cierah

I was having a conversation with my friend and it came up that I don't particularly like my family. She thought this was very strange and thinking about it I wonder why. Just because we are blood related means we have to like each other? That seems odd to me. If your personalities clash there is nothing you can do about it. Some people in my family I would never talk to in regular life but I am expected to like them merely because we share blood? I mean I don't really have a hate-on for them, we just don't understand each other because our personalities are so different.

So, I was sorta wondering if this is just me - Do you LIKE your family? If you weren't related to them would you still hang out with them? Thoughts?

hambone

I like most of my family, but there are a couple of them that I just don't mesh with. Even when we get together for holidays or whatever, I usually just say hello and goodbye to them.

My immediate family I am very close with though since they helped shape me to who I am today, so we have plenty in common and enjoy each other's company.

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Seanland

I actually really like my family, sure I mean they like to piss me off, but my general family is great, I have something like 30+ First cousins on my mother's side, so whenever there is a B-Day, they book out usually whole restaurants or banquet halls, just for a B-Day. Its pretty intense, the only thing I don't like is that they are French, even though most of them can speak English, I really can't speak French...

I also think it's good that our personalities clash, thats what makes it all the more fun and interesting.

maleficent

It has taken me over 30 years to be on good terms with my younger brother - we've actually become "friends" in the past five years. My father I like, I'm an adult, and have gotten over and past a childhood that wasn't always pleasant. My mother is a bit controlling, she couldn't control me when I was under her roof, she cant do it now, so we don't see eye to eye on much of anything. My sister, I have no use for whatsoever and if I never spoke to her again, I wouldn't be upset about it.

There really is no other family. My mother has a brother, younger by 15 years, who I think has 3 kids, but we haven't seen them since I was quite young, and really don't care to. My father has 3 sisters, the youngest sister is about 18 years older than he is - all the first cousins are my parents age... last time i saw them, was at my aunts funeral -- and the next time I choose to see them, is at the next funeral.

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la petite moi

In regards to my immediate family...My sister and I clash so badly, it's ridiculous. I do not really like my sister, nor any of her practises. My mother is self-absorbed to the point where she thinks the world revolves around her (no kidding). We can never agree on anything, since she always thinks that because she has more experience she is ALWAYS right. I like my father as much as one can when we have nothing in common. He and I are friendly, but there are a lot of things we disagree with.

My soon-to-be-mother/sister-in-law are judgmental to the core, catty, and we clash HORRIBLY when it comes to politics/religion (hardcore Republicans and Christians, though hypocritical). However, nwlinkvxd's father, although hick-ish, is friendly and not so judging...I think.

I have always been pretty distant from my outside family, because we don't live close to them. My mom's side of the family lives at least 4 hours+ away, and my dad's side of the family is at least 2.5 hours+ away.

lindseylatch

I love my family, I spend a lot of time with them whenever I can. Although I HATE my grandparents. I wish they would die. I think they're useless pieces of flesh who are using up resources that could be going towards something better.

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hambone

Man, this sucks that people really don't like their immediate families. I really sympathize for you who had/have such an unfortunate time growing up. My best friend is that way (his mom even tried to kill him once) and I always feel so bad about it.

My family has a tendency to take in those who are in such situations. My best friend considers my parents more like HIS parents than his real parents, and my parents also took in one of our babysitters for like 5 years when she was kicked out of her house (for coming home 5 minutes late...)

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maleficent

My mother was the one all my friends went to to talk to, she took in lots of people and gave out lots of advice... However she never quite understood me... then again, I was a difficult child...

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Seanland

wtf, Wow, thats harsh...
If that happened to me, I really don't know what I would do, how could you live with someone, who was willing to do that, I would feel so betrayed...
I'd probably end up returning the favour....
Just Wow...
Must have a pretty stronged souled friend.

hambone

Yeah, she came at him with knife once. She does have serious mental issues though. She once beat herself up and blamed my friends dad for it (after they split).

