<p>Well since I started the annual travel thread I’ll start the blues thread. My adult kids are home. I worry quite a bit about DS. He has weight issues, is single for the first time in a while, seems lonely to me, has given up drinking but taken up smoking. First semesterbof law school was difficult and he is awaiting grades. Lots of pressure there.
My wedding anniversary was last night. I made a nice dinner at home. DS and DD really just don’t like each other much. Of course they got into a discussion that led to hurt feelings, DH defending DD and DS politely leaving the table. Which is actually a huge step up from times past.
Sigh. I love my family and I miss DS terribly. (DD is much closer geographically so we see her way more often). Wish it wasn’t all so fraught with emotion and difficult.
Anyone other there ready to commiserate or cheer me up or offer helpful advice?
PS…I’m already on the edge here so if you feel the need to attack find another thread pretty please.</p>
<p>We went out for a huge family dinner last night, all 15 of us. The kids were all happy to see each other, but my brothers went at each other again. My youngest brother, at age 48, still feels inadequate. It is always stressful whenever he is around. It is a shame because he is still single and we are all he’s got, but I get very tense when he comes home. Hate to be downer, but time, age nor distance really makes it better. You may just need to accept your kids’ feelings toward each other. I think we all put too much pressure on being happy and jolly during the holidays. Happy anniversary.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>My kids are very different from each other. We used to worry a lot about how they get along but we’ve learned to accept more of the reality that they are each who they each are. Acceptance.</p></li>
<li><p>Being Jewish, I get overwhelmed by massiveness of Christmas and how it has become culturally all-consuming. Heck, it’s displacing Thanksgiving now, with that formerly family day now being turned into Christmas shopping. Putting aside the religiosity, it’s difficult to accommodate “the most wonderful time of the year” with luxury car ads. So I focus on the messages I like. My favorite has become Santa. Why? Because the meaning underneath is that Santa validates little kids: despite all the “naughty and nice” singing, the point is Santa says you’re good. Kids like to feel good. They deserve to feel good. </p></li>
<li><p>I also focus on celebratory ads and the celebratory reality of holiday parties and people taking time off. Besides having ridiculously good looking women, the alcohol ads this time of year focus more on the celebration aspect than machismo and the lies men want to hear.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Sorry for your troubles, ebeeeee. I know what it’s like to be concerned for adult children, but realize that whatever the dilemma is, it’s not mine to fix. At this point, I am finding that a bit liberating. Once I accepted that I can’t impact certain choices or life circumstances, I found myself thinking about what I could do. That was to be a supportive, warm presence without the “fix-it/change it” baggage. I am cherishing the relationship more, feeling less parental responsibility to facilitate. It is helping. </p>
<p>My kids are also male and female, night and day in most ways. I try to foster a respectful environment that values each of them and they are slowly working it out. Time has been a bit helpful with that.</p>
<p>I think both families and holiday reunions can be very challenging. In my inner circle, very few people don’t have some complexities in their family relationships. This time of year heightens expectations. Maybe some one on one time with your son and daughter would help.</p>
<p>Best to all this season.</p>
<p>Sorry for all the family trials and tribulations. I would happily change places with any of you. Our son will not be here for Christmas for the first time, and that makes me much sadder than any squabble would. It is compounded because DD will be here for the first time since 2009. I so wanted them BOTH here…maybe next year.</p>
<p>Thumper- Sorry your full family reunion is not to be this year. So exciting to have your DD home, though.</p>
<p>ebeeee–my first thought is to spend quality time alone with DS. Since the family mix isn’t relaxing, find time for just the two of you. Go get coffee, go to a movie, etc. Make a tradition that you can do each time you are together. </p>
<p>Happy Anniversary. Hope the holidays become more peaceful.</p>
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<p>When I relayed the events of my Thanksgiving to my very patient and wise mental health professional (lots of passive aggressive as well as openly aggressive behavior on the part of my siblings), he gave me some really good advice. Avoid group discussions! Families fall back into old, imbedded patterns of behavior when groups start talking. His advice was to talk to one person at a time and quietly excuse myself when the group discussion starts becoming hurtful. I am dreading Christmas. Recent events have me expecting conversation about gun control, mental health and the teaching profession, in general (I’m a teacher and none of siblings are). Past experience has me anticipating conversations designed to put me on the defensive and put me down.
I’m determined not to fall into the trap. God give me the strength to not take the bait and walk away when I need to!
