general Do you love your family?

[Muffinnz 3,219]

Iv been thinking about this for many, many years. I dont really love my family. Some I just dont having any feelings for and some i really hate. Most of my family is on the other side of the world which makes me happy but I still have some near and around me which makes me unhappy. I cant think of too much of why I should love them. My dream was always to one day move somewhere and never seem any of them for awhile.

Edited February 16, 2020 by Muffinnz

[Bastian 13,319]

Well I do love my family, I have been lucky enough to have a good family. Did you had a bad family?

[Muffinnz 3,219]

@Bastian yes and no, its complicated

[The Historian 516]

I have been blessed with a family that is incredible on both sides. The members of my family that I see frequently are all wonderful and we get along well. I have aunts that are supportive of my transition and my nuclear family is as well. Family gatherings never have any drama and there's always plenty of fun and laughs to be had. So yes, I love my family. I'd literally be dead without them.

[AriaTheLovely 578]

I do love my family but my family has not been the greatest to me. The only family member that I have a pretty good bond with is my cousin. As for the others I.E parents and sibling they just either use for me for money or favors.

[Steve Piranha 29,424]

2 hours ago, Muffinnz said:

Iv been thinking about this for many, many years. I dont really love my family. Some I just dont having any feelings for and some i really hate. Most of my family is on the other side of the world which makes me happy but I still have some near and around me which makes me unhappy. I cant think of too much of why I should love them. My dream was always to one day move somewhere and never seem any of them for awhile.

Been there. In my latest years, the only relative I’m close to is my aunt. I don’t know to what degree is true or not, but I felt my family betrayed me far too many times. In fact, I’m right now living with my brother because it’s convenient, but I’m planning in getting rid of him once I can live by myself 

[SharpWit 2,648]

I love my family but I've definitely struggled with other emotions hitting high peaks as well. Somethings can be very hurtful, and your love for them only makes that pain worse. I've done what I can to keep things good, and they definitely still are. It just takes time to manage it.

I'm sorry that's how it is for you @Muffinnz. My best way of relating is through my mother's own experiences of being abused by her mother and others. She's still very close to her younger sister, but that's about it. She tried to work through it with them, and it resulted in me having a great relationship with my grandmother when I was younger, but ultimately that was irreparable for them, and it was for the best that she severed those ties. 

[Latecomer 439]

I do love my family... but i wish the show had allowed for more depiction of dysfunctional ones. I suppose Spoiled Rich sort of counts...

[Envy 6,162]

I love my family. Things are not perfect, and have never been perfect, but ultimately they have always come through. I'm really happy that my parents want to move out of the state with me because I really don't want to ever be too far from them, and it looked like it was going to have to be that way if I chose to move Northeast.

[Lucky Bolt 35,063]

I love my immediate family, and a couple of my extended family members. The rest of them I don’t know well enough. 

[Splashee 28,564]

Half of my family is okay. The other half, not so good.

I "love" my family, for default reasons.

[Stone Cold Steve Jobs 22,440]

I “love” them. By default I am supposed to. 
If I had the means to I would go far away and would not see them again. My mom is manipulative and with her I am treated like a criminal. My dad just thinks I am an asshole. 

[Dreambiscuit 9,691]

I love my family. They're the center of my universe and I care about them deeply. There's always someone in every family that's a bit of a pain in the a** but for that matter I may be a pain in the a** to them, so I can't make judgments. Everyone is supposed to make an effort to get along and it's usually worth the ride. Some people live in families where abuse exists, which is a horrible ordeal that's far more complicated than simply learning to get along. But I think that most families care about each other and in such cases every effort should be made to reciprocate. To me, even non-related friends inevitably become 'unofficially adopted' by me, and I love them as much as my own flesh and blood. 

[SparklingSquirrels 21,341]

I'm not very close to my family members due to our life situations. Sometimes I wish I could have a close family but life dealt me some crappy cards.

