Oh, I'm that aunt. My family sucks. But my niece contacted me yesterday since I'm moving to where I grew up. I know my fam is a bunch of asshats and she asked me if I could take her to a concert. My idiot sister would not allow her to go. I asked my niece which bands she would you like to see and immediately booked 4 tickets for those and another 2 for Moon Hooch. Fuck people who don't allow you listening to music.
I'm having that problem with my niece now, she thinks Pokemon are cool. She's not allowed to play the games or watch the show because my brother thinks they're satanic.
Holy hell! I deeply hope you punch that gobshite in the nose at some point. Seriously, wtf?
Sweet Tap-dancing Jesus Christ on a pogo-stick, it's 2024 and these people are still going on about it.
I wish I had a cool aunt like you when I was a kid.
Aw, you're too kind :)
You're the cool aunt, for sure.
Fuck yeah, moon hooch slaps
They fucking slap for sure!
That's me! I love my little nephews but the siblings are so toxic. All they do is tear people down and I stopped caring around the time my brother made a pass at my girlfriend and my sister started cheating on her husband.
I don't need people like that in my life.
Your brother fucking what. Wow.
He's married as well and treats his wife like shite too.
My whole family is this way. For the most part we all recognize that you can live your life and not communicate every day, week, or month and still be okay with a person. We are great at picking up where we left off we just all have our own lives and that's okay.
It still feels strange to me when friends contact their parents daily or weekly and say their parents etc. Get upset for not contacting them frequently enough. I understand that's the way their relationship works but maybe my family is the odd duck Lmao
I'm like that with my extended family.
In my 20s, every time I checked in, it was some drama. Uncle did this to aunt. Cousin went to jail. Dad lost something valuable.
Things I had zero ways of helping since I was hundreds of miles away.
At some point, I stopped and I became a lot happier.
There's a balance, and it'll be different for every family. Mine has gone years with no contact, while my partner is in the weekly camp. As time has gone on I've become jealous of her and her relationship to family, and wish I had something at least a little bit closer to that with mine.
But we were all so busy with our own lives that we drifted apart, only more recently coming together now that all the kids are middle aged.
It's kind of surreal getting to know someone you grew up with, and seeing how we're all so different.
for me, it's seeing how similar we are. I went low contact and moved away almost 20 years ago. getting to know my now-transmasc brother when we're both adults is wild. he's dealt with things differently, but despite 8 years age gap and 18 years not talking, we have a lot in common still.
That's great you can have that dynamic with your family and that it's healthy for all of you. I feel like it's healthy for me, but my own fam is in the category of "getting upset for not contacting them frequently enough". It's like they take it personally that I can live my life but not need to be up to date on every moment of theirs.
That said, I've found that the only progress I've made is by beginning to draw boundaries and trying to be consistent at keeping them. It's not a wonderful dynamic, but more distance has certainly made it healthier for me.
I am that uncle. Both my close and extended family are really nice, like better than any other I've ever met, but I just can't handle all the social stuff. Most of them understand and we all like each other, but I still feel bad about it and it kinda sucks being the one that's mostly outside of the "bubble".
My parents made the choice to live farther from the rest of the clan 20 years ago and it was a good decision. Today, everyone over there is at each other's throats or not on speaking terms. Us on the otherhand, they all love us. Not because we're great or anything, but because we have zero drama with anyone.
I'm that uncle. I hope one day my nephews reach out to me without their mother/my sister's toxic involvement, but so far, she's just to be involved in every relationship she can to sabotage it.
“Is my sister literally watching you have this phone call with me?” — me to myself on the phone with nephlings in the past. Gross. Especially since my sister complained about our own parents having pulled that kinda bs
It was the inverse in my family. The uncle who extricated himself from most of the family was actually a huge piece of garbage and did everyone a favor by cutting us off. I don't think he expected that nobody would make an effort to re-establish contact.
My wife's aunt is in the process of doing this at the moment. Seems to be systematically working her way through each branch of the family tree causing drama, slinging insults, trying to pit people against each other, and just generally being awful until people get fed up with her nonsense and disengage - at which point she'll find some other branch to go all "woe is me/people are so mean/everyone is against me", then rinse and repeat.
Depression, alcoholism and narcissism are pretty powerful, and anyone trying to help gets themselves a first class ticket on the drama llama express
I’m probably related to your wife’s beloved aunt, too. So much power. So much destruction. And
hurt people hurt people
(people who are hurt can easily become people who hurt others)
I'm that uncle
Edit: I also have that uncle. He's biracial and I'm queer just to give you an idea.
I'm fortunate to have a great family, but I do see the point. My ex's family was a piece of work.
That could have been me but my nephews don't know about me existing, I guess, because I've distanced not over being in discord, but just over moving far away and not being willing enough to keep the connection. Sometimes I feel bad about it, but mostly not
Auntie Dawn, I realise you're probably more like me than I realised. Especially because my family probably call me a bitch who's ashamed of her working class background now too.
As an Uncle Brian who keeps his distance... I hope my niblings make this realization sooner rather than later.
I left my family years ago, but its mostly because I'm the fuckup everyone looks down on. Im tired of being lowest in the family.
I began keeping my family at arm's length after they bullied me to tears after I'd told my sister I thought she was quick to jump to conclusions. I couldn't believe the logical jumps she was making after I'd said it, and furthermore that no one took my side, and further furthermore that they just kept at it until I cried and didn't comfort me at all. It's an emotionally complex position to be in!
I'm that guy. I'm the one that rarely likes to be around their family. Always drama, always finger pointing, and always me having to defuse the situation. Feels like work.
You guys have families?
I wish them the best though
I hope so, but oh I fuckin doubt it.
Word.
How’d I end up with great family on both sides?! Is this rare :o
As someone with a great family and many, many friends without, yes, lol
Or cousins, they were the "bad children." I'm so lucky to have had friends
I dunno, that aunt and uncle keep their distance because they're hard republicans and my family are all at the most conservative capable of existing in a socialist space without fearing being struck down by God
I don't see myself suddenly becoming only barely not so right wing that it's only a question if I'm voting for Trump
Yeah, she was insane
Maybe she was the only sane one.
Unlikely, my other aunt had to raise her kids
This American Life, Episode 587 - The Perils of Intimacy. Thanks for trying, evil stepmother.
