Last night, I decided I hadn't talked to my grandpa in a long time. Shortly, he put me on with my uncle, and we talked a bit. He asked me how I was doing, and I mentioned a date I had last week. This led to discussions of being single in the church, and to talking about a bit about Michael - who won't talk to me.
I told my uncle a little of what happened, and he laughed. Not in a derisive way, but in a slightly shocked way. It wasn't that shocking - "I didn't feel ready, and he didn't want to wait any longer." I mean, that isn't shocking, right? But he laughed out of surprise.
I asked him why he was laughing, and he said it just surprised him I was so honest. Well, heck, I wasn't THAT honest. I mean, I told the truth, but I didn't spill my guts or anything. Why did that flip him out?
Maybe... maybe this is why I don't get along with my dad? My baby brother told me once that the reason my dad disapproves of me is because I am so different from my grandmother, my mother, and my step-mother - really, the only women he has ever known well. "How am I different?" "Katie, you say things they'd never say."
Well, I suppose I could help that. I mean, I'll try. I don't quite know how, though, because I don't know what it is exactly is so surprising and objectionable. I always thought that your family should be the place you are least obligated to make soothing and polite answers when someone asks you about yourself. Is that wrong?
posted
Because family is the place where polite fictions are the most necessary in order for everyone who is rubbing elbows to get along. It is like ancient Japaneese societ (I just read Shogun again) When you don't deal well with polite fictions and think they are unnecessary and stupid (I don't deal well with them either) then you end up feeling outside the rest of the family.
1) Don't change for them. Don't put on the masks they want you to wear because masks of that type have the possibility of becoming you, and you of disappearing.
2) Family is THE place where polite diplomatic fictions are needed the most. If you bother a friend with the real you, you can find another friend. YOu can't find another father or brother.
3) The above two are contradictory, aren't they. That is life. You can play at being the perfect quiet, invisible woman with no opinions. That will get you along well with your family. You can be yourself with them, but that may scare your family.
That's life.
4) Perhaps one of the reasons you "were not ready" was because you fear turning into your grandmother/mother/step mother--a quiet, dutiful, shadow to the husband? I fear that would be a crime, a great waste of a person.
Of course, thats Pop-psych from someone who's only read a few of your posts and has no clue on your real situation.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I know how you feel, I think, kat! There are some things about me that I just have to realize will never ever be accepted or understood in my family. They even sometimes seem to go out of their way to try and point out to me and convince me of my total lack of worth. They seem to devise new ways again and again to bring home to me that assessment which they've made.
Over the years I think I'm finally okay with that. I have my friends and my adopted family who love me for the very reasons, maybe, some of them, that the family I was born into can't ever accept me. I have many friends and adopted family members that I dearly love. I dearly love my original family, too. It's possible to love them while disagreeing with them in their assessment of me. Our relationships can't be as close and loving as I would like, but I do what I can and we get by. I do what they let me, and stay connected to them to the extent they will allow.
It seems like since I've finally quit worrying about it and just made my life independent of what they think of me, that they are starting to have a little more respect somehow. I know that it's up to me to be strong and loving despite whatever happens. I think they know they can count on that, and it does count for something.
Maybe growing up means defining yourself completely independently of what your family thinks of you, despite the fact that you will be part of them forever and they of you. Maybe they will always tell themselves the story of you in a way that it's paltry and empty and dull. But your own self story is of your own making. It is not theirs to tell. It belongs to you.
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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#4 especially... I've been noticing, in all the threads about gay marriage, Amka talking about parents modeling what a relationship is supposed to be like.
My parents were very happily married - I NEVER heard them fight. They supported each other in what each wanted to an admirable degree. My dad was so happily married that after my mother died, he wanted to be married again as soon as possible. My step-mother adores my dad, and they get along great. My brother has a marriage much like my parents had.
But I didn't want that. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I want, but I didn't want the relationship modeled for me. For the longest time, my mother was a complete mystery to me because I couldn't figure out WHY she didn't seem to mind when my dad declared himself infallible. I believe she really didn't, though - and I know she was happy, and that she ultimately was free to do and pursue everything she wanted to. It just worked for her. But it drives me crazy.
The hardest part of this is while I was perfectly willing to rebel against my parents, I have no desire/inclination to rebel against the church - which is, of course, tied in with this. The easiest way to not have what my parents had would be to marry the brilliant, liberal, agnostic academic I fell for at age 20, but I didn't want that, either.
