What drives you crazy about your family?

[Spinneret]

I would spending too much time with them

 

[FreeTime]

That they lost on message boards to complain when there is so little time with them as it is.

 

[lynxstch]

When one of my Sister in Laws, or my niece, repeat the same medical stories over and over and over again. Drives us all nuts, as they are pretty much both hypochondriacs~

 

[luvnwdwgal]

How much they allow my mother-in-law to wrap them all around her little finger and control their lives. They are too good for their own good and she knows it. She doesn’t care about anybody but herself. It drives me crazy!!

 

[willowsnn3]

Love my family, we spend lots of time together, lots of birthday celebrations, holiday dinners, family get togethers....only thing that irritates me a lot is all the "extended family". Talking mostly about the family of all the exes, friends of the grands, coworkers, lol. My grandkids think everyone they know should share our vacations. Sometimes would just like immediate family.

 

[TippyThomas]

I'm the last one and my family will no longer exist after I die.

 

[TCRAIG]

Everyone in my family is notoriously late for everything! *except me of course

 

[tvguy]

I'm the last one and my family will no longer exist after I die.

That is a much more common situation than I could have ever imagined. I became aware of that the last year of my mom's life when she was in the hospital, a rehab center and then a Residential Care Facility. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend time with her almost every day that last year. The staff at the hospital, rehab center and Care Facility all commented how rare it was for a family member to be close enough to able to do that. And they noted how many of their patients had no family left. One lady at the Care Facility was 98, and had Alzheimer’s. The owner of the Care Facility said both that lady's children had already died of old age.
And I am right in the middle of helping plan a funeral for a member of a Professional/Service Club who has no family left. Another member of the Club had POA and is the Executor of the estate. Everything was pre-paid for, but we are guessing at exactly what type of service he would want. The Executor is just overwhelmed and asked the Board Members of our Club to help him pull it all together.

 

[VandVsmama]

How some of my ILs cannot make any solid plans ahead of time to save their lives. And they always show up late to everything. So now I just plan for them to be late...by telling them to show up a couple of hours before we actually need them there.

 

[LovesTimone]

My brother and his family have more drama than the Bravo network... and for the most part it is all self inflicted... and I live by " Drama free is the life for me"

As far as cousins and I have a bunch of them in reality I only have 1 that I talk to and are close with, and he is more a brother to me than my own. The others we just don't have anything in common, and their lifestyles are just not my cup of tea so to speak.

 

[karen4546]

I dislike it when my family sits around “talking” about doing something instead of just PLANNING to do something.

My adult daughter can talk about where to go eat lunch for 2 hrs and then it is only a couple of hrs away from dinner.

Just pick something and let’s goooooooo.

My brothers and mom are the same when I visit.

I like the Nike slogan: Just Do It!

 

[easyas123]

One side of my family is late for everything. Everything. It's super annoying.

 

[mrodgers]

This is not a suitable forum for me to state. I would get points.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

Literally no one in my family is capable of planning anything except me. When a birthday or holiday comes around, everyone asks me what we're doing, what time, where we're going, etc. The one time I left the planning to my sister, nothing got nailed down and everyone was left hanging. Then it landed back in my lap to figure out. When I tell everyone that I'm tired of making all the plans and I'd just like to be told where to show up once in a while, they all balk. "But you're so good at making plans! You have to do it! No one else does it like you do!" Ugh.

 

[NannyBeBe]

Several of us are A personalities and when we get together, it's Katy Bar the Door. But it all ends with love and hugs.

 

[mylilnikita]

Love my dd but:
A lot of her annoying things she got from her dad (is it hereditary)

1) she is not time aware
2) I do not let co pilot even with a GPS because she would be like that pilot you hear landing at the wrong place.
3) money goes through her hands like water. me: save some her: ok but look at all these cheap nickel and diming things I got. The cats do not NEED a water fountain.
4) her communication skills lack and she is a mumbler and she gets upset when you say hey mumbler talk clearly. She is like shy Ronnie

 

[disykat]

I dislike it when my family sits around “talking” about doing something instead of just PLANNING to do something.