He is a great guy though. He even meets with her periodically in hopes of patching things up, but nothing ever works. He won't even let her know where he lives, they just meet at his sister's house.

Anyway, back to the topic, this means I completely understand how family members cannot mesh completely, but it is still hard for me to understand it since my situation is so opposite of that, so I really look forward to hearing the rest of the replies. Whether it is more of a hatred feeling or just not caring about them.

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la petite moi

I had this happen to me- it made me lose all respect for my mother, and for a long time, I didn't like my dad either, because he denied it. I have never fully forgiven my mother for all the shit she used to do.

lindseylatch

My parents took in one of my brothers friends, and I think they wanted to take in more kids, since they had lots of help from non-family when they were younger, but they never had the opportunity.

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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
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amonkie

If I didn't have my family, I think I would seriously feel misplaced. Most of my immediate cousins are younger, but the 3 or 4 older than I get along and actually hang out together outside of family events, and the younger ones that are growing older are fun as well. I don't confide in my parents as much as I used to, and I've told them " I love you MORE when I don't live at home".

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clavus

Oh, heck ya. My dad is a great guy. He's funny as Hell too. I like hanging out with my dad. Mom is wonderful. I like her too. My wife is my best friend. My in-laws are alright. I don't know that we would be together were it not for the marriage, but I have grown to like them.

But I understand what you are saying. I have an uncle whom I dislike. He's a jerk, but because he is family, I am kind to him. He lives far away, so it is rarely an issue. My Grandma is a self-centered, manipulative bitch. Don't like her. I had a sister whom I detested. But since she died last year, so I get the last word in now. "Hey, sis - I WIN!"

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Squishor

Unfortunately the only member of my immediate family that's left alive is my sister, who I dislike the most. Oh, I don't hate her, but she's damn hard to get along with. I think I'd have an easier time getting along with some of my distant cousins who I barely know, if I had to - they may be in their 50s and have completely different values and lifestyle than me but at least they have some notion of common courtesy. LPM, your sister sounds a lot like mine - selfish, domineering, completely self-absorbed and a radically different personality type than my own. It's like this - my sister lives for the surface world of appearances. She cultivates the acquaintance of bitchy, washed-up females who wear too much makeup and backstab her. She shows a lot of cleavage and uses men like they're toys, put on earth to run errands for her. She constantly calls me with the crisis de jour and demands that I drop everything to meet her needs. She made my boyfriend clean out a rotten refrigerator in her garage the first time she ever met him. I suspect that she may be bipolar...I never know what to expect when she calls. She could be screaming and crying hysterically, or so amped I have to hold the phone three inches from my ear. Even when she's in a good mood and being nice, she is so overwhelming that after a few minutes I'm exhausted and want to run and hide. Despite all this, we have developed some sort of friendship for the first time in our lives, just within the past five years or so. Nonetheless, I find her very difficult to like, although I do love her.

Whew - I needed to talk about that!

la petite moi

Squishor, YES. My sister uses guys (when she was 15, she dated a 25 year old; shes 17 now and is dating a 21 year old), all she cares about is clothes and money and makeup, and she is constantly failing (I've mentioned several times here that she has a 1.5 GPA, on school probation for truancy, cannot graduate from high school, etc). I don't think she is bipolar, but if I even politely tell her to pick up her crap, she tells me to stop nagging or to shut the hell up.

Ugh.

In the future, I will keep your story in mind when I tell her to piss off when she comes begging for help at my door.

ngdawg

As much as I love my family and we get along, I wouldn't have chosen any of them for friends, well, maybe my dad, but just maybe. I like my two sisters and my brother, but we have very little in common-all 4 of us are so completely different from each other, we don't even look related, let alone act the same.
A cousin is getting married in two months. She has invited everyone in our family. Her parents, my mom's brother and his wife, have never met my kids (who are 13), have spoken ill of me and one of my sisters, at least, and have snubbed every milestone of my parents, including their 50th anniversary party. I am not going to this wedding, which pissed off a sister of mine. Why would I spend money on dressy clothes for two of us, a shower gift and a wedding gift and then use up an evening to go to a wedding of someone's whom I last saw about 16 years ago?
I don't like my mom's siblings, I have no use for any of them and I would only go to their funerals out of respect for my mom. My favorite relative, my dad's brother, died in 1980; only he and his cousin, whom I also love a great deal, remain from that family.

Carno

I like everyone in my family. They're all human and have their faults, but I still like/love them anyways. They're all people that I like to spend time with. I have 5 sisters and a brother, and my family is very tight. I am the second youngest with my oldest sister being 19 years older than me, but despite the age differences between all of us, we all still hang out a lot with each other.

I have no relatives from my dad's side, and only know one person from my mom's side. That person being her sister, who currently lives with my parents. I like her, but she is really private and I am never at my parents house long enough to talk to her, so I don't really know her.

guthmund

I had two grandfathers I liked quite a bit, but they're gone now. I like my mother and her siblings (my aunt and two uncles). My sister's kids are great despite the influence of the shallow hypocrite they popped out of. I used to like my sister. She must have had some qualities that made her worth a damn, I just haven't been able to find them lately. I don't have a relationship with my father. I don't dislike him, I just don't talk to him and that seems alright by both of us. What's left of the family, I have very little to do with.

I like most of my family despite the fact that we're all very, very different. I can't say I would've chosen them as friends as they're very different than all my hand picked compadres. However, being related to them forced me to be around them, which changed my opinion of them considerably. I'd choose them now, but only because I know now what I know of them.

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ratbastid

I love my family like crazy. I guess I can understand a life of not liking your family, but it makes me pretty sad for anyone who has to live it.

If you're under, say, 23, and your answer to the question "Do you like your family" is "no", then my advice is to give it time. My parents were pretty hard to be around when I was a teenager. As I grew up, they got to be better and better friends.

Willravel

While I don't always agree with my parents on everything, I know that at the end of the day they will always have my best interest in mind. That counts for a lot in my book. My little brother and I have been best friends ever since we realized that we make a better team than adversaries (the rivalry basically wore out when I turned 16 or 17, when we moved to a new city and lost our dog to pancreatitus in one month). I love my wife without condition and I will always do everything I can for her. I respect her and trust her beyond what I thought was possible. My daughter is everything to me.

Then there is the rest of my family. My mother's mother, a wonderful 77 year old irish nanny, is the most passive aggressive person that's ever lived. I love her dearly, but her problems are a real downer when I try to help her with anything. Her husband, who passed in '94, was my idol. 'Pop-pop' as I called him was an Army officer, and also a scholar, philosopher, historian and more. He taught me a great deal of the morals I live by today. Unfortunatally, my last memory of him is when he was being taken apart by Alzheimers. He knew who I was, but he wasn't sure enough to talk to me as he once did. My athers parents were interesting. My paternal grandfather was a carpenter and furnature salesman in the smallest town I've ever seen. He was a very simple and loving man. Despite the fact that he was a genius, he remained uneducated becuase of the passive nature of the town. My paternal grandmother was an alcoholic and a very unkind person.

irseg

I like and care about pretty much everyone in my family. However I doubt I'd really have much to do with them if they weren't family, since I don't share common interests or anything with most of them.

cierah

I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with you on this point. I am only 20 but I KNOW that I dislike some members of my family and I KNOW that I will always dislike them. These things I have known since I was... oh about 16. This is not about teenage immaturity. This was about treating another human being with the respect that they deserve. Some members of my family were unable to do so and as a result I KNOW that I will always dislike them. Somtimes it isn't about age but about experience.

Thanks for everyone's replies though. It seems that there are fewer people that like their families than that don't.

Seanland

Yea, I know, I was expecting the opposite response.