*thinks* I do think that polite fictions are sometimes necessary. I have polite fictions with my best friends, and they make it easier. Maybe this is all a matter of social skills - I was too clumsy with my family to figure out the right thing to say, honesty certainly didn't work, and now things might be too entrenched to change. ----------
(((((((anne kate)))))))) Dear, I believe you. It's okay.
I'm finally starting to realize that there are things about me that my parents simply cannot accept or respect. The culture gap is too wide; my father was born in 1926, my mother in 1942, and myself in 1981. There are some things about which we simply cannot relate. After years of trying to explain and get them to understand I think maybe I'm learning that it's futile and that they simply have no frame of reference for dealing with what I'm trying to talk about.
Fortunately, we relate remarkably well on pretty much everything else.
Edit:
>> I always thought that your family should be the place you are least obligated to make soothing and polite answers when someone asks you about yourself. Is that wrong? <<
Actually, I do think this is wrong. I act a certain way around my parents; it's different from how I act around my various groups of friends. I wouldn't say, though, that my family-self is any more or less genuine than my friend-self. While my word choices are different, my phrasing is different, and the things I'll talk about are different, I don't "take off" my friend-self when I go home, it just changes.
Actually, in many cases I feel more compelled to give "soothing and polite" answers to my parents out of consideration for my mother.
posted
I can and do talk to my dad about books. I talk to my stepmom about church and people and things, to my older brother about his kids, and to the middle brother about politics. Maybe that's the best beginning.
With my baby brother, we talk about everything.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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thanks for a lot of insight. I have been puzzling over this same thing. I have always been the black sheep of my family despite being far and away the least dependent, and, I think I can objectively say, the most accomplished, of my siblings. I have never understood this.
But hearing your story it makes perfect sense... I've always spoken plainly myself and I suppose that may be the issue.
I can rest much easier now, seriously. I don't really care if people dislike me as long as I understand *why*.
Posts: 2112 | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
Yeah, that's the way it works for me too. I have to exercise a great deal of ingenuity sometimes to avoid the topics which are off limits with certain family members. When they bring them up I say something non-committal then change the subject. It has to be as subtle as I can possibly manage, because any pause while I search my mind for something to distract from the topic at hand makes the anger start to flare. When the same touchy topic is brought back up again and again, I have to keep being clever in my ways of avoiding it.
I have learned the blank faced nod, the one that says, "I hear what you are saying", but does not convey any agreement or disagreement or challenge of any kind. I have learned to switch to distant analogs upon which we can agree, or to have a sudden thought about something totally unrelated which I've been meaning to ask or tell about. I've learned when all these fail to simply leave an empty space in the conversation and not feel compelled to fill it, not feel that it's MY empty space. When all that fails, I've learned to say, "I've got to go now. Bye, I love you. I'll see you later."
Maybe you can do better than that, I hope. Subtlety and understanding people are not my strong points. But this is how I'm managing now.
My baby brother, too, is one with whom I can talk about anything. Maybe if we have one relationship like that, in each family, we should count ourselves lucky! I do know that in him I'm very very blessed.
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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quote:>> I always thought that your family should be the place you are least obligated to make soothing and polite answers when someone asks you about yourself. Is that wrong? <<
Actually, I do think this is wrong. I act a certain way around my parents; it's different from how I act around my various groups of friends. I wouldn't say, though, that my family-self is any more or less genuine than my friend-self. While my word choices are different, my phrasing is different, and the things I'll talk about are different, I don't "take off" my friend-self when I go home, it just changes.
Actually, in many cases I feel more compelled to give "soothing and polite" answers to my parents out of consideration for my mother.
Okay, that makes sense.
Dan's right - it has to be a balance. Or something. Because I dearly love my family, and it's the most important part of this life. If my dad can't handle what I'm saying, then refusing to modify at all what I'm saying means I'm insisting he change just as assuredly as he insists I change. That isn't fair, either. I don't want to do that.
Dang it, there has to be some sort of balance, though, because for a long time I was careful and okay and accepting of things, and this led to me not being invited to my brother's wedding because "she won't mind." Holy crap, that's too much. Also, my relationship with my dad has been much, much better since I finally pointed out that it completely stank and maybe he could think of why. He even sent me my mother's bracelet for my birthday, and wrote down the story of how he gave it to her. That's nice! Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
If it's any comfort to you, I make my family very uncomfortable, too. I'm a master of the "polite fictions", or, in my case, it's a matter of "Don't ask, Don't tell." I will indeed answer direct questions honestly. So, my family that doesn't really want to know the answers has stopped asking the questions. It makes me feel weird, and I know that my family has many misconceptions about me because we can't really discuss a lot of issues. However, we still all love each other. Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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Some people you can talk to, and some you can't. This is true regardless of how or IF you are related to them.
