.

Not sure why I'm posting really, other than to see if anyone else has an extended family like this and what did you do? Or is it quite normal for extended family not to be in contact with you once you're an adult with a family of your own?

I don't have a family like that.

However, I do think it is normal, as your family expands, to see less of people, as there is only so much time in a week / month / year.

So, when we were kids, our family would stay with my Mum's sister's family (or they would come to us) and we would spend a week living together in holidays, etc. You grow up, adult cousins move out from Autn and Uncle's houses. You go to weddings, still see them maybe if they can arrange to meet up when you might visit your Aunt and Uncle, but your time now also divided between your own DP's family as well as your own, and that family of 4 people that used to live in one house, have also now become 3 families, totalling 10 or 12 people and living over 3 houses, possibly in different towns, so you don't see your cousins much, and the closeness can be lost. That's even before your own dc grow up and start families of their own, new partners etc.

Now, every family is different, but, I'd say it is pretty common for the closeness to fade as your time gets spread more thinly, yes.

The whole 'drama' side , less so, although, reading threads on MN, clearly does go on in a lot of people's lives.

Yeah I don't really have any interaction with my extended family apart from occasionally liking each others FB posts. I like to keep them at arms length as I'm NC with both my parents and some of my cousins have verged into flying monkey territory before.

I have a huge family on both my mum and dad's side.

Mum's side is really close. I still see gran, aunties, uncles, and cousins regularly and see some of my mum's cousins a few times a year (great aunts and uncles are all dead now). I genuinely love spending time with all of those people though and wouldn't bother so much if I didn't.

I'm not that close to my dad's extended family and only see them once a year.

Thanks both.

Yes, I think I do keep them at arms length tbh. I only have one surviving parent and we are still in contact, but don't live near each other.

I don't suppose it's a big deal really, not having much contact with them. Some of them I do speak to a bit, but again, with some pretty obvious boundaries in place.

There's also the point that we all have different relationships with what is the 'same' relationship.

Similar to a pp, my Mum and her sister were close growing up and were each willing to fill their houses with 11 people sleeping and eating there, to facilitate that relationship. OTOH, my Dad and his siblings were never close - had never fallen out, just different people living different experiences - so we didn't spend time with cousins on that side growing up. So, same relationship if you were reading a family tree, but very different 'lived relationship' emotionally.
Some people's cousins live in the same street, go to the same school, share friends and social groups and are more like siblings. Other people might have only seen their cousins twice a year or less and then will obviously have a very different relationship in the first place, without any 'falling out' happening.

My husband has a huge extended family and we all enjoy spending time together when we can, with a family gathering at least once every 18 months. My extended family live further away but we do stay in touch via Facebook and WhtasApp, with the exception of my sibling and family who no one ever sees it heard from (despite a lot of effort on our part). There haven't been any big dramas or falling out's, we all get along pretty well. Within the extended family, some members see each other more than others as they have more in common. We seem to be a fairly happy bunch.