Sweetpea

I adore my family, i lucked out by some cosmic shift or something i am sure.

I respect and love and just plain LIKE my family.
My sister and mom are two of my best friends, my dad, while at times distant, is loving and kind

They have welcomed my husband into the family with open arms.

We care about each other, and are involved in each other's lives, while remaining respectful of boundaries, there is love, i always feel home when i am with them.

as i said, i lucked out.

Sweetpea

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StanT

For the most part, I like my family in small doses. Living 1,000 miles away makes that easy.

Coppertop

I agree with this. I had a very hard time relating to my family when I was younger, but then I grew up. We get along just fine now. I'd say that until you're at least 25 or so it's probably too young to make conclusions. Especially if you're the youngest in your family, like I am.

Karby

my immediate family is all i got. i don't have any other family that i know of. and while there are times where i just don't like them, for the most part, it's only ever been temporary.

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meembo

I love my family very much. My brothers and I couldn't be more different, but I know they have my back at all times. They are great, and generous, and good men. My parents did a good job, and I've enjoyed the fruits of their labor (raising us) all of my life.

My parents are from a different world, where gender roles were greatly different, and racial stereotypes were more prevalent than they are today. My father is pretty laid back, and he's been that way most of his life. My mother has grown more conservative and more paranoid as she gets older, and I feel like she's turning in to someone else, almost like Alzheimers or something is taking away my old mom and leaving somebody else. My dad takes care of her, and would never, ever stop taking care of her.

I like my family. My brothers are fun and smart and loyal. My parents are weird, but lovable, and I'd hang out with them too.

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jhkayakr

If you're under, say, 23, and your answer to the question "Do you like your family" is "no", then my advice is to give it time. My parents were pretty hard to be around when I was a teenager. As I grew up, they got to be better and better friends.[/QUOTE]


I agree with this also, you will also find as you get older that you become more and more like them (gasp).

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Rodney

All I can say about my family is, two out of four of us -- my dad and my sister -- didn't really want to be there, and they made life tough enough that I stayed in my room most of the time I was home. Safer there.

I can't say I hated anybody, but my father was self-involved and unsympathetic _and_ didn't understand me (if he had, I think he'd still have been unsympathetic); he really didn't want to have much to do with children. My sister, after age 10, spent most of her time out of the house and kept her life private. Now, when we're both within spitting distance of 50, we get along well enough together in the same room but she _still_ won't say a thing about what's going on in her life. My brother-in-law's much more open to me than she is.

So it wasn't much of a family. Dad died, and I didn't miss him because he'd never really been a part of my life anyway. Yeah, he'd provided, but made sure that we paid him for it in guilt and in suffering abuse passively (it was okay for him to yell or get emotional, not us).

Mom was okay, but she's always wanted to pretend we were one close, happy family, even though we weren't. After my sister and I were adults, she continually tried to gather "the family" together for every possible occasion, and then we'd all sit in a room and stare at each other while she tried to keep a conversation going.

*Nikki*

I like them.

But we couldn't be more different. This makes things hard sometimes.

Squishor

Having said what I did about my sister, I just want to add that I liked my mother very much. We had great fun together and could laugh about anything. She was more of a best friend than a mother. As for my father, well, he had his problems but we definitely had a strong affinity for each other and spoke the same language despite the wreckage. I liked my grandparents too (on my mother's side) even though they were kind of relics and my grandmother in particular let herself get "old" by stopping learning about new things. My grandfather was a wonderful, kind, patient man with a big heart.

Oh, and I really liked my great-grandmother, who was about 4 feet tall and sailed over from Galway when she was just 16!

Sue

My cousins, and maybe like one aunt, yeah. I like them. My mom? no. I don't like her. Lately she has been a pain in my fucking ass.

