I love my relatives, but there's a reason that I don't live with them...
We generally get along OK, with the occasional gritting of teeth and tactical retreats to bedrooms with doors that close. I will never understand why family members say things to one another that they wouldn't say to friends and co-workers. To me, "family" doesn't mean carte blanche to say anything you want, regardless of how it makes others feel. If anything, we ought to be kinder to family than to others. After all, they're the ones who have the goods on us.
My step-father-in-law recently passed away after several years of worsening vascular dementia. Unfortunately, it brought out his mean streak. Somehow, my mother-in-love managed to keep him at home until the very end, when he had a stroke. Even then, she was trying to get him enrolled in intensive inpatient rehab, in hopes of getting him back home, when he died from a second stroke. None of us kids know how she was able to do it, in her mid-80's. They'd only been married 10 years or so, and he was a nice guy at the time. I hope that if I ever wind up in her situation, I have even a tenth of her strength and patience.
We generally get along OK, with the occasional gritting of teeth and tactical retreats to bedrooms with doors that close. I will never understand why family members say things to one another that they wouldn't say to friends and co-workers. To me, "family" doesn't mean carte blanche to say anything you want, regardless of how it makes others feel. If anything, we ought to be kinder to family than to others. After all, they're the ones who have the goods on us.
My step-father-in-law recently passed away after several years of worsening vascular dementia. Unfortunately, it brought out his mean streak. Somehow, my mother-in-love managed to keep him at home until the very end, when he had a stroke. Even then, she was trying to get him enrolled in intensive inpatient rehab, in hopes of getting him back home, when he died from a second stroke. None of us kids know how she was able to do it, in her mid-80's. They'd only been married 10 years or so, and he was a nice guy at the time. I hope that if I ever wind up in her situation, I have even a tenth of her strength and patience.
"Better the devil you know than one you don't."
My family is full of insanity. We have the Jerry Springer rejects, the Good-Two-Shoes Perfectionists and everything in between, from the Insane Mother, the trailer-park sister to the uptight Dr. Student Brother. And even though most family get together's end up like some kind of side show soap opera, I think I'll keep the ones I have. At least I know how to handle them.
Starting Score: EQ529 TU?
@sllbaker wrote:"Better the devil you know than one you don't."
My family is full of insanity. We have the Jerry Springer rejects, the Good-Two-Shoes Perfectionists and everything in between, from the Insane Mother, the trailer-park sister to the uptight Dr. Student Brother. And even though most family get together's end up like some kind of side show soap opera, I think I'll keep the ones I have. At least I know how to handle them.
Here! Here! 
I always swore that my family could win a prize for dysfunction and I dreaded extended family get togethers. But now that my mom and sister have been gone a couple years (lost them both during the last two years of grad school), I really, really miss it. Strange isn't it?
I think when you lose a loved one, it's the things that you thought drove you crazy that you miss the most.