My adult daughter can talk about where to go eat lunch for 2 hrs and then it is only a couple of hrs away from dinner.

Just pick something and let’s goooooooo.

My brothers and mom are the same when I visit.

I like the Nike slogan: Just Do It!

I so relate to this! One time my family met my parents and my sister in Hawaii and we stopped at the Costco on the way from the airport to the rental. They were all wandering around as if the Costco was the neatest thing they'd ever seen (we all have them back home) and no one was making decisions. I finally got mad because I was the only one traveling with kids and said I make three meals a day every day in my real life but we're in HAWAII (!!) so for now I was grabbing some easy stuff to feed the kids and heading to rental (they had a separate rental car but we were all staying in the same house) and they could either eat with us or not, but I wasn't wasting more of my vacation at Costco trying to guess what they might want to eat. At that point did see my point that it'd be nice to actually see Hawaii and they and started choosing some things too. None of them had given it any thought and hadn't wanted to discuss it because "we'd just stop at Costco."

I'm the youngest, but I always end up feeding everyone, making decisions regarding elderly parents, etc.

That same trip, I bought a few big jugs of bottled water (the cheap jugs, not individual water bottles,) for my family to drink because the tap water tasted horrible and water is the only thing we drink. The whole time my family ragged on me about how picky/spoiled I was to not even drink tap water. Meanwhile they drank coffee, tea, soda, juice, etc. AND MY WATER. I kept calling them out on it every time they mentioned how picky and spoiled I was that they were drinking it too, but it didn't stop them. ARRRGH! (It still makes me mad thinking about it and it was over 20 years ago!)

 

[LovesTimone]

Literally no one in my family is capable of planning anything except me. When a birthday or holiday comes around, everyone asks me what we're doing, what time, where we're going, etc. The one time I left the planning to my sister, nothing got nailed down and everyone was left hanging. Then it landed back in my lap to figure out. When I tell everyone that I'm tired of making all the plans and I'd just like to be told where to show up once in a while, they all balk. "But you're so good at making plans! You have to do it! No one else does it like you do!" Ugh.

This is me for sure, I can feel your pain.... I'm the planner which I know is sometimes good and sometimes bad... I planned and hosted all the family gatherings for years and years..

Sooo one Thanksgiving, I had around 30 - family and friends coming for Thanksgiving. I asked everyone what do you want to bring? and if they did not "have any idea" I strongly suggested what to bring. Plus made it clear on the portion size, like large casserole, 3 bags of dinner rolls or a case of drinks whatever. Then I reminded everyone on what to bring and the size of the dish. My brother and family showed up with a extra guest one of my niece's boyfriends, with a 6x6 pan of corn casserole, and it was less than half full so not even a full pan... and a bag of mixed lettuce... in reality.... They were suppose to bring, a large pan of corn casserole, and full on salad including salad dressing, this is what she wanted to bring.... I just stood there, so I thought this is not happening, so I said do you need help getting the rest out of the car. Nope the car is empty. I had made a green bean and wild mushroom casserole, for just my family for the next day, instead I had to use, so I just went and got it and put in oven to warm up and thankfully I had bought a ton of veggies to make tray's with and had plenty of extras to put into the salad, and I always have several different kinds of salad dressing. The real kicker here, is when they got ready to go home, My SIL comes bring in a pile of plastic containers to fill up for them to take home for leftovers... Which was not happening... My SIL said you don't mind if we take some leftovers... I was like well yes I do... I told her that I had to take care of my parents and DH's mom and special needs brother first, so most likely there would not be much left over. My brother got so mad, and said well what are we suppose to do for left overs... I said well here's your casserole, and bag of lettuce back, as I did not use them. So right before they left he said what time for Christmas ... My DH spoke up and said we are taking the kids to Disney so we won't be here... So I guess you guys will have to do the hosting. that was the last time we were all together for a holiday meal...

