how to get along ?

[Lezlee]

Question - how does one decide when to give up trying to get along with ones family ??

For YEARS my brother and his wife have been very disrespectful at family get togethers. My sister-in-law has been down right rude and nasty at times for no good reason. We have always ignored her and tried not to resent having to be subjected to her for a long time now. The last time we had a family dinner they apparently thought we were rude because we went out into the porch to watch a movie after dinner was over and we had cleaned up. Now we had talked to everyone while we were there and while cleaning up. People were starting to leave at this point and it was a little crowded and the only place we could find room to sit was the porch. Which is right off of the kitchen where my brother and his wife and kids were. My son got a new movie and wanted to watch it because he is bored of sitting with the adults and listening to adult conversation at this point of the get together.

He did try to include his cousin who is his age and she did not want to watch the movie . She always sits in on the adults conversations. There tends to be alot of curse words flying about and some inapporpriate talk that we really don't like our son to be subjected to at these get togethers !! So we felt more comfortable finding seats in the other room distracting him with the movie.

Does anyone think we were in the wrong to do this ? I try not to be a rude person and we had already talked with everyone at this point of the day so I really didn't think twice about it causing a problem with my brother .

Help !!!! I am at the point where I don't want to be around them anymore. For my Moms sake I try to go and tolerate them. Any guidance here.........

[jana]

No, you were not wrong to do that. You have the right to parent your son as you see fit. If you don't want him around the language, I see nothing wrong with doing what you did. It wasn't rude.

As for your first question, I'd say you decide when to give up based on weighing the choices and asking yourself some questions. What do you get out of the relationship? Is what you get out of it worth putting up with the bad stuff? What will the consequences be of cutting out contact? Can you put up with those consequences?

Some more questions: How often are these family get-togethers? Can you put up with/ignore/avoid them at these things? I know you said you've been doing that for a while, so you may very well be at the end of your rope. Perhaps you can try to work out a partial solution where you don't have to cut off all contact, but you don't have to see them as much? Maybe skipping a family dinner once in a while?

Good luck! I know it's tough to deal with, because we all have this notion that because people are "family," we have to put up with them being jerks. It's just not true. If you had some friends who acted like your brother and SIL, would you still be friends with them? Probably not. But because it's your BROTHER, it's that much harder.

[Sexy Strawberry]

Family is very important, I have to agree... but just to some point. My family for me are my parents and my brother, that's it, although I have a lot of aunts and cousins and a grandfather.
The fact that someone belongs to your family doesn't mean, from my point of view, that you have to get along with this person. I'd rather trust a stranger than my eldest aunt for example.
If your sister-in-law is rude that's very sad, but that's not your problem. If you can't avoid her company, just ignore her.