not close, am indifferent, lots of F ups with various uncles and first cousins.

We grew up without any extended family around and my parents divorced young. The only family I “love” other than my husband/kids is my mom and sisters. Ive reconnected with a lot of extended family via social media but I don’t feel any sort of bond with them.

Those that love (really love) their cousins and aunts or uncles, how much was proximity? Did your families do something specific to reinforce the importance of the relationship? How about those families that are geographically dispersed? My DH and I hardly know our extended families but would love to foster different relationships between us/our kids and our siblings families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I adore them! My cousins are some of my best friends. Social media helps us stay in touch with what’s going on so when we see each other we’re all caught up. I am very close to aunts and uncles, second and third cousins, etc. We’ve weathered a lot through the years and they are a source of support and presence to me.

Love my big, Irish family!

Me too!

And it’s the Irish side too . Everyone is very close and each generation has done a great job of keeping everyone together, attending milestone bdays, wedding, funerals, and lots of times just fun visits.

Family is everything.

Hahaha it must be something about the Irish. My dad is from a big Irish Catholic family- my grandparents are deceased but I'd say maybe a third of the aunts/uncles/cousins still live in my hometown and the rest are spread out along the east coast. They're awesome- full family reunions are rare tend to coincide with major life events like weddings now but it's always a good time. I like my aunts/uncles on my mom's side too although they tend to be a bit snippy with each other so it's a bit different and she isn't always on great terms with her siblings. My cousins on that side are much younger than me so I'm not as close to them. It will be interesting to see if/how the dynamic changes once my grandmother passes away.

Totally different for DH- he's not close to his extended family at all. Only one of his aunts came to our wedding and to this day she's the only one I've met. I think he enjoys being around my extended family because he just never had that.

I can't stand some of my uncles and aunts. But the cousins are mostly ok, even though I see them only once in a few years.

I’m indifferent...

I love my parents, sibling, nieces/nephews. Aunts/uncles/cousins, I like them but do not love a single one.

I have a childless aunt who did a lot for me and my siblings when my parents divorced. We remain fairly close. I never had close-in-age cousins. My grandparents on both sides were emotionally reserved, even closed, so that set the tone for my parents’ familial relationships and mine. It’s not that anyone’s horrible, but we don’t know each other well or depend on each other much. But that’s ok; an accident of birth doesn’t make someone an automatic ally. I believe in building a tribe of supportive people, no matter what life and familial relations hand you.

My extended family is HUGE. I can say without a doubt that I love them all even though I wouldn't recognize most of them if I passed them on the street right now. My husband has very few members of his extended family so he has adopted mine. We would drop everything and run to help if someone asks, even if we have to say 'tell me, how are we related again?' It is just the way we view family. I/we may not know them and therefore may not even agree with them if we meet them but they are part of our family.

If it matters, we are an immigrant family and the people in my generation are the 3rd generation (grandparents came here, our parents were born here, we were born here).

Unfortunately, I do love them all very much. I say unfortunately because, in many (not all) cases, they subscribe to actively harmful ideologies and/or are incredibly dysfunctional just... as human beings. There’s more emotional distance as I get older, and I’d be willing to admit I don’t like a couple of them, but yeah, I love them. Grew up close to almost all of them.