Estrangement

[Shooby]

   Are you estranged from any family members?  Are there relatives you no longer talk too?

[Cass]

I would like to be.  Does that count? <img alt=" " src="http://images.proboards.com/new/wink.png" width="18" height="18" text="">

[NancysSummerSip]

Yup. A whole bunch of them. By choice. And I don't miss a single one of their thieving, negative, broke-ass ways. Sometimes, you have to clean house, and you don't get to pick your relatives. You DO get to pick whether you associate with them or not.

[Deleted]

Yes.  Most of them.

[Green Eyed Lady]

Nope.  We are all so crazy that if we didn't talk to one another, we wouldn't have anyone to talk to at all.

[mmhmm]

Not estranged from any close family, really.  I don't care for my brother, but we make the effort to get along for mother's sake.  Fortunately, he and his wife live on the other side of the continent.  I was never close to my cousins as we lived far apart, so I don't really consider that estrangement ... just never made a connection.

[kittensaver]

Yup. From my sib who abandoned his (now ex) wife and 2 girls. The wife had severe issues of her own, and DH and I took in and finished raising the girls. He's broke, physically disabled, addicted to pain meds and living on SSI and in public housing in another part of the State. He called us (left a message) sobbing because his girlfriend died of an overdose - and his girls will not return his calls. Yeah I feel sorry for him (this is the second girlfriend who's OD'd  ) but I'm glad the girls are holding fast to their boundaries. Because at the end of the call, of course he hit us up for a large amount of money.

[Deleted]

I agree,lone.

I have had a similar situation with my Brother but it's all water under the bridge now.
I wish him well but our contact is far and between. But we both understands of the reason of why.I just wish, he doesn't have to deal with much more guilt than he already experiencing it.

My Mom wouldn't want that to happen to her beloved Sons.

[steff]

I have one aunt that I don't speak to at all.  I'm not the only one tho, neither of my brothers, my mom, my cousins & one of my other aunts are also not speaking to her.  She makes everything just impossible by being rude, nasty, and trying to always pick a fight at every family gathering.  We were already starting to limit contact when she went off the deep end.  After a disaster of a funeral for my grampa, where this aunt literally THREW a ziploc baggie with my grampa's ashes at my mom, it was decided to cut off all contact.  It's been MUCH more peaceful since then.  I haven't seen or spoken to her in about 3 years now.  I'm okay with that.

I have another aunt who we only have to see once or twice a year.  I keep my visits with her very short if possible.  She's a "one up" aunt.  No matter what you or your family has done, she can one up it.  Everything with her is a competition & always has been.  Kiddo in a good college? Her grandkids are in a better college.  It's ridiculous crap like that.  Even as a kid, she was always putting me into competition with my cousin over every little thing.  Who can feed the dogs better?  NOT you! 

As an adult & parent, I remembered how both of these aunt treated us as kids.  It wasn't always great & with one aunt, at times could be downright cruel if she felt like it.  When I saw them playing the same stupid emotional games with my kiddo, I cut off their contact with my kiddo.  They will NOT mind fuck him the way they did us as kids.  And I don't really care how much it pissed them off.  I'm also thankful EVERY day that I have brothers & not sisters.  Of my mom's 3 sisters, two are just batshit crazy. 

[thyme4change]

No.  They keep trying to shake me, but I just won't go away.

[kgb18]

LOL, thyme.

I'm not estranged from anyone in my family. I guess we are estranged from some of DH's family, which is very odd to me because the reason they quit talking to us has absolutely nothing to do with us. My FIL's sister got mad at him for something really stupid. He tried to talk to her. She refused and a whole faction of her family cut off contact with a whole faction of my FIL's family, including us and my SIL and her husband and kids.

The whole situation was just so strange to me because I've never experienced anything like it in my family. I can't believe someone would cut off contact with their family over such a ridiculous thing.

[chiver78]

yup, by my choice. (my sis feels the same way)

my mom's side of the family is largely "front pew Catholic" if that means anything to the Catholics on this board. over the years, as I watched that entire side of the family pretty much ignore my Nana, they succeeded in souring me on anything they might have to say. ignore me? fine. whatever, I can ignore you as easily as you ignore me. but ignore my Nana, who for whatever reason still loves you (and wants to tell people whose opinions she values all about your lives, even as you find pretty much anything to be more important than driving 40 miles northwest to see your mother - or grandmother, to my cousins) just ugh.....now that she's gone, and y'all are bent out of shape and "worried" about us because we don't reach out to you? wow.

if any of y'all heard me gripe about the pricey wedding weekend in Providence back in January that none of us wanted to go to? that would be these relatives. for some godforsaken reason, my mother decided this was the hill to die on. my sis and I ponied up the cash for a hotel room b/c we knew we wouldn't be able to make the night w/o booze. we actually had words w/Mom at cocktail hour, she put up a stink that we'd commandeered a table out of the way. she wanted us to mingle with the family we couldn't care less about.....and their friends. um, no thank you. we'll be over there.   

for further honesty, especially in case one particular cousin happens to find this post of mine. there's one "only child" by blood cousin on that side that my sis and I both just who is, in our minds, caught in the middle because he grew up so local to the rest of them. if we could keep him, and offload the rest of that side, that would just be amazing.

[cottoncandyclouds]

No, I'm not estranged from any part of my family. Although there is one part of my family that I'd love to disown because of the vast majority of the time he didn't try to find his aunt, uncle or me. Yet, he found us when grandpa wanted him too. After grandpa died, yet wasn't buried, he stopped talking to us over a petty disagreement on when my parents and I could come down to burry grandpa. He didn't understand why I wouldn't take an extra week off of college to do what grandpa wanted done. I say he's a good riddance to bad rubbish situation, but my mother is still pissed that she didn't get to be there when/ if they buried grandpa.

