Weddingbee boards

Just a warning, this is long. But I wanted to get other people's POV!

I'm the youngest of my family on both my mom and dad's side at 23 years old. We only go to my mom's family for holidays (my mom does not get along with my dad's side and my dad is in a nursing home. My FI's family lives over 700 miles away). Anyway, I was going to go but this past week and a half I have been having insomnia BADDD. Not like, oh I stay up all night and sleep all day insomnia. I mean, I go to sleep wake up ever 2 hours and sleep a max of 4-5 hours a day. I usually need about 8-10 hours to even function. To put it lightly, I am barely able to function at this point. I have been CRYING and calling the doctor because I'm SO exhausted! I go to bed at 12am (which is early for me) and wake up at either 5am or 6am. This has been going on for a week and a half. The doctor prescribed me Ambien, which does not work for me. They also told me to try Melatonin, which did not work. My next thing is a psych evaluation (though, I am not sure how that will even help me sleep!) Bottom line, I'm exhausted! 

If I go to Christmas I am seriously going to end up sleeping the WHOLE time that I am there, which to me is rude. Why would I drive an hour ONE WAY just to sleep the whole time and not even spend time with my family (and they will talk behind my back and bitch). Sometimes I don't fall asleep until 4-6am! My cousin is also sick and last time he was sick, the whole family ended up going home puking. So I decided, I will spend the holiday with my FI and my dog, which I was actually excited about because he won't bitch at me for napping if I have to like my family would. 

News traveled to my outpoken cousin who is 24 (we grew up together close with me, my cousin, his brother, and my brother), who told me that "if you don't show up because you are sleepy then your an asshole" Oh thanks cousin, glad we are family. Then I went into a HUGE rant to him basically telling him off. (Merry Christmas, I know) I go to practically every holiday. I see the family at least 2 out of 3 times a year. Sometimes I miss Thanksgiving, but that's because my Aunt's food makes me REALLY sick and my uncle for my whole life wanted nothing to do with my mom's side of family until my grandmother, on her death bed, told him off for not even being part of the family anymore. So I don't even really feel like they are family. 

This year I have gone to Thanksgiving and I will be going to Easter coming up, last year I went to Easter and Christmas (2010 & 2011), the year before is when I only went to the Christmas get together because I was living in Michigan and spent Christmas day with his family and then drove the next day 12 hours to make it to the get together at my uncle's...who I mentioned before doesn't even feel like they are family's house (2009). We didn't even spend Easter or Thanksgiving with neither my family or his family because it was 7 hours to his family one way or 20 hours to my family one way from where we were living at the time. The year before that I went to Christmas and Easter (2008) and then before that I went to all of the family events unless my father was sick and constantly fighting with us and we decided as a family not to go (he has dementia and he was in the violent stage).

Also, at the same time its a miracle I do go to as many family events as I do because I should be going to see FIs family as well for the holidays because he NEVER gets to see his family on the holidays (and sometimes doesn't get to see his family for OVER a year) because our family is closer and his is a 700+ miles away ONE way. In the past 3 1/2 years I have seen his family once on the holidays and missed all of their family events (graduations, birthdays, etc)

The cousin who is complaining to me, his brother doesn't go to Thanksgiving because he is spending it with his girlfriend. Normal couples split holidays with families, unfortunately we are not a normal couple and our families do not live in the same state or even relatively close to one another. My other cousin rarely comes and it's not a big deal? Because she's married? I'm engaged, there's hardly a difference. She's spending Christmas with her husband, but that's okay if she comes once every several years but if I miss once a year its an issue (he bitched me out on Thanksgiving because I wasn't going to go because I don't like going to my uncles house because I feel VERY uncomfortable and the food makes me sick)? I'm not sure of the difference really. I should really be splitting up my time with his family and my family, but I don't and cant because it's not affordable to travel 1400 miles roundtrip for one holiday and pay for all of that gas. My other cousins don't always come because they split holidays with their spouses....am I missing something? How am I the exception where I should be at EVERY holiday? Because I'm not married? Because I'm the youngest and only 23? Because I don't have children yet or a "family" of my own???

My family also expects us to drive an hour-2 hours for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter EVERY year and no one visits us. At first everyone's excuse was "it's too far" to travel to our house (eventhough everyone was perfectly fine traveling that distance for the first few years) and then it was "you have too many dogs" (we had 8 dogs at once, so I will give them that). Then we had only 2 dogs, got rid of the others, some died of old age, etc and then it was still "you are too far". No one comes to see us ever. I had to throw my birthdays, graduations, etc at THEIR houses because NO ONE would come to mine because it was "too far"

We go and practically no one talks to one another. Practically no one talks to my FI. And they're supposed to be his future family? No one tries to get to know him or even cares about him. My FI comes from a loud, outspoken, rambunctious family. He's used to everyone talking all of the time, practically never being left alone and everyone wanting to know what you are doing, how you are doing, and needing to know everything going on in your life. He's not weird and he's not awkward by any means. He will talk to anyone who talks to him. He can be at a family event of mine for 3-4 hours and he will only have a 5 minute conversation the whole time. Practically no one talks to me or him and not because I separate myself from the family. Most of Thanksgiving I sat in the livingroom with the family. Honestly, my family used to be so much fun. We would get together about 10x a year and now as we are older its 3x and it has become really awkward and forced. No one has fun. No one wants to even go....we just go because it is family and you "should" My family has become so conservative and so....self absorbed that no one even tries to hold a conversation. It starts and ends at "how are you"

Am I doing something wrong? I just don't get how my cousin thinks it's a huge deal that I don't go when my other family members don't go as well because they are spending time with their husbands, families, etc? I'm not sure he gets that in a sense my FI and I are our own family and that we will be having kids soon, etc...I think because I'm the youngest also he doesn't understand why I'm not going to every event and going to every holiday....when he does...

nothing?