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Things are awkward with DH's dad. He's on his third marriage with his "real" family...he walked out on DH, his mom, and his sister 24 years ago when he was 2. There's always some serious awkwardness at MAJOR family events like weddings. Nothing too horrible, but I wouldn't exactly say I have a FIL.
My mom and my dad's mom were relatively estranged because my grandma J was very racist and my mom is half korean so there was ALWAYS some bad blood there. She'd walk around the house in white gloves and tell my mom how awful of a housewife she was and would talk bad about "the chinks" and people "like them" and make up stuff about my brother and I, saying she was a bad woman for not being able to control us. Caused lots of problems.
My bio father became physically abusive and an addict after marrying my mother. Luckily, she was smart and ran away after I was born.
He owes her thousands of dollars in child support and the only time I met him was when he was arrested for not paying child support and brought back to California for trial. He told me that he'd been through rough times, but he wanted to be a good father and was going to fly me out to visit every summer (I know now he only offered that b/c he thought visitation would lower his child support.) Then he lost the trial, of course, and since then quit every job as soon as child support started getting deducted. Basically, he's a selfish ass hole that was never apart of my life in a positive way.
Anyways, right after I was engaged he added me on facebook and sent me a lenthy message about how he's a changed man and I don't know the whole story of what happened and how he wanted to WALK ME DOWN THE AISLE. Oh helllll no.
Needless to say we are now officially "estranged"
My fiance's father and brother won't be at the wedding. He stopped speaking to his father almost 20 years ago (he left when fiance was a toddler). He's told me stories about him I can't believe and frankly, I don't need to meet the man. FSIL & FBIL cannot be in same room together and since he's close to his sister (I am too) and not his brother, the choice was obvious. I'm dreading the moment I have to be around FBIL (only see him maybe once a year if that) because he is totally the type to make snippy rude remarks. It should be boatloads of fun!! Thankfully this is only mildly awkward with FMIL since she's pretty hands off. I love his family like my own, but I come from a tightknit, albeit disfunctional, family, so the estrangements are taking some getting used to.
I've never met my soon to be FIL. HBe and hubby to be have not spoken to one another in over 7 years. Evidently, he can be a horrible excuse for a human. You know, the type that kicks a dog.
On the flip side, I LOVE his mother and consider her a close friend.
My father's entire side of the family. I had posted this before, but his parents were not nice people, and tried to buy our love and got very angry when we would cry to go to our grandma's house (mom's mom) 5 blocks away. Never abusive, just never understood why we didn't like them. I still cant believe they are my father's parents, cuz my daddy is so wonderful. So basically, they said some very messed up things about my mom when she was pregnant with my sister (guess what that could have been?) and told my dad he had to choose between us and them. He chose us and never looked back. That was 20 years ago. I can't say that I miss them a bit, i'm just glad my dad knew what was best and chose us. He doesn't regret it either. Sometimes you just have to walk away from the toxicity in your life in order to keep your sanity
Actually, I'm estranged to both of my parents. My mom left my sister and I with my dad when we were very small (1 and 2, respectively). I know why she left him: the abuse and she was enduring some mental illness, I think. My dad would verbally and physcially abuse my sister and me, it wasn't until a year ago that I finally cut my ties because I couldn't handle it anymore. He was controlling my life and becoming increasingly paranoid. The situation finally snapped when at a beloved aunt's funeral, he screamed at my sister and I, the rest of the family, and walked out without telling anyone where he went. My mother never paid child support, and my father wasn't supporting me during college so I feel no obligation to them for what they did and did not do for my sister and me. Luckily my fiance's family is very supportive and understanding of my situation. I can't wait until I have a steady job, get some good counseling.
I do not get along with my bio dad. My parents divorced when I was 6. I had to spend every other weekend with him until I was 12. He married a woman who I have re-named "The Wicked Witch of the West" The older I got the harder my relationship was becoming. She seriously treated my sister and I how the evil step mom treated Cinderella. (cleaning the house, scrubbing the floors you name it, i've done it) When I started to realise what she was doing I stopped talking to her and I would only see my dad once a week for dinner. Our relationship is completely superficial which is fine with me.
