Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you are a controlling person and sounds like you are using guilt trips to get your brothers to do what you want. Sure, it might be sad that they don't care, but people grow apart, and put their nuclear families first. Your SILs and brothers might view you just as they did your mother.
Curious-what is a normal family dynamic for you? Do you think families should interact or just the nuclear family? I used to be cavalier myself and then my mom died and I saw how hard it is to keep families together. I never understood when a mom dies and a dad goes off, things change. Usually it is the parents who build these bonds together and create opportunities for the cousins to be together to create their own bonds. When this is gone, families who already has issues tend to fall apart. There is always excuses but really everyone has to be vested. With people living all over now, more and more families fall apart. I don't wish this on anyone, it is hard. I sometimes read DCUM and see so many people writing about the sadness after a parent dies and they realize the fabric that they had. My mom crazy as she was and she was a pain, she got people to be in the same room. When you are in the same room, it is more challenging to just ignore.
I am in such a family and I also was like you the first few years after both or parents had passed. But I came to realize that I was trying to achieve a vision of what a family should be and that maybe the best thing to do was to let all of us go our separate ways for a while.
So I did and stopped trying to force the issue. We were cordial but rarely saw each other over a 10 year span - Christmas cards and occasional emails and phone calls. We eventually started getting together and now we do plan to see each other regularly - at least once a year - and keep up on social media.
Looking back, there was just a lot of anger and resentment built up over the years and it was a relief when both our parents were gone and I can see now that we all needed to build our own adult identities separate from the burden of our parents specifically our controlling and guilt inducing mother.
This is excellent advice. There are lots of layers to our family. For the record I never enabled my mom or anything close. I always stuck up for my SIls and through and through. I am somewhat offended that this poster constantly I intimates that I either allowed my mom to say mean things or acted in anyway controlling. I originally brought this up because I am realizing what a punching bag I have been and I am done. The free ride is over. I blame both my brothers and their wives (plural). I hope at some point we can have a relationship that meets in the middle. If not I am developing the tools to move on. I realize other posters have been through this but God bless it is hard.
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