A family visit

[devianttouch]

I was in a pretty terrible mood this week. Monday through Wed I was cranky, lonely, frustrated, and generally kind of depressed. But I was really looking forward to Thanksgiving when I would go to Milwaukee and see my family, and especially my brother who I only get to see on very rare occasions

Comments

[shana_etel]

I've been giving some thought to this over the last 24 hours. My gut reaction is a deep profound sadness and anger on your behalf. I hope I don't come across as overbearing and you can certainly chuck my opinions out the window if you want to, but really what it comes down to is this. Whether they want to admit it or not, and for whatever lame ass reasons/excuses they think are justified, this is emotional abuse. As you are an adult and not a kid anymore, you have a choice. You can continue to spend time with these people so that you can have the "privilege" of being abused and excluded, or you can set some clear boundaries. Spending time with you is a privilege and not a right, if they can't respect you and your life choices and love you enough to acknowledge who you are, they aren't behaving like family. If they want you around they need to treat you better. I know you want to attempt to maintain at least some semblance of relationship with them, but at what emotional cost. Is maintaining the relationship worth the abuse? Only you can answer that question, but I sincerely hope that there are people in your life who respect and love you just the way you are. Of course no one can make these decisions for you, but life is way too short in my opinion to put up with that kind of bullshit.

[devianttouch]

I think you're right, but this was much worse than usual, and I think I'm going to continue to see them. I AM drastically altering my expectations for future holidays though - I think I need to keep visits short (this one was) and simply never discuss any of the intimate details of my life with them again. It certainly didn't got well.

I want to feel like I'm a part of a family - but I'm not. I'm a single guy without any serious family connections. My biological family has cut me out of their lives, my partner dumped me, and my adoptive family is... well see above. I'm not happy about this, but it's a big shift in expectations. Maybe I'll come to terms with it.