What I found out later is that his wife sucessfully weeded my sister and me out of my dad's life. (Not that my dad is a great person, he is a manulipitave ass hole) Since I got engaged he has called me twice. (we got engaged aug 09)
FI and I decided that he will be invited to the wedding as a guest. He will not walk me down the aisle or do any speeches. I mentioned his name in the program and that is it. I will be passing info through my cousin that it is probably not a good idea that he bring his wife.
My fiance and I are sort of estranged from my FSMIL.. We dated years back, and we were each others' "firsts" and when she found out she flipped, accused me of being a whore in front of both of my parents, told him he was never to see me again and we ended up splitting up.. She kicked him out multiple times while he was in high school, once for just making his little brothers (who were about 3 and 4 at the time) lunch and giving them a popsicle.. She abuses drugs, cheats on FI's father, doesn't do anything at all to take care of her sons (which are 5 and 6 now), and just overall is a bad person.. She had the temerity to ask me the last time I saw her if I "forgave her yet." That'll probably always be a sore relationship whenever it comes to her..
My husband and I just decided to cut all communication with my father. He has had no respect for me my entire life, even during the wedding and after. He doesn't apologize for anything, even when my parents called my husband (then my fiance) a liar. My mother did apologize, just to note. He's tried to control me and my decisions and tries to pull it off as being nice or concerned. He's a manipulator and unfortunately is good at it. He also has other issues that I won't discuss here, but he always uses them as an excuse for why I make certain decisions, such as moving out of state. My father will not be seeing his grandchild because of this.
Luckily, though it was my decision to make, my husband completely supports my decision. It's only been about a week, so I don't know if there's room for reconciliation yet. If so, it won't be for a long time. As of now, I am proud of my decision and felt actual relief when it was official. We tried meditation with a counselor, and when that didn't work, that was it.
My FI hasn't seen his bio mother since he was 21 (he's now 30). His parents got divorced when he was four and he lived some time with her. Then he went with his mother and his new mom (who is super nice) and saw his bio mom again when he was 8, 12, 14, 21. The last two times she said she'd write but never did. She remarried and had children. I don't know how a mother could leave her baby and not care what happens to him. This has affected my FI very much.
My SO's dad is insane. I've seen him only 3 times in 4 years, wouldn't be able to pick him out on the street. My SO has only seen him once in the last 4 years! He left my SO's mom after 32 years of marriage because he met a woman online. Moved halfway across the country and it only lasted 6 months. He's a horrible alcoholic and used to do a lot of drugs (not sure if he does now, but wouldn't surprise me), he's sent me the WEIRDEST presents. Seriously. For Christmas last year I got an LED light-up cube with a 3-d picture of my SO in it...he thought it would be "nice" for me to have since my SO works out of town a lot. Creeptastic. I have pictures, I don't need a 3-d nightlight of his face! He's been really weird though, denies all abuse and even his drinking from the past. We're debating on whether we should even invite him. I would much rather him not be there and so would my SO but he feels like his family would be upset, and they would, but I can't imagine how awkward it will be since we're getting married in the same church his parents were. Oh the stories I could tell. I am SOOOOOOO thankful for his mom and sister though, I could not have gotten luckier. And to be very honest, my family is super kick-ass so we're well cared for ;)
@sillysil: Yeah, I wonder the same thing about my mother. I can count on one hand how many times I've talked to her. She never sent birthday or christmas cards, and it's not like my address or phone changed growing up. She left two babies and apparently she also left her three prior children from a previous marriage.
I am so sorry @beekiss2, I really am. I think some people just don't have souls. I cannot understand this.
@sillysil: Thanks, and for your fiance's sake, I hope he can get some good counseling if he feels inclined :)
FI hasn't seen his father in years. His mother left his Dad when he was 18 months old....it's such a weird situation. FMIL made her children CHOOSE between their father and mother, it's really sick. I think that may be why his Dad didn't see him much, but at the same time he didn't fight for him either. He's not invited to our wedding.
