topic Re: Dysfunctional Families in Community Chat

Dysfunctional Families

goodstuff — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 23:44:46 GMT

With the holidays approaching, there have been several threads already about dysfunctional families and the difficulties of celebrating the holidays with relatives who aren't all that well-adjusted, loving, or convivial. Do you think most families are at least a little dysfunctional? Is there any family that doesn't deal with sibling rivalry, parental favoritism, alcoholic Uncle Harry, big-mouth Aunt Mabel, moochers, live-in grown kids who won't get a job, or hostilities stemming from divorces and blended families? Are there any well adjusted families out there?

Re: Dysfunctional Families

Colonel Meow — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 00:34:13 GMT

I've yet to meet any...

Re: Dysfunctional Families

Mom2Dogs — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 02:39:37 GMT

Probably not but my family does not even get together, one reason is distance but the other is one sibling is NEVER happy and feels the need to make everyone else miserable. I am married, dh has 2 kids but they do not live in the area so holidays are not a lot of fun..both sets of parents are gone and grandkids (the one that is married) does their thing with the other side (her dad and husbands family). I am not a big fan of the holidays anymore......for those of you that have family you enjoy being around, I say lucky you, enjoy!

Re: Dysfunctional Families

Pickwickpapers — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 03:39:38 GMT

Yes, I do know some kind and loving family groups.......Although most occasionally have issues but it's not the issues usually it is the way the issues are handled that make the true problems. My family is in the dysfunctional group currently........it's not where I want to be....but I am not a miracle worker. ......maybe one day......... I can't give up hope...

Re: Dysfunctional Families

Vamp — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 04:14:42 GMT

I agree with Pickwickpapers-- Everyone has issues from time to time, but how they deal with them is the key. Unfortunately, there are probably more dysfunctional families than not. We do not do a good job overall in our culture learning how to interact with each other respectfully. Maybe it's like that everywhere, maybe it's just human nature, I don't know. Granted, some families are far more messed up than others, but life has its challenges for everyone; some people are just better at working through them than others. It's an ongoing process.

Re: Dysfunctional Families

pistolino — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 05:13:36 GMT

I wouldn't say they were perfect, but the reason I knew my house was abnormal was because I spent so much time at my friend's house and saw what a normally functioning family was like.

It didn't mean there was no arguing or problems, but her house was light years away from mine, where everyone stayed in their rooms or punched each other.

Re: Dysfunctional Families

Kachina624 — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 09:32:43 GMT

Families are like people, none are perfect. The holidays seem to bring out the worst in many people, and there's a lot of alcohol consumption this time of year. It definite contributes.

Re: Dysfunctional Families

Pook — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 15:31:15 GMT

Most are more dysfunctional that they choose to admit to anyone!!! Many repress feelings but inwardly they are having awful thoughts about many family members and clenching their teeth. Some just have the ability to ignore the issues and pretend they aren't there!! Like the saying goes - you can pick your friends but family is forced on you!!

Re: Dysfunctional Families

CouponQueen — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 16:42:53 GMT

I think every family has some dysfunctional in it...nobody is perfect.

Re: Dysfunctional Families

Group 5 minus 1 — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 18:01:25 GMT

Try reading ""Going Home without Going Crazy"" by Andra Medea. I found it very helpful.

Re: Dysfunctional Families

BellaPaprika — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 20:29:53 GMT

I think for a lot of us growing up, we think that our family is just the wackiest. Then, as you get older and really get to know other people's families you realize that they're the same or worse. Let's face it, some families actually kill each other!

Re: Dysfunctional Families

colliegirls — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 13:30:08 GMT

I think many families are dysfunctional in some way, but some people pretend they are not.

Re: Dysfunctional Families

colliemom4 — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 23:49:11 GMT

On 11/13/2014 colliegirls said:
I think many families are dysfunctional in some way, but some people pretend they are not.

Isn't that the truth!

Re: Dysfunctional Families

jacnit — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 01:23:53 GMT

I know more that are than aren't...and who really knows what goes on behind closed doors. My siblings and I found out as we started making arrangements for our parents in nursing homes that we had a brother we never knew about from my mom and twin sisters from my dad that we never knew about...they happened before my parents ever married...we didn't even know they had both been married before! This information answered a lot of questions we all had about the dysfunction that went on behind our front door so I'm guessing it is probably going on a lot more than we know!