I know I'm different with my family (Ron and the boys)than I am with other family members. You get used to it. I'm my mom's golden child. Ron never expects his mother to approve of any decision he ever makes, just on general principle (if it was his choice, then it MUST be a bad one, because he's so 'willful' ).
Ak's right. It's YOUR story. Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
To me there are 2 kinds of family. Your blood family and all the people who can be your real self with who won't run screaming from the room, but will accept you the way you are. Those sort of people are every bit as much family as your blood family is. Speaking as the black wolf of my family, the only one in the family who is a heathen, sometimes you can't win. They'll never completely accept you for the way you are, so you might as well just be yourself and not feel bad about it.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I have no social skills. None. My brother has been trying to civilize me for several years now.
But I get along great with my family.
*Ponders*
A couple weeks ago, my step sister and her fiance had an engagement party for their friends at my parent's house. Lots of 20 and 30 somethings. It was kinda fun. At the end of the night, I asked a girl I had been talking to if I could call her sometime. She says sure, do you have something to write with. I do... I had known for a couple hours I was going to ask for her phone number. So I brandish my pencil and paper with a flourish. My brother sees this and its all he can do to keep from rolling on the floor.
So now the important part. Later, my brother talks to me about it, and my father and step-mother laugh at me. It was done in a really weird, not quite normal, manner... and I have a reputation (justly earned) in my family of being weird, and a complete failure with women. So, they're laughing.
A couple years ago, this would have bothered me a lot.
It doesn't now. I've managed to break down, in my mind, the family frictions, so that when people laugh at me, I can take it good naturedly. I recognize that I'm weird, don't quite fit in. No one else in my family does either, but they at least have social skills
This is really rambling... I'm sorry... heh. What I'm trying to drive at, in a weird round about fashion, is that family is one of the great mysteries of life. For me, the clincher was realizing "My dad and mother and step mother have these limitations, but I still love the heck out of them." At that point, I started sorting out what really hurt, from the stuff that just caused puzzlement. Being laughed at for my idiosyncricies isn't that important. Being treated like an 8 year old IS.
It sounds to me like you've got a similar (yet oh so radically different) problem, where you puzzle your family. There's no shortcut to the goal, but the goal is "puzzling my family is fine, as long as I'm comfortable with being the sort of person who can cause puzzlement."
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
kat, another option is to turn up the volume. My aunt, whom I have come to love dearly, is one who says it like it is. She's honest to a fault, and often says things that are, well, somewhat shocking. She also has a fantastic sense of humor, and when she's not shocking you senseless, she's making you laugh. When I was younger, I found her nearly impossible to be around. But, I don't know, I guess I've gotten used to who she is, and have come to see that I like a lot of the qualities that used to make me crazy before.
I don't know if she ever realized that she used to run over most of my family, or if she did, decided that it wasn't worth it to change. So I wonder what would happen if you became even MORE shocking to them, losing what diplomacy you have already cultivated, and just knocked their socks off.
I'd be cautious about *lowering* the volume on who you are, though. It might be more helpful, if turning it up doesn't sound appealing, to come to the firm resolution that they just don't appreciate your finer qualities, and that this is a situation that will not change. Thoroughly mourn the loss of the family you really wish you'd had, maybe make a list of the things you like about the family you've got, and ultimately come to accept that it's not going to change. Ever.
Tough stuff. I struggle with it with my dad. I guess the way I've been working to resolve it is to remember that he isn't to be trusted for anything. Aside from that, I can enjoy the relationship -- he has some wonderful qualities that I would hate to miss out on.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
katharina - Just be yourself, as loving, thoughtfully and honestly as you can. You deserve it and in the end, so do all the people around you. Don't apologize for who you are.
Black sheep (i.e, honest, forthright, vocal people) unite! Tactfully, of course . . .
Sorry - this is making me grim. I was ostracized for years for being open and honest about a huge, nasty elephant in the family living room(especially since it involved a respected, loved, Elder of the family and the church - however it stopped the abuse so it was worth it) and just got the strangest call from a family member last night asking for help about a similar issue, going on and on about "not blaming the victim" and I am sorely puzzled (albeit pleased at the growth) about how our situations were any different . . .
Sorry - I will step down off of the soapbox and return get out of the way of the usual thread . . .
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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