[EpicEnergy 23,218]

I love my family! I am lucky to have such a nice family. 

[RavenholmZombie 1,330]

My family isn't perfect, but I love most of them.

I'm not going to call out any people in particular, but I'll say that several family members have issues with drugs and alcoholism.

[Rainbow Cloud 17,976]

Yes I love my family, my family have always been kind and loving towards me

[TBD 17,254]

"Tough love" is how I would've describe my family. Despite of us not showing affections or never said "I love you" to each other, we just know. It's a feeling. That anything we do for one and another is for the best and that we care. Some people would question our family methods but it's something I couldn't ask more from them. It's sometime takes a toll but we always get around it. 

[DixonTheAdversary 1,632]

Yes. They may annoy me from time to time, but they support me and I trust them completely. 

[They call me Loyalty 1,948]

It is impossible to love those who do not love themselves. Especially when you have been neglected, because your mother does not love herself to begin with.

In other words. What is left from my family are weak, resentful and selfish people. And I am not any different.
For example, my mother is someone who is extremely rigid and stoic, because she is unable to accept her own inferiority, therefore projecting prejudice and enforcing rules onto others to make herself feel better. So, whenever faced with reality, she starts to criticize and demean others in order to avoid the truth.

Her life revolves around excuses and lies she tells herself to avoid responsibility, as well as grandiose projects, detachment and dissociation. And it is not different with me, since I also learned these "coping" mechanisms and anti-social behaviours from them.

Meanwhile, my uncle is much kinder. But they still mistreated and abandoned their father when the old man was too feeble to take care of himself.
All that hatred was a projection. Though, to be honest. I don't think I could have done much better under that same situation. I would probably have reacted with paralysis and dissociation, followed by guilt. It was a very stressful situation to see them go erratic and violent when my grandfather started becoming demented and suicidal.

But this explains so much about the self-destructive nature of this family, including my own. Self-hatred, aggression, volatility, anti-social behaviour, stagnancy, narcissism, shame, fear. It is interesting to look at the bare truth for once.

And I confront them with it, from time to time. It is enjoyable to see them freak out like a malfunctioning robot unable to process the painful truth. To see the stress levels going up, the nervous and erratic speech, the avoidant behaviour. The excuses. To see the facade come undone. C'mon. Let's burn together for once. Because that is what I do with myself for the most part. I convert the pain into suffering. Which my mother never does. She never cries. Instead, she chooses to emotionally abuse others, like she does with my uncle. My mother turns the pain into a subltle form of violence, because she is too weak to physically hurt others anymore. Still, she is always been emotionally manipulative and controlling. Not a bad person. Just troubled.

But no. I don't think this family can really love themselves to begin with. And I may be the worst one in that regard. Because at least, they had mature, responsible and functional parents, while I had them. Not that it would have made much difference. Since this developmental condition is genetic.

Edited November 21, 2022 by They call me Loyalty

[Clawdeen 14,150]

I do. Even with the issues they're still my family. 

[J.J 923]

Most of my family.. but there's two definitions of family in today's day and age as cultural as it has become to remove the literal genealogical association as to what constitutes as "family..."

[daviddaviddavid 776]

Of course. I'm very lucky to have a great family.

[Twilight Sparkle97 402]

Yep! Of course I do. Who doesn't love their own family? I love having family members or other relatives staying with me.  I hate being alone. I could only imagine what kind of person I would be if I was the only child, and my parents raised me instead of my grandparents. 

[KatonRyu 1,033]

I don't know, really. Looking at blood relatives, I certainly love my grandma and sister. My mom died twelve years ago, but I did love her, too. Aunts, uncles, cousins...I like them, but they're more acquaintances than anything else. My dad's not my biological dad, so he isn't technically speaking a relative, but I do love him. My stepdad as well.

Having said all this, though...in general, my friends are far more important to me than my family, so while I do love my family in a way, I love my friends more.