Re: Dysfunctional Families

hckynut — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 02:19:21 GMT

On 11/11/2014 GoodStuff said:
With the holidays approaching, there have been several threads already about dysfunctional families and the difficulties of celebrating the holidays with relatives who aren't all that well-adjusted, loving, or convivial. Do you think most families are at least a little dysfunctional? Is there any family that doesn't deal with sibling rivalry, parental favoritism, alcoholic Uncle Harry, big-mouth Aunt Mabel, moochers, live-in grown kids who won't get a job, or hostilities stemming from divorces and blended families? Are there any well adjusted families out there?

If what you describe above constitutes dysfunctional families? Our family get-together years ago we never had anything or anyone that fit into the category. With many of my immediate family no longer with us, our holidays are much different now.

My mother had siblings that I did not like, but we did not associate with them much at all. They were in the upper social class and to them my mother was in a lower social class. My thoughts were that with her raising 4 of her kids in public housing projects? Guess they were ashamed of her and my feeling for them?

Re: Dysfunctional Families

Snowpuppy — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 04:21:40 GMT

On 11/14/2014 hckynut said:
On 11/11/2014 GoodStuff said:
With the holidays approaching, there have been several threads already about dysfunctional families and the difficulties of celebrating the holidays with relatives who aren't all that well-adjusted, loving, or convivial. Do you think most families are at least a little dysfunctional? Is there any family that doesn't deal with sibling rivalry, parental favoritism, alcoholic Uncle Harry, big-mouth Aunt Mabel, moochers, live-in grown kids who won't get a job, or hostilities stemming from divorces and blended families? Are there any well adjusted families out there?

If what you describe above constitutes dysfunctional families? Our family get-together years ago we never had anything or anyone that fit into the category. With many of my immediate family no longer with us, our holidays are much different now.

My mother had siblings that I did not like, but we did not associate with them much at all. They were in the upper social class and to them my mother was in a lower social class. My thoughts were that with her raising 4 of her kids in public housing projects? Guess they were ashamed of her and my feeling for them?

John, did they ever DO anything at all to help our your mom or did they just stand by, judge, criticize and ignore the issue?

One of my sisters criticized me for years when she would plan elaborate holiday dinners at her home 1200 miles away. I told her thank you but couldn't afford to attend. She never offered plane tickets or even Greyhound tickets that we would have gladly accepted. But she sure could criticize me for "not wanting to be a part of the family......and if you would just TRY harder!".

She hung up the phone on me one day and it's the last we ever heard from her years ago.

Life is far, far better for us now but I've never picked up the phone again.

Re: Dysfunctional Families

hckynut — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 08:05:00 GMT

On 11/14/2014 Snowpuppy said:
On 11/14/2014 hckynut said:
If what you describe above constitutes dysfunctional families? Our family get-together years ago we never had anything or anyone that fit into the category. With many of my immediate family no longer with us, our holidays are much different now.

My mother had siblings that I did not like, but we did not associate with them much at all. They were in the upper social class and to them my mother was in a lower social class. My thoughts were that with her raising 4 of her kids in public housing projects? Guess they were ashamed of her and my feeling for them?

John, did they ever DO anything at all to help our your mom or did they just stand by, judge, criticize and ignore the issue?

One of my sisters criticized me for years when she would plan elaborate holiday dinners at her home 1200 miles away. I told her thank you but couldn't afford to attend. She never offered plane tickets or even Greyhound tickets that we would have gladly accepted. But she sure could criticize me for "not wanting to be a part of the family......and if you would just TRY harder!".

She hung up the phone on me one day and it's the last we ever heard from her years ago.

Life is far, far better for us now but I've never picked up the phone again.

They did absolutely nothing. My grandmother pretty much disowned my mother when she married my drunken father. We lived just across the river from her relatives and they were the wealthiest people in that city. In their social status they could not let anyone know the my lowly mother was related to them.

You would like to think that someone from that wealthy family would offer some help to my mother when my father left her with 4 kids to raise. Not a single penny ever came her way from any of them. She earned every cent needed to support us until we were old enough to work to help her get enough money together to put a down payment on a home of our own.