 

[ChristmasElf]

The narcissism that my Mother has is my single biggest pet peeve. She treats strangers or friends better than she treats her own family. Expects everyone to kiss the ground she walks on.
After 5o years of this, I finally took my husbands advice and said No more. I’m polite when I have to see her at a famil;y event, etc. but that’s all. No more bending over backwards, no more door mat.
I feel bad for this, but it is what it is and I’ve come to accept it.

 

[VandVsmama]

The narcissism that my Mother has is my single biggest pet peeve. She treats strangers or friends better than she treats her own family. Expects everyone to kiss the ground she walks on.
After 5o years of this, I finally took my husbands advice and said No more. I’m polite when I have to see her at a famil;y event, etc. but that’s all. No more bending over backwards, no more door mat.
I feel bad for this, but it is what it is and I’ve come to accept it.

You are singing my song. Our family has 2 close relatives who are both very self-absorbed...my MIL & my father. A friend of mine refers to their demands as "they want you to go and kiss the ring." The expectations & demands are unreasonable. And they are unwilling to budge. Therefore, they are both perpetually angry at my DH & I that they aren't getting their way. It's like dealing with children having temper tantrums all the time. Therefore, I deal with them like I dealt with my kids when they were preschoolers having temper tantrums...put them in time out.

Some of the nonsensical demands & expectations we've encountered are:

• requirement for us to travel to my dad's house yearly at Christmas and stay with him for 2 weeks. Even though for a really long time for various reasons, we just simply could not take 2 weeks off at a stretch. In fact, the entire 27 yr I've been married to DH, DH has never taken a full 2 weeks off of work at one time. And let's not forget how for many years when my kids were really young, we pretty much had no disposable income to go fly cross-country. Nor were my parents willing to gift us with plane tickets.
• requirement to be treated like royalty when each of them come to visit. However, it's been 7 yr since my dad has visited & seen my kids. My MIL? She wants the wife of the house (me) to greet her like a 1960s Stepford wife and wait on her hand & foot the entire time, constantly offering food & drink, treating her like the queen of England. And if I don't do this, this then translates to comments like "Well, I'm not sure if I SHOULD come...after all, I don't know if I feel welcome." After 27 yr of this, I've come to the point where I kind of don't care if she feels welcome or not. She can come or not. It no longer matters to me.
• demands from MIL that we set aside our entire lives to cater to her. DH isn't willing to do that, nor am I. She's actually said that the parent should always come first, even if the child is an adult and has their own life.
• demands & expectations for DH & I to give up our master bedroom for MIL to sleep in when she comes to visit. Never mind the fact that our guest BR has the best bed in the entire house.
• expectations from my dad for me and my kids to call him once a week and talk to him for at least an hour per person. He will not call us, though. The phone communications are apparently a one way street in his universe, except for text messages...he will occasionally send a summons text which says something normal like "Have a great week," but this is his way of saying "I want you to call me." He is constantly mad at me because I take him at face value and reply back with "Thanks, you too."
• Expectations & demands for them to be included on every one of our immediate family vacations. Passive-aggressive comments when we dare to have our own family trips without them. Never mind the fact that neither of them ever included grandparents in THEIR own families' vacations when DH & I were kids. LOL.
• Whenever we ARE with them and we happen to go out to eat, DH & I are expected to pay for MIL or my dad every time. They never offer to even pay their share. So I avoid that by telling the server that we'd like separate checks. The cat butt face that ensues from MIL is epic.
• 1 time, my sister went to Hawaii with friends. My MIL told my sister afterwards that she was very angry with her because my sister didn't include her in the trip and didn't pay for her to go.
• Demands from my MIL that my DH spend half of every weekend with her. We live 1.5 hr away from her.
• Expectations to somehow auto-magically know what they are thinking. Since we can't read minds, we always make them mad because we aren't able to anticipate what they want. Nor will they speak up for themselves and SAY what they want. But they hold a grudge for years and say we are ungrateful children for not reading their minds.