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the hazzards of ditching your family
so as you guys may or may not know, i have an uncle. my mom's brother (for those of you who are new, my mom died suddenly at 62, almost 6 years ago).
his entire life he's been a complete mess. money problems, drinking, gambling, you name it. he's been married 3 times that i know of. thankfully no kids. he never had a big influence on us but my mom made sure that we had a basic relationship with him.
after my mom died we found out that my mom had litereally been his keeper. my grandmother had left him money and my mom was dolling it out to him because he, as a 60 year old man, couldn't handle his own finances. once she died he got the money from his mother and some money from my mom.
soon after, my sister and i received phone calls from my uncle (who was by then living in Las Vegas, of all the stupid idea places to live) asking for money. from his nieces, both of whom have children. we both said no. that was 5 years ago. soon after i tried to call him, just to catch up, and found his number was disconnected.
3 years ago my sister and i received christmas cards. they were only signed "uncle bob", no "uncle bob and aunt dipsh!t" so we kind of assumed he'd yet again divorced. there was no return address and no contact info in the card. the post stamp was from Las Vegas.
about a year ago we found out that my uncle was still keeping in contact with his best friend (who, completely coincidentally knows my father's wife) and found out that he was doing well, they talk once a week, blah blah blah. he may or may not have been informed in one of these conversations that i had the boys.
fast forward to today: my father called my sister to tell us that our uncle died over a week ago. no one called us, his only blood relatives. classy. apparently my father found out from his wife who found out from her friend who found out from HER friend who was friends with my uncle. presumably he found out from my Aunt Dipsh!t. that's how we found out.
i'm not sad about it. not really. i'm sad that this guy didn't care about his family At.All and this was the result.
i know people talk on here all the time about how horrible their families are and how they've been wronged and i get that. but seriously, this is just a pathetic end of what could have been a really good relationship.
everybody's wrong sometimes. even you. even me. could i have tried harder to get in touch with him? totally. i'm not going to lose sleep over it but of course i could have done more. and he could have as well.
yes, there are ABSOLUTELY times when you shouldn't have contact with your family (mrsevans, i'm looking at you 
but those instances are few and far between.
it's just such a waste.
and if you're sitting there reading this thinking "but they're the bad ones and i'm right!" then you totally missed the point of what i just wrote.
Re: the hazzards of ditching your family
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I'm sorry about your Uncle.
And yes, I guess I totally don't see the point. Is the point you should go out of your way for someone that is completely awful just because?
all i can say, is that a wife of someone who got himself out of addiction and depression, who has been through a lot of therapy (group and private)... I can tell you that there is nothing you can do to save someone like that. So never feel like you didn't do enoguh... that you should have called more, etc... because the fact is- until he wanted to change b/c of himself only - he wouldn't have changed.... so Lauren (or anyone in a similar situation) do not beat yourself up over not doing enough. Addiction is a horrible thing and ruins too many people.... and only they can save themselves, sadly.
i'm all for people cutting toxic relationships out of their lives... even if it's family. Sometimes you just have to break free so you can live your life without constant pain - and there's nothing wrong with that.
It's sad when people die alone.
But sometimes you reap what you sow.
My mother's ex died back in October. Alone. She found out about a month ago when her Christmas Card to him came back in the mail. He was an assshole of epic proportions and had no relationship with his family or his son. Things like that don't happen in a vacuum. You get back what you give in this world. Relationships shouldn't be one-sided & if one party establishes that they are a "loner" or just isn't capable of holding up their end of the deal then there's no need, IMO, to continue to put your energy towards them.
i'm sorry for your loss, but i still don't understand what point you are making. i read this, closed it, thought for a bit, read it again...and am not getting it.
this is just a pathetic end of what could have been a really good relationship.
there was no relationship. it sounds like he's always been distant/absent, your whole life. so there is sort of no "could have been."
and sometimes it's not as easy as saying he didn't care about his family. everyone has demons and it's unlikely it was as black and white as he didn't care.
again, i'm sorry. i feel like it's always startling when someone you know dies, even if you were not particularly close.
I'm thissing all over the place. I'm sorry your uncle died. But, if/when my father or sister die I'm sure it will be sad...for someone. Not for me. I know myself. I don't have any feelings, ever of, "this is so sad we don't speak". It's a relief. If my father dies alone he'll have no one to blame but himself and I don't feel sorry for him about it. No, I didn't grow up wishing I had a$$holes for family but I do so that's the end of the story. I'm not going to subject my husband, my son, or myself.
You say you excuse it for MrsEvans2B- how do you decide for other people how toxic someone else's family is?? Do you have a level system for toxicity? And some people, like me, believe family is what you make it. I've replaced the a-holes I'm related to with people who are pleasant, wonderful people we enjoy being around. They love us and treat us with the respect my family is incapable of giving. So, we're good.
If you feel some sort of sadness or feel you were wrong in anyway in your situation I'm sorry. It sucks to have regrets. But not everyone has them. We have one life to live as we see fit, and luckily we get choices in who we want to spend our time with and care about. Some people live in toxic family situations their whole life because they don't have the courage to cut it off. Those are the people I really feel sorry for.
ITA
Mom to Teagan 4.11.07 and Cora 9.30.11
D&E @ 22w 9.30.09 CMV infection BFP 10.15.10 C/P 4w4d
my point is that there's always a "could have been", would we have been sunning on the back porch drinking lemonade and reminiscing about the olden days? of course not. but he could have known about his family on some level.
i'm not BLAMING myself about his death or anything. and frankly, i've said things like this a couple of times about not waiting until it's too late and i ALWAYS get the "ZOMG!!!! YOU DON'T KNOW ME!!!!" answers. you're right, i don't "know" you but at this point i do know something you (not YOU melanie, the general "you") don't and that's that you have an opportunity right now to mend fences that i don't have anymore.
if you (again, the general you) don't like my advice then that's fine but eventually the day will come when you're in this situation and i HIGHLY doubt you'll be sitting there with no regrets.
THAT is the point of this post.
a) mrsevans gets the pass because it just happened last night.
b) i covered toxic relationships.
c) this was my point, that sometimes you could regret your choices. heaven forbid i give someone a heads up.
Amen. I see this a lot, IRL and on here, and I always wonder why people subject themselves to these situations. Life is way too short.
I can honestly say that if my brother drops dead tonight, I will have NO REGRETS that I stood up for myself and for my family. If my parents drop dead tonight, same thing - I will NEVER regret standing up to them. Am I disappointed in the way this all turned out with them? Of course. But regrets? I don't have a single one. That's certainly not to say that I want anyone to die, but I won't be crying in my cornflakes about how I should have let them continue to take advantage of us and verbally abuse us. No way no how.
are you out of your mind? i'm saying that IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS, maybe you should work on them now while the people you have problems with are still alive. how is that me being on my horse? you CLEARLY have no problems. clearly.
what i find funny is how completely personally you've taken every post in this thread. if you have no problems with your own actions then awesome for you. that doesn't explain why you feel the need to justify to the entire world why you've made whatever choices you've made.
and considering the fact that there was at least one person in this thread who has a simiilar situation as mine, where do you get off telling me what i'm saying is off base? it might be off base to you but here's a news flash: It's Not Always About You. in this post or in real life. it really, really isn't.
And what other people are saying is that we're okay with not working them out. No one should feel obligated to work on relationships they see no value in. You're allowed to see no value in relationships with anyone for any reason really. If someone gave you the scenario of your uncle or my family or Amy's family and changed the words family to "friends", I'm pretty sure no one would be saying, "try to make amends in case they die!". They'd say "you don't need that shiit!", "Walk away!". I mean, someone can say all this about your stepmother. You have a very tumultous relationship with her. Should you start working on that relationship now because she's technically family? She's married to your father who you have a relationship with- more than the one you say you had with your uncle.
I still just don't get it.
Couldn't agree more. Wow.
EXACTLY!!!
Mom to Teagan 4.11.07 and Cora 9.30.11
D&E @ 22w 9.30.09 CMV infection BFP 10.15.10 C/P 4w4d
But you didn't just post what you learned for your situation, you went on to judge the majority of people's reasons as not being good enough. Maybe it would have been better recieved without the finger pointing.
Mom to Teagan 4.11.07 and Cora 9.30.11
D&E @ 22w 9.30.09 CMV infection BFP 10.15.10 C/P 4w4d
I have to agree with Brenna here.
You had me agreeing with you until the judgement came across. Judge and jury you are not.
Look, I'm not going to pretend that I know enough about people's personal lives to dictate whom needs or doesn't need to forgive whomever. All I know is that in my family, not having certain relatives active in my children's lives is for the greater good, PERIOD! Some cautionary tale from a virtual friend who feels bad over a relationship lost from a distant uncle isn't going to change it for me.