I was born in the public housing projects and I was almost 15 years old before we got enough money together to put a down payment on our own home. My oldest sister got married to a man in the Army Air Corps at age 17, so she was gone before I was old enough to even remember her living with us. It was pretty much myself and my 2 older sisters most of that time.

Started working at 8 years old and at 12 years old I was working 4 nights a week until 12:30am as a carhop at a drive-in restaurant. Only 1 day off a week as I worked Saturday and Sunday nights until 1:30am. Was 1951 and I was making over $100 per week working and most all of it went to my mother. Never a penny from the rich high society members of her family. She had 5 brothers and a sister and all buy 1 of them pretty much had nothing to do with her or us.

Unlike your sister, her brothers and sisters live just miles from where we grew up in public housing projects. My mother knew they would hang up on her so she never wasted time, or phone calls(we had a 40 call phone, that is if we had one at all)so there was no correspondence except for 1 brother, which also was eventually disowned because he married someone my grandmother did not give him her approval to marry.

My grandmother and my mother and her brothers and sister all came to the USA from Italy. There were, ahem, devout Catholics? Sure they were, but that meant nothing when it came to not claiming their children if they did not approve of whom they chose to marry.

As an adult I got to know some of them but by then I was pretty schooled in how real life worked. For me it was easy to understand how they deserted my mother and the only reason I even spoke to them was because my mother wanted me to do so. She forgave all of them for not recognizing her, or us, until we had our own home and I guess they felt we were closer to being respectable citizens worthy of them speaking to us.

One of her brothers even stood my mother up when she was in the hospital the last day of her life. She got all prettied up because he said he was coming to visit her. My sister did her hair up real nice and to me she looked beautiful. She waited and waited and waited and he never came. I was working night and had to go to work. My brother-in-law came to my house when I got home from work about 1:00am and told me my mother had died. It was Valentines Day of 1969.

When that brother died my sisters wanted me to sign a card they were sending along with flowers. I told them "NOPE", and told them not to dare put my name on anything connected to him. They did not live with my mother and I did till the day she died. I was the one with her while she was waiting for her brother to show up and there was absolutely no way I was going to acknowledge his death because I honestly could not have cared less for that man for what he did to his sister, my beloved mother on that Valentines Day.

I have only 2 of my oldest sisters left. My youngest of the sisters, she was less than 2 years older than myself, died of cancer at age 52 in 1989. My oldest sister lives in another state far away but we still stay in touch. My other sister lives less than 3 miles from us and we are as close as we both love each other very much. I see her and talk to her quite often, and she too is an animal lover. She has 3 horses and 1 Malamute and 2 felines in her brood, and at over 80 years old she still does all the work taking care of the horses/barns and so on.

Wish I knew what to say about your issue with your sister. All I know is I would have done the same as you, and that includes never picking up the phone to call her again. A person can do only so much and without a semblance of a connection with both sides? Will leave it at that, and my best to you.

Re: Dysfunctional Families

qualitygal — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 11:56:11 GMT

People are just human. As long as there are humans, there's going to be problems from time to time, it's how you handle it to get through it. Do your best, we're just human.

Re: Dysfunctional Families

Junebug54 — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 02:53:47 GMT

On 11/14/2014 hckynut said:
On 11/11/2014 GoodStuff said:
With the holidays approaching, there have been several threads already about dysfunctional families and the difficulties of celebrating the holidays with relatives who aren't all that well-adjusted, loving, or convivial. Do you think most families are at least a little dysfunctional? Is there any family that doesn't deal with sibling rivalry, parental favoritism, alcoholic Uncle Harry, big-mouth Aunt Mabel, moochers, live-in grown kids who won't get a job, or hostilities stemming from divorces and blended families? Are there any well adjusted families out there?

If what you describe above constitutes dysfunctional families? Our family get-together years ago we never had anything or anyone that fit into the category. With many of my immediate family no longer with us, our holidays are much different now.

My mother had siblings that I did not like, but we did not associate with them much at all. They were in the upper social class and to them my mother was in a lower social class. My thoughts were that with her raising 4 of her kids in public housing projects? Guess they were ashamed of her and my feeling for th

Re: Dysfunctional Families

missy1 — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 15:33:23 GMT

Nobody has a perfect family. They can sure put on a big show, but behind closed doors it's so different.