The best medicine for us all is to be the exact opposite kind if partner/parent that we have endured.
KJPugs
That family sounds EXACTLY like my SO's...well with the exception of the lesbian part. We have been together for over 4 years now and I still haven't met his mom or sister. They both feed off of each other. At first I was dissappointed that he never let me meet them, but later understood why. He didn't want me to think he was anything like them or think poorly of him....which I never would.
Unfortunately it's come down to that we will not be inviting either one of them. I know it sounds harsh, but no one knows the entire story which I don't want to get into.
I wish you luck with that family if you do decide to have some relationship with them.
Glad to hear there are others although these stories are really quite sad. COMPLETELY agree with @menobride!!! We are striving to be good honest people who bring happiness to our family and friends, instead of negative gossips.
I almost feel guilty now since many of your stories are FAR worse than our situation. Although Hubby and I talked and really decided it comes down to, if you are in a relationship that you don't get anything positive out of, and that leaves you worse off after every encounter (be it abuse, lies, neglect, etc) it's not worth being in that relationship. So good for all of us for removing the negative influences that can really be like a cancer on a happy life!
Oh and @Superstitions if you ever want/need to talk let me know, we've only been in this situation for like a week as well, so I have no idea when/if it'll blow up again, etc.
I am estranged from my immediate family (mother father sister) and have been for 6 years. FI and I began having issues with his sister right when we got engaged. She demanded to be a bridesmaid, and I barely know her since she and FI dont really get along. Things escalated via facebook (of course) and she's no longer invited to our wedding. It's very sad, but it comes to a point in life where you have to weed out the unhealthy people even if they are family. So I feel for you girl! Good luck! :)
My sister and I lost our father 11 years ago this summer and for the last 10.5 years, our mother has basically been having a midlife crisis. But it hit a head about two weeks ago.
She re-found her high school boyfriend almost immediately after our father died, and the story was he saw our dads' obit in the paper (nauseating). There were quite a few tall tales told about this guy and we think she may have kept in contact w/this guy over the entire 35 years our mom and dad were married.
Thus, we're no fan of this guy and our mom and the lack of transparency so he has had for 10 years now. Our grandparents (her parents) also didn't like this guy and when she told them a decade ago she was seeing him again, they said to dump him, that they didn't like him either. That was her elderly parents and their thoughts too on the subject. My grandpa said "I didn't like him 40 years ago and don't like him now. Ended up like I knew he would" (married four times).
She did some recent things that were beyond evil with regard to our inheritance when our grandparents passed away recently, and she has secretly married this guy.
How did we find out we had a stepdad? Why in the newspaper of course! In the obituary for my grandfather. Nice huh?
Scary part is now that she "announced" her wedding (some of you might have remembered how she said she was engaged over Christmas immediately after I announced T and I were engaged) and some of my aunts and uncles (dad's side) who live near her, said they believed they had been married for TWO YEARS now.
So no, we're estranged from my mom. She's not coming to my wedding and T met her for the first time in 2.5 years at my grandmothers' funeral. It was totally awkward. She was there with her FI/husband and my son saw him wearing a gold band on his ring finger so we were ???
She came up to my FI and said "Omg..you're handsome. (strange) and looked at my ring and said "Wow that's big". No nice to meet you, no attempt at being anything like a normal mom would in meeting her daughters' fiance for the first time or seeing her grandson who she hasn't seen in five years. She has not seen us in five years, despite me making trips to see her when she was ill or feeling bad.
I'm giving up the one sided relationship with her and the lies and her sketchy actions. Icing was when she basically stole over 250k from my sister and I in the last month and a half. I may even have to sue my mom. How bad is that? My mom stealing my sister and I (and our children, her grandchildrens) inheritance?
Our inheritance (more than that amount btw) we were promised from my grandparents was taken by our mom and her five time married husband/boyfriend/FI, wtf ever he is.