Ebeeee, Your kids are still young. Their relationship may improve or may not but know that you have given them the best you can and there isn’t much you can do to help them at this point in their connection with each other. Try being with one at a time without the dynamic of the group. And when things start going south when they are together, walk away if you can and realize that it isn’t a reflection of your mothering. Just two strong and different personalities. Hugs to you!</p>
<p>My kids really didn’t get along until they were older too (also boy and girl). They are very close now, but as children they were like cats and dogs. It made me crazy.</p>
<p>I too recently came across something I found very helpful in dealing with family stress-the AA prayer of having the wisdom to accept what you can change, what you can’t change, and knowing the difference between the two. This was given as a way-whether or not one is actually dealing with addictions (I am not)-of working with what you’d GOT instead of wishing for what you WANT. I felt as though a weight was lifted from my shoulders and wouldn’t you know, a solution to something very vexing in the family department produced itself the very next day-because I followed that advice.</p>
<p>Sorry some of you are going through a rough time.</p>
<p>Ebeee, sorry for the pain you feel. My only words are that my sister and I have not always seen eye to eye and she had caused my parents much distress growing up. As adults we still do not agree, but we have found what our boundaries are with each other and we try not to cross them. We are much closer now and get along. I actually enjoy her company, but we know where not to tread. Our parents are gone and we realize we are all we have, each other and I have come to appreciate our relationship. Just be supportive of them each in their own right. A mistake, I believe my mother made, was trying to treat us as the same, same gifts, same time, same everything. She did not appreciate us as individuals. She was too afraid to offend each of us and in doing so, missed an opportunity. She did not want appear favoring any one child over the other. best wishes for peace. They will work it out.</p>
<p>I wrote a long and detailed response to this and then deleted it… But you have my sympathies and I share your irritation.</p>
<p>I didn’t get along with my one and only sibling until we were co-executors of our parents’ wills. (We had divorced parents, so we faced this challenge twice.) The logistics of settling these estates were not easy. My sister lives in California and I live in Maryland, and we had to settle the affairs and sell the homes of people who had lived in Florida and Connecticut. We learned how to do it together, and we turned out to be pretty good partners.</p>
<p>As a result of this experience, we have become friends – something we never were before. We exchange long e-mails several times a week, and I really enjoy having my sister in my life now.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, by the very nature of the situation, our parents didn’t live to see this. All they ever knew is that we spent most of our childhood at each other’s throats and most of our young adulthood ignoring each other’s existence.</p>
<p>My son and daughter aren’t particularly fond of each other and have little contact with each other. This week, they will be seeing each other for the first time in two years, but I don’t think they would bother if it wasn’t an obligatory Christmas-related situation. </p>
<p>Maybe I should make them co-executors of my will.</p>
<p>I’m ignoring the holidays as much as a pastor can. Husband’s been fighting to get his professional standing back for a year now, and our income is about 40% of what it was in 2011. Oldest daughter in Alaska and of course can’t come home for the holiday. </p>
<p>My mother is giving me guff for not coming up for a few days so that all the siblings can be at the same place at the same time, but I REALLY don’t want to do that. Siblings have always ridiculed me, and now that we are adults our values are very different. My mother is actively praying for the death of her unborn greatgrandchild, since the niece that is pregnant is unmarried - nothing says “Merry Christmas” like hoping for the death of a baby!</p>
<p>Ebeeeee, you are not alone. My mom was obviously the one who held our family together because we seemed to become estranged after she passed away. At first, my siblings and I made every effort to get together for birthdays and holidays. We all live 2-3 hours from each other. Then, my dad decided to remarry and things changed. No one was interested in get togethers anymore. </p>
<p>Yesterday, I called my sister to initiate a post Christmas lunch for our family. It will be our first in two years. </p>
<p>DH’s parents are divorced and it is always a tug of war at holiday time. I had announced that we would be staying home for Christmas this year since D was coming home from her first semester at college. I let them know they were invited to join us in hopes they would all come.</p>
<p>Long story short, SIL decided to fly in from OOS and has turned our plans upside down. Now, we are driving to the other SIL’s home for a reunion. This will be the first time DH’s family will be together in 5 years. I’m not upset about having to change our plans but I am upset that they haven’t informed FIL that SIL and her kids are visiting. He hasn’t been invited to this reunion either. My MIL’s passive aggressive behavior always fuels the fire. She claims her ex never liked Christmas anyway. </p>
<p>DH and I will be doing our best to stay out of the drama but FIL always calls DH to complain and I just know this one will be a doozy.</p>
<p>Ebeeeee, so sorry. Chanukah is over for us, and I for one am glad it’s just me and dd. Lots of extremely imperfect people in the family; much, much too muich family drama.</p>
<p>I saw this today and laughed:
MODERN LOVE
A Holiday Built on Presence, Not Presents
By CAROLYN S. BRIGGS
I loved Christmas so much I had destroyed it; I had choked my precious Yule puppy to death.
