Dealing with blended families and the holidays..

[merika]

I guess most of us are a part of blended familes in one way or another. Sometimes they bring us happiness, and other times they are a pain in the a**! There's the question of which parent the kids want to spend the holidays with, and what other new relationships are a part of the picture...

How do you deal with blended families in general, and especially over the holiday season?

 

[MAGs]

It gets annoying when they start to pick on everything that you do. I also hate it when they only think of themselves. They forget that I have my side of the family, too! I keep myself busy and I try not too think about what they say too much.

 

[boxermom]

I wasn't present, but I heard about some relatives(single adults) that had a terrible Thanksgiving at their mom and new step-dad's house. New step-dad had some house rules that weren't publicized to the family ahead of time. It got ugly.

My biggest issue with families over the holidays is that one side seems to get the bulk of the holidays and they see nothing wrong with that. A little fairness is all I ask! It's not going to change, tho, so acceptance is what I need.

If people could just let go of the small stuff and not try to be "right" about everything, the holidays would be better. We always have expectations and they often are unrealistic. People who are difficult the rest of the year aren't going to magically be easy-going with lots of people and activity.

 

[kathyrose]

I don't really have family here so BF has me for his family on the holidays. I try to keep myself out of it sometimes as I don't want to get into it too much. I like to keep my own identity still, have my own time to myself and think about people in my life that's not with me at the moment.

 

[hmwe46]

I think the issue is when families aren't blended- LOL :shame:

I think how we deal with it depends a lot on how are relationships are grounded and founded in the first place. My ex-hubby and I used to gear up for a huge battle, his family v mine, every year. But the same thing happened every holiday: spent the first part of the day at his parent's house and the second part with mine. It made the day miserable for us The time we spent driving between our house and their house was a huge time and energy suck. Yup, it sucked!

This year, my BF and I talked it over very rationally, and he went to his family's house and I went to mine. We did a second Thanksgiving the day after!! LOL (OMG, soooo much turkey!!)

I think how we deal with divided families during the holidays is really just typical of how we deal with our relationships on a day to day basis.