Your families

[amber]

Originally Posted by markolas

I don't speak to any of my relatives, currently; mostly because my mother is a very toxic person and I finally realized that a functional relationship with her was just not possible. Anyway.

My mother has a large extended family, though they're all starting to die off now; her mother is one of 6 children (only 3 are still living) and we usually saw them at Xmas and a few other times during the year, but otherwise were not especially close. My mother has one sister who is (what's the PC term?) mentally challenged. And my dad has one brother who didn't have kids until he was in his 40s, so growing up, I didn't have any first cousins, or really any relatives besides my younger brother who were close to my age.

My dad's parents (who are well into their 80s now) are the only relatives I can say I really like. My mom's parents (her dad passed away several years ago) were both big-time alcoholics, and as a result of that, I wound up not having too much respect for my grandmother or my mother for leaving us kids in her care.

Older brother is an ultra-conservative Southern Baptist minister, which as you can imagine interacts wonderfully with my homosexuality. The last few times I've seen him, you could've cut the tension with a knife. Finally, I just decided I didn't need the stress anymore. Younger brother is just a weed-head and a layabout.

Last year when my mother called and left a nasty message on my work voicemail, I officially disowned her. But that had been about 15 years in the making. I'm happy that others have functional relationships with their families, but mine has been nothing short of toxic.

I always kind of like your family stories, and feel bad for you, because they are kind of bad. Everyone, including me, thinks their family is...less than spectacular...but you really have some stuff going on with yours! I hope the few people you do like in your fam that you have been able to gain a lot of support and comfort and love from them. You're a nice slash mean guy, I think you have a good heart, so I hope you can forget about the lameness of your family like I have. My mom never spoke to my whole family again for years now, so I know what you mean. She came to her mom's funeral recently all pissed off, to dance on her grave, spouting grievances, and her sister was so mad at her for all that that she didn't talk to her. It's lame, it's all lame. You have to separate yourself from the toxic, which is what it seems you do. That is great.
I still love all my fam, even though they don't like each other. I'm the common ground, kind of, that no one had a problem with (first kid, everyone is young, yay, hurray, golden child, blah blah) and that is hard, too.
Alcoholism is devastating to a family, especially with multiple offenders.
You have room to grow, as we all do, but I think you are doing pretty darn good considering. I can feel your good intentions. Just remember always that they have nothing to do with you, really. But you can still love them without taking on their qualities or opinions, and you can love other people without them treating you as your family did.
That is the best place to be, I think, with a "problem family". Now that I'm grown up and see my fam for what they really do, I'm appalled and mystified (not always, they have lots of great qualities). But I still love them for what they gave to me before, and the good that is there now, despite the...stupid anger they all hold that I can't comprehend.