My Thanksgiving was relatively muted this year. My mom was in the ER the entire day, mostly due to an anxiety-driven overreaction to what she thought was shortness of breath. The silver lining is, no one came over that we needed to entertain. Usually, my dads family comes over for dessert after they have their meal. In past years, my uncle invariably starts in on politics immediately. At my Grandmother's (his mother's) funeral, he pulled my wife aside and started a diatribe about what he thought about impeachment. It was completely bizarre. In the past, he has gone on long-winded rants on god knows what when people are just trying to enjoy their meal. Whether or not people agree with him is irrelevant, because no one wants to hear any of it. On my wife's side, her uncle fulfills this role. Hes an actual flat-earther and fishes for an argument with anyone that disagrees with him. My wife begs me not to engage him whenever we all get together. Hes not a bad guy at all (neither is my uncle) and I genuinely dont mind him otherwise, but what the hell? Luckily, thats the general extent of our family drama. My grandma used to exclaim that the black person working at her local McDonalds was one of the "good ones," but shes no longer with us. Focus: Who is THAT person your family? What kind of bullshit do they stir up?
My sister in law is a notorious gossip. More than once I've flat out told her to shut the hell up after she started airing other family members' issues to anyone who will listen. And if there's something going on in our little town she can't get on the phone fast enough to either tell someone all about it or ask us what we know. When our neighbor died, there was a heavy police presence while they investigated it. Sure enough, here comes SIL, getting out of her car and running up the driveway wanting to know what we knew. I made my wife deal with her, because I was already upset about the neighbor, and this just really pissed me off. As for politics, my in laws and I are complete opposites but we just leave it alone and don't discuss it.
Yesterday what started as a sibling argument over whether or not to buy the cousins gifts this year because one of my sisters apparently already spent too much on herself, ended up with that same sister making fun of another one for having a half-black son. It went over about as well as you thought. Both my family and my in-laws are extremely combustible at gatherings so my wife and I like to sit back and quietly light matches everywhere then watch the show.
My mom told me last week that she’s worried my bipolar sister will steal money from her one day and pretty much asked me to have power of attorney. Of course I agreed. I’ve never gotten along with my sister. Narcissistic and bipolar well all go out to dinner and when she knows dad is buying, she’ll order the lobster. Every goddamn time. I made peace with her last year by co-signing on an apartment for her. Come to find out she’s about to miss her rent yet insists on eating out daily and having all of her household supplies delivered to her. I used to go head to head with her but it just stirred up stress for my parents. Now I lie low and monitor from the sidelines. I have no hope this relationship will ever be resolved.
All of my immediate family gets along well, but I do have an aunt who is an absolute bitch. She makes snide remarks constantly that are completely unecessary and add nothing to the conversation. A few years ago she randomly went off at my mom and another aunt calling them baby machines and all this other crap. It was totally unprovoked and unwarranted. She just kept babbling about how she was so much better than them because she was more focused on her career than they were. Who the fuck does this? The shit that comes out of that bitch's mouth sometimes is unreal. Funnily enough my mom now owns a pretty substantial number of apartments and is quite a bit more successful than she ever was. When I have to see her I usually exchange hellos and then avoid her. She really can't go even five minutes before the inner cunt starts coming out, and I know by the second or third time she makes one of her bitchy remarks I'm going to explode at her. She's just an all around really awful, unpleasant person.
My mom. We don’t have big get togethers anymore because most relatives have moved or died. We had been going out to family luncheons once a month or so. My older relatives weren’t trying to start political fights but they’d mention the more whacky FoxNews stuff. "You know there's a war on Christmas?!" Im more of the live and let live type and just role my eyes at ridiculous nonsense and move on without saying anything. My mom who is a militant atheist (mainly because her boyfriend is) has to snap back with snide comments and arguments. Im one the atheist side of the spectrum but Im not going to go out of my way to rub it in people's face that I think their beliefs are really nonsense. These more militant atheist are just as annoying and proselytizing than Christian folk who do the same. She can be super condescending which just upsets people more. It's never devolved into shouting matches or walk outs but many a good mood get together have had a sharp turn into awkward unhappiness. This is the same reason I refuse to talk politics while out with friends. We had a gentleman's agreement not to talk politics years ago instituted by my liberal friend. It just sours the mood and gets you angry at shit you really can't control when we're trying to bar hop or tailgate or listen to a concert and so on. Since Trumps been elected he's slowly lost his self control on keeping with this pledge. The drunker he gets the more chance he just starts yelling out of nowhere how about what a criminal everything is. I just yell over him to zip it, don't add any counter points, and just move on.
My BIL and his wife are THOSE people. The ones whose behavior toward one another makes everyone uncomfortable. The yelling, sniping, and outright fighting give everyone the cringes. And everyone just excuses it saying “that’s just how they are”.
My buddy’s sister in law is like that with her husband. Nasty, ugly public fights. Yet then she’ll post all over Facebook a bunch of lovey dovey shit to him and vice versa. She even had the gall to say she’s willing to help other couples out with their relationships. Biggest eye roll ever.
I have an aunt in law that has quite the sketchy past- Addicted to heroin and booze on and off for 15+ years. Faked cancer and told everyone she was going to die. Took donations and ended up using it on drugs. Has stolen from everyone at least once including my wife. Last month she was diagnosed with multiple organ failure and 6 months to live. God bless my wife, she took her in and has included her in a number of family events. The aunt is really overdoing it, though. Calls multiple times a day, sees events on FB and asks why she wasn’t invited. Etc. I understand her time is limited but you can’t just decide one day you’re going to clean up your act and expect everyone to go along with it. My wife is the only one going out of her way to include her.