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Christmas with biological family was a disaster.

Discussion in 'Family, Friends, and Relationships' started by Patrick7269, Dec 28, 2021.

  1. Patrick7269

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    Hi all, I’ve had a pretty awful Christmas and I just need some support. I’m still processing this and I don’t know what to do.

    I live in Seattle and I recently got a job at a well-known technology company. I was the first from my family to go to college, and I have now been in my technology career for 20 years. I’m 49.

    There has been nothing but fiction with my family in the last few years, sometimes over my success, sometimes over my health, sometimes over my sexuality. I feel like a foreigner in my own family, and considering my family is pretty conservative I just don’t belong.

    Over this Christmas visit my brother has made comments like “you don’t need to collect trains anymore, just buy a railroad”, or “when do they deliver your company car?” My brother literally stopped the holiday party he was hosting to announce that I was starting the new job. The tone seemed sweet in a fake way, and I don’t like being singled out.

    My brother gave me a Christmas gift that I’m “supposed” to want. Our father passed on ten years ago, and he asked me what I wanted of his, and I asked for his drawings, since we liked to draw together. Dad and I agreed that I would inherit drawings. When he did pass, I got no drawings.

    My brother for this Christmas “gave” me one of dad’s drawings - a self-portrait actually. I never even knew the damn thing existed. I was polite and we looked at it and admired together, but the next day I explained that I did not want it. Dad forbade me to have heirlooms because he didn’t want a “stranger” (i.e. my partner or husband, if I were to have one) to inherit family things if I should pass. He didn’t give me any of his drawings either, and now I don’t fucking want them. This Christmas, Dad’s homophobic wish is my command.

    My brother offered me the drawing on the “condition” that I will it to my nieces (my brother’s daughters) when I pass on. I get it. I’m single, and I would want to have heirlooms have a clear plan for inheritance so that anything I have goes to the right people. But on the other hand, I can’t help but feel like a “placeholder” or a “custodian” rather than a rightful heir myself. I really wonder where I fit in my family’s mental model, and what they say when I’m not around.

    The next day after this, Christmas Day, I only gave my brother the brief answer “it’s not dad’s wish that I have this, and I don’t want it” and it was dropped. If asked again I won’t repeat myself.


    And then - mom.


    She and her husband came to my brother’s Christmas party, and so they got the “announcement” to roughly 20 people that I now have a gravy train job. I kind of snuck off to watch over the children, and honestly I was kind of ready to just leave.

    But the real treat was my mom’s gifts. She gave my brother and his family these really cute plaid slippers, and it was a matching set that fit everyone perfectly. My “gift” was a different pair of slippers with the logo of the university I went to - and they were about 4 sizes too big. Uhm…different slippers that don’t even fit? Oh, and she gave me some kind of a “play mat” for my train room, something like Bob the Builder, like for a child. I’m 49. Was this all supposed to mean that I don’t belong and that I’m a child? Did she pick up my gifts at a gas station on the way to the fucking party?

    So after the party, mom, her husband, and myself went to visit her aunt, who just a week ago fell and has gone to a rest home. I wanted to take her cookies, so I gathered up a bunch. Mom’s husband was griping at me for holding them up. He was also huffing at me because I didn’t have their gifts - mom and already gone to the car with them, and I didn’t know.

    Then, at our visit with my aunt, I offered to help her go to dinner. Her husband (again) huffed at me that I shouldn’t be doing that, the nursing staff should.

    My mom then offered to my aunt: “I guess that college degree paid off. It seems that Patrick has fallen into a good job, and he only works when he wants to now.” I replied that I’ve been in the field for 18 years.

    She also went on that she got a lovely Apple TV from me, but she hates talking to tech support. All the damn foreigners you see. She even pretends not to understand them so that she can complain that they don’t speak native English. I didn’t say anything, but I was really struck by the message: she absolutely hates people who are different. Hmmmm. Well, where does that leave me as a gay son?

    As we were leaving my aunt’s room, her husband and I got the hallway first. I pretty much laid into him. I growled at him not to ever tell me what to do or bark at me like that. He justified himself, and I just growled at him to “shut the fuck up”. I turned and left them both.

    The next day my mom texted me to “please, please forget the small stuff”. I responded with some really choice insults and reminded her that I made it through college after being disowned after I came out. I also referred to her husband as “Homer Simpson” and said to to ever bark at me like that again. I also told her to reach out to Apple for her tech support (rather than me) so that she can suck up to all those “foreigners” she hates to much - and I also texted her that I often wonder if I’m a foreigner to her as well.

    At that point I blocked her texts and calls. I’m obviously not expecting a response, but I’d really like to know what the fuck just happened.

    What the hell happened here? Is my family trying to tell me that I’m a nuisance? Are they jealous to the point of aggression, and are these barbs and insults the mechanism? Or am I just not accepting and handling the usual family friction during holiday gatherings?

    After the immediate question of the Christmas disaster, I’m trying to think of whether I want my mom in my life. There have been other times in my life when she couldn’t be there during hard times, or couldn’t celebrate good things in my life. She’s detached, judgmental, homophobic, and full of passive aggressive insults about my life. This Christmas wasn’t an aberration.

    It’s painfully obvious to me that she never chose a gay son, and I certainly never chose a bigot mom. So, where does this leave us, hypothetically?

    Have any of you gone through this please? How do you handle family aggression and not feeling welcome? Do you negotiate, stand down and continue the relationship, or stand down and walk away? How do you heal?

    Thanks,

    Patrick
    Seattle, WA
     
    #1 Patrick7269, Dec 28, 2021
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2021
  2. Patrick7269

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    Quick correction: third paragraph, nothing but “friction” with my family.
     
  3. BiGemini87

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    Hello, @Patrick7269. I'm so sorry you had such a miserable Christmas. Holidays can be difficult at the best of times, but when everyone seems to be in on a nasty joke at your expense? That is particularly rough.

    As for how to handle things from here? Well, I can't speak from a place of sexual orientation (as I cut my mom and step-dad out of my life before I came out), but I can speak from a place of understanding how toxic family can be, and how it's not healthy to be stuck with the limitless forms of abuse they'd heap upon us. At some point, you need to break free; only then can you grieve, and only when you grieve can you heal.

    The choice is ultimately yours, but in your situation, I can say I'd cut the strings. Your mom clearly doesn't respect you, her love sounds conditional, her husband sounds like an absolute neanderthal, and yes--your brother sounds incredibly jealous of your success. Honestly, I wouldn't put that jealousy past your mother either, given your success. Sounds to me like there's a lot of displaced anger towards you over having a fulfilling job, as though they're embittered by their lot in life or the choices they've made.

    You deserve better than you're getting from them. It might be painful, it might also feel like a weight's been lifted from your shoulders--but I believe cutting those ties would be in your best interest. If you want, give them a chance to change their behaviour towards you. Maybe this is a situation in which an ultimatum could wake them up before it's too late--but be prepared for the possibility that it won't.

    And if it doesn't, and if you have to make this choice, be sure it's one you can feel good about in the long run.
     
  4. resu

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    I'm sorry you had to deal with this. You can't control other people's behavior, even family, so I suggest focusing on developing your relationships with your "chosen family" of friends and any supportive relatives. Time and distance can help heal a lot of things, and if you want to reconnect, it should be on your terms not theirs.