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Minorci

My life with my family has been quite a staggered one in a sense. We have drifted apart somewhat due to my sister going through an incredibly tough time (previous boyfriend, raped her, and was convicted on 17 counts of grevious bodily harm and aggravated assault, deprivation of liberty etc) has put major stress on the family and has suffered somewhat. But I can say i like my family, its just the closeness is no longer there any more.

rockzilla

I get along well with my immediate family. I was at war with my little brother until about 2-3 years ago. He was a terror when he was younger, stealing our stuff for drug money, he once had a pair of scissors held to my mom's throat, ready to kill her because he was caught going into her purse. He was blacklisted from the family for awhile, but he's really cleaned his act up recently.
My Dad and I don't really talk that often, I'm still bitter that he left us penniless when my parents separated. I had to work washing dishes until 1 in the morning while finishing high school to help my Mom make ends meet. Since my brother had a near-fatal brain aneurysm last year we've started to patch things up though.
My Mom... well, she's always been the person I've admired most, and that's all that needs to be said.

I barely talk to my extended family, I think that's because most of my 15 cousins grew up in the country, fairly close to each other while my family grew up in the city. The only occasions I've had to see any of them recently have been weddings that I couldn't attend beause of work. My brother and I are the only two in the family who are unmarried by 21, and neither of us can really relate to any of them anymore.

settie

I like my immediate family, and my mother's side of the family very much. My father's side is harder to like, there are only a few on my father's side I actually like, the rest just drive me bonkers. They think they are so above us in stature and shit, ugh....fuckin' prissies. I just wanna say to them "get a grip!"
But my mother's side, my gosh, I love and like them! I can't get enough of them sometimes. :P My cousins feel like my brothers and sisters, and my aunts and uncles are like extra parents, I love spending time with them! They all live on the other side of my city, so I don't see them a lot, but I'm so excited cause its Easter Weekend coming up, and I'll get to see them! Yay!

Grasshopper Green

I like most of my family. My mom is a great person, very giving and accepting. We don't see eye to eye on a lot of stuff, she's really religious and I'm not, but we get along well anyway. My dad and stepmother are very self absorbed; they are great for each other. I like my dad, but he really pisses me off sometimes. For the most part I enjoy being around him though; he is a great conversationalist and we can sit in his backyard for hours just shooting the breeze. My sister is probably my best friend, so I obviously like her. Before he died, my brother was very, very difficult to be around because of his schizophrenia, but I still liked him. He drove me crazy as hell, but I still loved him.

I don't know my mom's family well enough to really say, except for one of her brothers, and he's really nice, and I can say that my grandfather was truly a piece of shit that should have died long ago. The world is better of without him. My dad has a large family, and I like most of them, although I don't know alot of them that well. He has two sisters that I truly don't care for, one because she stayed with her husband who sexually molested her kids, and the other because she is so stuck on herself that I just can't stand to be around her without wanting to vomit. My grandmother is awesome and I love her to death. My grandpa died a few years ago and he was a difficult person to be around sometimes, but I still liked him.

The funny thing is, I'd much rather hang with my inlaws than my family; they are much more down to earth than my dad's family (who I am closest to). I just fit in better with them.

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Grancey

In addition to my husband, the only close family I have are my two brothers. It was a difficult weekend, so today I don't like my brothers very much at all. I really wish my mother was still here so that I could talk to her again. But then she would probably piss me off as well.

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analog

Most all of my family is very close to one another. They really share life together. I have one aunt, who is actually my dad's aunt, that my mother and I absolutely hate for very specific reasons. We do not speak of it and we are very civil when we have to be around her, which is extremely rare. The reason for this is my grandmother- my dad's mom, the sister of this woman. She's the sweetest, nicest person on the face of the planet. She'd saw off her own leg and hand it to you before succumbing to blood loss if you asked her for it. All because of her, because of how much of a saint she is, we keep our opinions on the aunt to ourselves, because we know it would hurt her feelings- not because she loves her sister that much, but because our unhappiness would make her unhappy. I love my family.