Family Matters
bananasplit472001
member
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Age difference between family members
My husband and I just got married 1 month ago. I am 4 years older than his brother and his brothers girlfriend and 6-8 years older than his cousins on his mom's side. I have been trying to get to know these people better since essentially we are all "the cousins". I am finding that I am not able to relate to them and quite possibly they are not able to relate to me. They seem as if they want minimal to no relationship with me even though I try to have conversations with them. All of those conversations really are just small talk and I feel they always make some kind of excuse to go away from the conversation and talk to someone else. However, I am able to talk freely with his aunts and uncles and other older members of my husbands family. I am wondering if anyone else has had this experience and if it is just an age difference thing that will get better in time. I really just want to be accepted into his family and feel like i'm such an outsider.
Re: Age difference between family members
I've been married for 21 years and when we first got married, I was all trying to befriend his cousins and sister also. I'd watched one too many t.v. shows and thought we were all supposed to become close friends. Once we had a kid, it became easier to converse with the other cousins who had children too. I guess the point is that until we had something in common other than just that piece of paper that connected me to their family we actually had something to talk about and conversations became less stilted.
Another thing I ran into is the sheer difference in "social graces" between the generations. The aunts, uncles, and older relatives pre-date facebook, chatrooms, message boards, texting, and all this other stuff. In my case, the older relative predated CABLE television. Older people are just easier to talk to because they actually learned the art of conversation with strangers. They didn't have anything else to do! That's probably why you are having less trouble talking to them. They are just inherently nicer because being nice and conversational face to face is just something they were taught and something they've been doing all their lives.
Another wrinkle in my case was that my husband really only had superficial relationship with his siblings and his cousins and the only time they ever talked was 3 to 4 times a year at whatever family gathering was going on. Hard to form closer relationships with your husband's relative than he has with them himself.
So, have a kid for the conversation material (LOL!), or just enjoy yourself with the old folks and not worry about it! Good Luck!
This is something I have never thought of. Great insight!
The thing about age differences is they matter less and less as people get older. For example, if the younger cousins you are talking about are in their late teens to early/mid 20s. I could see where the age difference might come into play. But if the younger cousins are in their early/mid 30s (or older), I wouldn't see a 7-8 year age difference as being a big deal.
It might be they feel like they don't really know you yet. Either way, I think this issue will resolve itself over time. In the meantime, try to look for common ground to chit chat about. Ask them about themselves/hobbies to keep the lines of communication open and friendly.
It takes longer for some people to warm up to new people. They might be those kind of people.
Relationships don't happen overnight, but it sounds like you are doing the right things to allow those relationships to hopefully grow closer over time.
I also tend to be very social and make friends very easily, and so does my husband, his family members, and the majority of his friends, so that makes a huge difference. It's very possible that there's some non-age-related awkwardness happening with you that may dissipate over time, or it may just be that some of you don't click. Just be yourself and don't worry about it. If you worry too much, it'll just get more awkward and uncomfortable and be harder to get to know each other and become friends.