[Catseye]

Yes, there's a relative I haven't seen or spoken to since a funeral around 20 years ago.  I deliberately lost touch with my ex-stepdad's family, they are dumb, horny white trash losers.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Nope.  Not estranged.  I grew up with a crapload of cousins in the same age range.  We're spread out now and don't see each other much but that's just busy lives, not estrangement. 

About 30 years ago my Mom found one of her coworkers was a cousin.  No one has any real idea why contact was dropped back in the 50s or so, as far as I know.  They don't see each other a lot but everyone living was glad to reconnect. 

Dad's got a bunch of 2nd and 3rd cousins up North.  We've never been close to them but Dad swings past on trips up North every so often to visit (or leave a note on the door, if they're out when he and Mom get there.)  I think they swap Christmas cards. 

There's no abuse in the extended family - of drugs or people (alcohol, hell, it's Wisconsin, yeah, there's probably a few of us who like our booze a bit more than we should) and as a rule we don't hold grudges.  You can be pissed at anyone but we expect you to be civil if/when you run into them. 

[mrsdutt]

None of us is estranged.  I still am in contact with many of my cousins, even if we live hundreds of miles apart.

If someone gets upset, it's forgotten the next day.  DH taught me that.  Never go to bed angry.  Wise advice for a peaceful, drama free life.

It helps to have a filter between my brain and my mouth!

[The Captain]

Pretty much my Uncles' entire side of the family.

When my 70 yo dad was caring for a wheelchair bound MIL and an invalid wife they were no where to be found to help out with their Mom/Grandmother.  Literally three years went by without a card or call initiated by them.  My sister and I would take turns helping out on our vacation time to give Dad a break when we could.  We had a care giver coming in two half days a week, but that's not much.

When Mom passed and they heard Grandma had money in her accounts they showed up at Mom's funeral and created a bunch of drama that we honestly did not need at the time.  A lot of promises were made that were never kept (once they discovered Grandma was actually broke and suffering from dementia).  They brought in a lawyer and accused my now deceased mom (and dad) of stealing Grandma's assets.  It took one letter from me with copies of medical bills to prove where all the assets went (thank God for good recordkeeping!).  Still trying to mend fences, I spend many weekends trying to find a medicaid approved nursing home qualified to take dementia patients to move Grandma into closer to us/them (we live about 40 minutes apart) and to give Dad a break.  Finally we had to move her into a nursing home by my Dad's where she passed a few months later (real long story there).  I saw them at Grandma's funeral, was civil, and never care to speak to them again.

[busymom]

I wouldn't say intentionally estranged.  But there is a huge age gap between my cousins, & frankly a lot of the older ones never even met the younger ones.  And now that we've all got families of our own, & we're spread across the country, we just plain don't see one another.  (Although there IS one I kind of choose to avoid.  It has to do with how she treats other members of the family.  If you want people to like you, you must treat others with respect...)

[Deleted]

DS and I pretty much cut off contact with his father. We had to, in order to save our own sanity. My Ex was drunk, verbally abusive, and irresponsible. After the divorce, he got $100K tax-free from the sale of the marital home and went through it all while living in a welfare motel. Two things helped us detach: first, I sent DS to a boarding school 60 miles away (not for that reason, but it gave him a chance to start over). Second, after DS graduated we moved to the Midwest from the E. coast. By then the Ex had flunked out of 2 rehab programs and was living off the dole in FL. I even filtered out his e-mails after he started writing abusive stuff and I decided I didn't need his crap.

In September 2010 we got the news that he was dying. DS was the one who had to make the decisions about pulling the plug, putting him in hospice, and having him cremated after he died. Fortunately, all of us were of the same mind on every decision, including his pastor, who's a personal friend. DS had forgiven him long ago and he got through it pretty well.

Last month, though, during the mother-son dance at his wedding, DS said he'd been thinking about his Dad and wished he could have been there. It was a dry wedding reception (early afternoon) in Iowa; my Ex would have been a complete fish out of water and I would have worried about him showing up drunk. I was sympathetic to my son and said well, maybe Dad is here, we don't know for sure, but in a way I was resentful at my Ex for being a sad note in a very happy day.

I'm trying to convince my new DIL to name their first son Vito after my Ex's grandfather (they have a melodic Italian last name and Vito would be perfect with it).  I'm not sure if she thinks I'm serious.

[Deleted]

One uncle.  He has pretty well checked out of our entire family, so it isn't as though he and I had a specific falling out or anything, but we haven't seen him in about 4 years.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I stopped speaking to my brother for a year. The original fight was stupid but culiminated in him telling me he hated me and I was stupid so I told him exactly what I thought of his little spoiled punk ass in return.

Not really easy to cut him off because he lives with my parents.

We got over it but we're not the same.  Till he grows up I am keeping myself at arm's length.  I'm done being his whipping post just because I happened to be born first.

A lot of my dad's family lives in North Carolina and never comes up here.  I've met a couple of my grandfather's brothers, once.

I'm not really estraned from my mom's cousins we just don't have much to do with them.  They are like the Hatfields v McCoys and my mom chose a long time ago to stop engaging in the drama.  Since she doesn't engage we don't have much to do with them besides funerals/weddings.

[Miss Tequila]

My side of the family is huge and we were always very close growing up.  Now that we are all grown with our own family and work obligations, we don't see each other that often.  But no estrangement (well, the few cousins that wound up to be losers I wouldn't choose to see)

My husband's side is estranged.  His mom was a difficult woman (I'm being kind!lol) so she was estranged from her husband's family after he died.  I'm guessing they only came around because they liked the husband...once he died, so did the relationships.