Are you close to your immediate family or are you closer to your spouse's family or your friend's family?
I ask this because this tends to be an issue with most families these days. We all know jealousy and even hatred exists everyday, but do those traits exist within your household or family? Jealousy is a strong trait and hatred is even stronger, but they both exist daily and within every relationship around the world. Personally, I am not a fan of using the word "hate" because it is such a strong word and I do not believe in using it against living beings, but that does not mean it is a word that does not exist in everyday vocabulary.
Some of my friends and family have gotten married or adopted other friends and families and they have expressed how difficult it is to spend time with both families, but they try to come to some sort of agreement to where they alternate holidays in order to spend time with both families equally. For instance, my best friend and her husband may spend Christmas here in Houston one year with her family and then the next year they go to Dallas to spend Christmas with his family. They alternate holidays like this all year. I look at them and ask myself is this something I would be willing to do? I guess it would depend on how close I am with my family and how close I am with my man's family. I have been known to be a house hopper, where I visit several friend's houses during the holidays and although I've gotten used to that and my friends have probably gotten used to that, would they be okay with me changing things up if I got married and had other obligations?
I said all of this to say that some of my family members have new families and have resorted to spending their entire holiday season with their new family instead of their birth family. Does this mean they are right or wrong? It doesn't bother me because I totally understand that everyone meets new people along the way, besides, I have tons of friends I try to visit during the holidays to do something different from the norm, but it bothers some of my family members. I guess that's where the jealousy and hatred comes into play. Are these family members jealous that the other family members have a new family or are they just mad that there are other options? Should they be understanding or should both parties realize that changes will occur and things won't always be the same?
What do you think or suggest?
Monday, December 29, 2008
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1 comment:
That's a very interesting topic and it has come up several times in my married family. It has caused hurt feelings and animosity between family members. I think you mentioned the best resolution to the problem and that is to rotate or come up with alternate means of being together as a family. A friend of mine is very close to her own family and very close to her husband's family and they get to spend time with everyone during the holidays with no drama. On her side of the family, they rotate Christmas eve at a different house every year and then they open gifts together at midnight. There is never resistance or arguments or none of that. Its a commitment to each other and they love it and we even go with them sometimes and we love it. And then on Christmas day she goes to her in-law's with her husband. I think its a brilliant idea! In fact, I have tried several times over the years to get that going with my husband's family but they are not interested so we spend almost every Thanksgiving and Christmas with a close friend or my husband's cousin. My commentary could turn out to be longer the original post so I'm gonna stop here. : )
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