My Freaking Family

[Guest Zoe Grace]

My relationship with my family is always pretty delicate. I want to stay close to my parents and my brother and so i do so. Despite the fact that my family is fundamentalist i have no problems either with my dad or my brother.

 

My mother on the other hand is where it sometimes gets tricky. Like the other night...we were watching buffy and she's having one of her ocassional "demon rants" the thing is...she likes buffy she just feels guilty or something watching it...she's always the one that goes: "Let's watch the next episode" (without any prompting from me about it.) And I never know exactly what's gonna set her off...some of the lesbian stuff she seems ok with, some of it freaks her out, same with the chanting and demons.

 

I've tried explaining to her a million times that "buffy demons" are just fake monsters and nothing at all like what her religion believes in. And then like last night she says: "yes, but there really are real demons."

 

Normally I can just ignore my mother's religious insanity, but ocassionally I cannot. It's just right THERE like the big pink elephant in the room. I just rolled my eyes and went on.

 

I just have a hard time cognitively processing the fact that a 52 year old woman who can tie her own shoes and dress herself literally believes in demons. It's just beyond my powers of comprehension.

 

And tonight...my grandparents are having a dinner for my brother. My brother, his fiance, my mom, my dad, and my grandparents. Tom can't go tonight...he's got shit to do (they ALWAYS spring it on me at the last minute...like a day or two notice...and then get all bent out of shape when I can't go.)

 

If tom's not going, I don't want to go. I love them, I do...but frankly i have NOTHING in common with my grandparents...all we have is my shared childhood to bond us, and that's a pretty thin bond. My grandparents also insert jesus into conversations more often than I care for...and my mother acts differently around them.

 

Bottom line, I don't feel comfortable going over there, when tom's not with me. Sometimes I get a bit of "social anxiety" and definitely familiy or not...being in a room filled with pentecostals without tom to act as a buffer, makes me uncomfortable.

 

So I told my mother tom couldn't go and we had things to do tonight, and she acts all put out, like i just don't want to be around my grandparents and why can't we do what we have to do on saturday instead. (Tom has other things that have to be done on saturday, work related.)

 

I don't see why I should have to go to this thing out of some kind of OBLIGATION to my mother and grandparents. My BROTHER, who the dinner is for doesn't care. He understands my discomfort at being surrounded by a bunch of people with very strong beliefs that are completely opposite from my own, and the possible conflict that can arise from these meetings. He's planning on us getting together at my mother's house later to watch a movie.

 

I just do NOT want to go.

 

Am I completely "out of line" here?

 

OH MY FUCKING GOD. SO my grandmother called and left a message, she sounded like she was gonna cry...and she said: "You go to your mother's without Tom with you, I don't know why you can't come over here, I guess you must just not love me anymore."

 

THIS is what I have to deal with.

 

WTF?

 

It pisses me off, it's fucking emotional blackmail. I DO NOT WANT TO GO OVER THERE.

[pandora]

I don't think you are out of line at all... call gma back and say you'll be over next month sometime or something like that, just say you've had a hard week and you have too much to do, but you promise you'll be over when you can ALL enjoy dinner together.

[pandora]

Family. Well, good luck weaseling out of this one... you might just have to suck it up for a while. *hugs*

[vampyre]

My most humble advice is that you do not go.

 

If your family has to try and use emotional blackmail, as you put it, to make you go and be with them then they are not worth the gas money. Honestly, it is like when my fiancee's mom asks me to do something (Say... mow the lawn when it is 98 fucking degree's out) And I tell her that I'll get it done someother time. She tells me how I am SO lucky that she let me move in with her daughter and how she cooks/cleans/nails herself up on a cross and that I should be more grateful for everything that she has done for me over the years.

 

Damn it... Now Im upset.

[Kurari]

There is no obligation here. If you don't want to go, don't go. You've already explained you can't come, so that's that. You're off the hook. Tell your grandparents that's the way things go when you call two days ahead of time and next time tell you at least a week beforehand.

 

Your family is always going to pull this stuff, and the trick is to ignore their histrionics. I know, I know, easier said then done, but limiting yourself to the time you spend with them, keeping Tom around, and ignoring their crazy displays is the most likely way to change how they act.

[BlueGiant]

If it wouldn't cause too much stress on your grandmother, it may help to let her know that your issue isn't with her, but with your grandfather. I get the feeling that that isn't an availible option, and that if it were, you've already probably tried it (to the tune of more emotional blackmail).

 

Yeah, the situation is major suckage. Do what you have to (though I get the feeling you're already doing that).

[Amethyst]

I don't think you are out of line. There are times when I've turned down invitations to spend time with my family because I didn't want to be around the fundy members. You shouldn't have to be around people you don't want to be around. You're an adult. It's your life, not theirs.