<a href=“Modern Love - Building Christmas on Presence, Not Presents - The New York Times”>Modern Love - Building Christmas on Presence, Not Presents - The New York Times;
Hope it’s a good distraction!</p>
<p>I am so with you. Two of my kids just don’t get along. It makes me sad. As hard as I want to make it different it is beyond my control. I accept it but that doesn’t take way the pain.
Happy Anniversary!</p>
<p>You are not alone with the holiday blues. I know as a mom, we want everybody to live together in peace and harmony, but that rarely seems to happen. I love my two brothers, but I only see them 2 or 3 times a year–and we’re in the same town!<br>
My S and D get along fine, but are different as night and day. They are happy just saying hello to each other and then doing their own thing. Unfortunately, D left 2 weeks ago for a year in South Korea, so this is my first Christmas without her. For the first time in more than 30 years, I did not put up a Christmas tree. I am hosting dinner for my very small family (there will only be 7 of us, which includes son’s GF) and will at least use the Christmas tree dishes. I didn’t buy one single gift. My D needed cash, so that is what my S is getting, too. The rest of my family have never exchanged gifts with the adults. I am thankful that there is no friction, but I really am not much in the spirit.</p>
<p>I’ll join the club. My two sons have never been close. They don’t fight/argue…not rude or mean to each other. They just have very different personalities/interests…no interest in spending any time together. It’s always been this way…and it still makes me sad.</p>
<p>This Christmas will be the most low key in the history of our marriage.
DH detests shopping so we rarely exchange gifts. S2’s truck just required an expensive repair which DH paid for and said" Merry Christmas". Also paid for a new charger cord for his computer this week…so yeah…no gifts under the tree for him…except his college diploma that I had framed before the truck broke down.</p>
<p>Spent a few hours w/ my bro. and sis. this weekend. We get along fine but usually only see each other at Christmas. Our parents have been gone for many years. </p>
<p>Christmas day will be just the three of us. We’ll have a big breakfast and go to the movies in the afternoon. Our dear S1 (U.S. Navy) is currently deployed to the Middle East. It will be our first Christmas without him 
We gave him his Christmas gift at Thanksgiving. Hoping we hear from him on Christmas. It will be a work day for him. We’ll miss him. I just haven’t had the Christmas spirit this year.</p>
<p>Son came to visit. Old conflicts and habits tend to surface, even six years after HS and more than one after college. He had vacation time to use or lose so he came south. Happy to have him but family dynamics stay the same. Have had visitors and learn</p>
<p>We don’t do either Jewish or Christian mythologies and the season is hard to get through. We used to do a secular Christmas but I no longer bother since H and S don’t help or care. Stopped tryi9ng to produce a holiday. Quit trying to figure out gifts. Helped the stress levels although I miss the decorations. I become scrooged out and tired of all the in your face wishes. I now understand how Jews and others feel during this season- being wished Merry Christmas all over rankles. I was gulity of not realizing the whole world did not share my beliefs, and back in my childhood even the public schools were insensitive.</p>
<p>Getting through this season by being two weeks into the kitchen and baths renovations. Good excuse for doing nothing (although Indian friends of H’s visited as their kids chose a FL vacation now and had hosting amongst the mess). Finally could damp dust the untouched rooms everything- amazing how it creeps everywhere despite barriers. I’m getting one heck of a “Christmas” present! Paid for it with tens of hours of planning.</p>
<p>Holidays are about people. Family and friends. They do not bring out the best in anyone, despite wishes for a magical time, sigh. Being an outsider to events also adds to the blues. </p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread. It is good to unload some of the buried feelings.</p>
<p>The holidays are stressful for almost everyone. I think the Norman Rockwell images that we aspire to are not real for most people. 2012 has been a very hard year for so so so many-- personally, for the country, for the world. It’s important to take time to reflect on what’s good, stay out of the way of what causes pain, and realize that you’re not alone. Many of us are in the same or similar boats, and many folks are much worse these days. Family squabbles seem to be the rule at this time of year. They certainly are for my family too!</p>