I have not seen or talked to my dad for almost a year save one 2 minute convo that devolved into an argument like that. My parents divorced when I was very young. The woman he was with for ten years treated me like crap, hit me, and kicked me out of the house and he just stood by. When my mom went through a period of depression and substance abuse he basically did nothing to help support us despite seeing how much we needed things because he wanted to stick it to her. He is emotional manipulative and used finances to control me and now my brother. I can count on my fingers the number of times he told me he was proud of me or LOVED me. He is a narcissist (sp) and expects others to give and give while he just takes.
I just finally got up the nerve to sever ties because his constant hurtful treatment was too much. Yes there are people that don't understand and think family is family and so we are obliged to them. I don't. Its going to be difficult if anyone asks why I didn't invite my dad to the wedding (esp his side), but thats okay.
If this is something you need to do, do it. It's been very liberating for me.
I stopped talking to both my in-laws for a few years after we got married. There were problems before that I don't want to go into but the icing on the cake was when I ran my husband's credit report and realized they had taken credit cards out in his name (ruined his credit score).We're working on our relationship, but things will never be great.
I don't go to large family events because I refuse to be in the same room as my husband's aunt. My husband wanted to use his family's entertainment business for our wedding rentals, his Aunt was the one who helped us. After our first meeting I felt uneasy (my in-laws are mostly nuts) but we continued to book everything through them. I realized a few days before the wedding she tacked on a few charges we hadn't discussed which wasn't cool, but I could deal- She let us borrow glassware and candles which was nice. After the wedding she claimed we ruined six rented linens (what's odd is she told me the rental company factored damage into rental cost during our first meeting- I specifically asked) and charged my father's credit card for 2,000 dollars without authorization. I called the linen company because 2 grand seemed a little high for six linens (obviously)- she was basically screwing us. I sent her an email (I was stressed, my dad wasn't happy) asking her in a professional/serious tone what was going on. She had the audacity to send me an email about how ungrateful I was (we bought her a 350 gift card to the spa and wrote a heart felt note) and what a terrible people my father and I are (She didn't like my dad because he wanted to meet the DJ she was providing.. she thought this was a ridiculous request because "Her family knows entertainment." We let it go and our DJ sucked).
I haven't seen her since the wedding (which was two years ago) and would like to keep it that way. I can't fake nice so I feel avoidance is best.
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Hubby and I have made the decision to drop all communication with my MIL (and his sister but we'll end up having to see her when we go to his dad's for holidays - his mom and dad aren't together) and my friends seem to think it's weird.
As long as I've known her, MIL has struck me as bizarre. She's VERY unlike my mom or anyone in my family- she's a VICIOUS gossip and unfairly misquotes and exaggerates things others say. She is unappologetic and I think has some mental issues, be they actual problems or just severe narcissism. For example, she's a lesbian, and when one of her 5 kids doesn't want to do something that involves her, she'll say "It's because I'm gay isn't it!?" instead of realizing it's because SHE'S CRAZY! One of her sons has a gf who he hasn't told anyone but hubby and me about (and his dad) since his mom will scare her off (she almost scared me off!)
Some of you may also remember this classic... when she decided not to give us thousands of dollars she promised us 4 months before our wedding. She currently seems to think it's not her fault and we shouldn't still be upset about that. She insulted my mom (since my mom didn't give much) even though we've told her multiple times that my mom told us up front not to expect anything - and MIL told us a large # at the beginning of our engagement, but then pulled out 11 months later (screwing my family, since we had to cancel our reception. I only had 15 guests from my family/friends list of 190 there, since they live in NJ and we're in IN.)
There was a huge eruption over Easter weekend - something we said was TOTALLY misrepresented and twisted and his sister attacked ME on facebook over things her mom said I said (I didn't.) She refused to apologize, so did his mom, and we are so tired of the drama that we decided being around her isn't healthy and we are stopping. Poor Hubby has been so mistreated by her his whole life (was even kicked out in HS for no reason other than that she was stressed out - lived with his best friend for a year!) and is over it as well.
There are so many horrific stories I could tell you all. But I want to hear YOUR stories. Why are you estranged? Is it just you or your SO or both of you together? Did you reconcile? Are you glad you cut ties with the abusive/hurtful/frustrating family member? I just hate being in this situation and want to hear from others who are.