bluepanda
Posts: 328
Joined: 12/12/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
At any rate, I'm more than upset. I don't wish to attend Christmas with her there because I believe it to be unacceptable for her to attend. My family won't make the decision to uninclude her in our holiday get togethers so that I will attend, and I feel very much that they should.
To me, she has NO business at all being at our gathering. She has her own family (which is where she spent Christmas Eve) and she needs to spend Christmas with them.
It seems to me that there are two entirely different issues that are each making you angry, but you are combining them into a single issue, and even though they are related, they don't really fit into the same package.
First of all, it seems clear that your parents do not treat you fairly in comparison to your brother. It seems pretty obvious that there's a long history of that, and you are understandably hurt, frustrated, and resentful about it. It further sounds like you have some issues with your brother, but it's not clear to me whether those issues are separate from your issues with your parents, or whether perhaps they're an expression of your resentment toward your parents for the way they treat the two of you differently. Perhaps a little bit of both...?
And second, you clearly don't like his new GF, and it sounds like you have some pretty good reasons. But those reasons have nothing to do with the larger issues you have with your parents, which obviously started years before your brother even met her. Right?
But when you talk about what's making you angry, you draw no distinction between these two very separate issues. When I read your posts in this thread, I see a lot of internal contradictions that suggest to me some degree of confusion, and I think that's because on some level, you yourself are sensing that as long as you try to deal with these two separate issues as one issue, you'll never solve either of them. And you just keep going around in circles inside your head, getting more and more frustrated and less and less solved.
As many reasons as you have for disliking her, and as good as those reasons may be, it's not her fault your parents have been treating you unfairly for years. You can be angry at her for being a snot, and deal with that issue by addressing your relationship with her, but being angry at her for things that are entirely beyond her control will get you no closer to addressing the legitimate reasons you have for disliking her.
And as many reasons as you have for being angry at your parents, it's not their fault your brother is dating a snot.You can be angry that they've treated you unfairly (and are still doing so), and deal with that issue by addressing your relationship with them, but being angry at them because your brother's girlfriend is a snot will get you no closer to addressing the real issues you have with your parents.
If you try to address them both as a single issue, all of the other parties - the parents, the brother, the GF - are going to have a hard time understanding where you're coming from, which will do two things - first, it'll give 'em a convenient excuse to blow the whole thing off and blame it on you being unreasonable, and second, it'll make them angry at you and probably even more determined to keep doing whatever it is that's pissing you off. Neither of which is a result you're looking for, right?
So start by asking yourself two questions. First of all, what are the results you're looking for? What outcome do you want? I suspect you'll come up with two separate answers, one being that you want to feel treated more fairly by your parents, and the other being that you want to feel less irritated by your brother's GF. And then, once you've got that clarified in your mind, ask yourself, "is the way I'm handling this likely to lead to those results?" I think you'll find that the answer is "no."
Then ask yourself, two more questions - "are these two outcomes achievable;" and to whatever degree the answer to that is "yes," ask yourself "what do I need to do differently to achieve those different outcomes?" I think that as you work through this part, you'll probably realize that some of the outcomes you're looking for are beyond your control. You have at least a fair amount of control over one issue (the relationship with your parents), and very little control over the other issue (GF is hard to get along with). And there are some issues you have absolutely no control over at all, such as the fact that GF is fundamentally a snot, the way she behaves, and whether or not she accepts your parent's invitation to come to Christmas dinner.
I think you'll realize that at the end of the day, no matter how much of a communications breakthrough you're able to make with your parents, there's going to be a point where you just have to accept that it is what it is, and make a decision on how much of it you're comfortable accepting. I'm guessing she'll always be a snot, she'll always be annoying and (in your opinion) at least somewhat boorish, and you'll probably never like her. She'll also probably always be at your family gatherings, because I think it's highly unlikely your parents are going to agree to exclude her simply because you don't want her there. So you have to ask yourself, "am I comfortable attending family gatherings if she's there? " If the answer to that is "no," then you need to find something else to do on your holidays. But if you can make some progress in getting your parents to treat you more fairly in regards to including your own significant others in the family get-togethers, i think you'll find that a lot of the generalized anger you're feeling toward the overall situation will suddenly feel a lot better, and you'll be much more easily able to tolerate having the little twit around.
So. However you decide to handle it, and however it works, I wish you the best of luck. And happy holidays to you!
_____________________________
Panda, Panda, burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Made you all black and white and roly-poly like that?
|
RE: Family - 
Profile
His choice, not yours. 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread