On failing relationships -- to save or sever?

Hello all. I hope you're enjoying your weekend.

So I'm sitting here, watching the 49ers lose, and I check my facebook during halftime. What I saw was every member of my family together without me and it struck a chord.

Let me give a little backstory. My parents divorced when I was 2. I have one older sister Lindsey. My mom has been with the same man Tom since I was 5. My dad remarried when I was 7 to Susie. Susie has two daughters Emilee and Hilary, both my sisters age. So Emilee is 29, Lindsey 28, Hilary 27, and me 24. So it's safe for you to assume that I've been left out my whole life. Well when I turned 21 I tried and tried and tried to be included when my sisters would go out together. I failed. It eventually hurt my feelings so much that I just quit caring. I stopped trying to be included because it hurt too much to see them post in facebook about going out together and flaunting how much fun they were having. Hilary actually got married last year and made me a brides maid. She had our order for walking down the aisle be the order in which she asked us. She had 8 brides maids. I was last. Her best friend and two other sisters were 1, 2, 3.. I was last.

Needless to say, I was hurt beyond words. All us sisters got in a huge fight. We agreed to try to get together more. And they still ignore me. Now Lindsey moved to Europe, we're in US. So now it feels like my only link to my dad and stepmom is gone. They don't call me. They don't invite me out. They post on facebook about a family vacation I wasn't invited on. And it hurts.

I feel like I've done all I can to be a part of this family. And I've failed. It doesn't seem like there's anything else I can do.. I guess I could just use some advice. I
Should I keep trying and risk being hurt over and over? Or should I give up and lose half my family? Talking to them does nothing.. they just blame me. So I'm running out of options.

Any ideas?


Blessings,
Sol

(((Isolde'Yewl)))

I hear you and I understand your pain. I have also been left out by my family, and even my in laws when I was married. (My sister in laws) It never gets easier, or at least it hasn't for me.

You don't just have two options, to save or sever. You can also just back away and try and move forward with your own life. Kind of let the chips fall where they may, and don't carry the responsibility for these relationships are your own shoulders. It takes two to make it work. I have found with my family that they expect me to carry the relationship, to make all the efforts. I began dropping it years ago, and every so often I will put forth the effort it again, but so far it is always the same. And so I go on my way again. But it still hurts.

Try and take care of yourself and put your focus elsewhere. Get some other meaningful relationships with friends and they can become your family, so to speak. Work on your own life and pursue your own dreams, but I wouldn't sever the relationships. Just let them be.

Hopefully down the road things will get better, but for now take care of yourself. I wish I could tell you how to make it right, but I haven't figured that out yet. But by dropping it and getting on with my own life I am much happier. I have close friends and they are my family.

I want to add that this is my experience, you know what is best for you - so do that! All the best to you!

[adamkade]

Originally Posted by Isolde`Yewl

Hello all. I hope you're enjoying your weekend.

So I'm sitting here, watching the 49ers lose, and I check my facebook during halftime. What I saw was every member of my family together without me and it struck a chord.

Let me give a little backstory. My parents divorced when I was 2. I have one older sister Lindsey. My mom has been with the same man Tom since I was 5. My dad remarried when I was 7 to Susie. Susie has two daughters Emilee and Hilary, both my sisters age. So Emilee is 29, Lindsey 28, Hilary 27, and me 24. So it's safe for you to assume that I've been left out my whole life. Well when I turned 21 I tried and tried and tried to be included when my sisters would go out together. I failed. It eventually hurt my feelings so much that I just quit caring. I stopped trying to be included because it hurt too much to see them post in facebook about going out together and flaunting how much fun they were having. Hilary actually got married last year and made me a brides maid. She had our order for walking down the aisle be the order in which she asked us. She had 8 brides maids. I was last. Her best friend and two other sisters were 1, 2, 3.. I was last.

Needless to say, I was hurt beyond words. All us sisters got in a huge fight. We agreed to try to get together more. And they still ignore me. Now Lindsey moved to Europe, we're in US. So now it feels like my only link to my dad and stepmom is gone. They don't call me. They don't invite me out. They post on facebook about a family vacation I wasn't invited on. And it hurts.

I feel like I've done all I can to be a part of this family. And I've failed. It doesn't seem like there's anything else I can do.. I guess I could just use some advice. I
Should I keep trying and risk being hurt over and over? Or should I give up and lose half my family? Talking to them does nothing.. they just blame me. So I'm running out of options.

Any ideas?


Blessings,
Sol

Trying ones best, truly doing our best is good enough. When we know within our own self that tried our hardest then that is enough. When we look for external verification we can not get it. The external world can not verify something which is an internal process. I bet your sisters are all trying to find their place in the world and try mightily to feel justified in many other ways.

Have you ever considered that you have a higher calling? I too have experienced similar things in my life. I was adopted, and when the family argued it seemed I was always the one left out in the cold.

I experienced a shift in awareness at the time. I stopped looking for verification from outside of myself and instead focused in being the best that I could be for myself. I forgave my Mum and just maintained a giving, and not a taking way.

Years passed by. My Mum fell out with her son, then eventually with the one she was so close too, her oldest daughter. All the while she never fell out with me. One day she said to me: "You know I feel so close to you. More so than any of my other children." She always is a good mother and has done no ends for me. Recently, after 15 years her oldest daughter has made up with her, and now she has fallen out with her youngest. Harrrrgghhhhh! family life!

What beats all is that I have come to know my biogical family and grew very close to them too. My biological Mum I have been very close too. She died a few years ago and two years ago my biological father had a stroke and non of my biological sisters and brothers wanted to help him. So I have done it. They have given me hell. But hey! who cares?

I cry my tears, wipe them away. Stand up tall and do what is right. If I know I am right in my own conscience then it doesn't matter what others do. My true father is God. He loves me and I love him. Every other human relationship is flawed. Yet we do not love others because they are perfect. We love just because we love. We love for love's sake.

We are like a rightious sword forged in the furnace of all these relationships. I know I am beginning to sound religious. Accept I don't hold to any religion. Religions are just man made. So they are flawed too. Are we do surprised that people make mistakes and do not love properly? In truth they will always love wrongly, in a way. Just as we do too. What matters is that we pick ourselves up and keep trying. For love's sake.

Don't measure yourself by another's yard stick, instead use your own yard stick. You will never live up to the expectations of others until you start living up to your own expectations. Or rather, throw away expectations and instead just try to be the best you can be.

Think your highest thought - which is truth
Feel your highest feeling - which is love
Be sincere and true - let that be your way
When all is said and done. What you will be left will be the reflection of your self born in the image of your conscience.

When you have done all that. Then you will know what it is like to succeed.

Thank you both for your responses. They really struck a chord with me.

cMarie, I agree with you on not severing the relationship. I don't WANT to sever it, but when it hurts so bad to watch them exclude me, sometimes it just feels like the best way. My mom and me used to be really close, too, and recently she's been... strange. My whole life, she's been my best friend, the only person I could be myself with and not get judged. But since I moved out, she's gotten closer to my stepdad, who I've always been kind of at odds with. I love him and he's my family, but he's stubborn and won't do anything anyone else's way but his own. These days, she feels more like his wife than my mom. Especially since my sister moved to the UK, she was really upset to be losing a daughter. So I thought it would make us closer again. But now she's shutting me own, the only daughter she has right now.

But I have my boyfriend. We've been together three years next month, we just bought a house together. We have a good relationship that I'm happy with. But I'm unhappy in my job and am struggling to find my correct path. My friendships are failing because of their lives taking them a different direction than mine. I've been trying to befriend people who are not right for me, the type of people I USED to get along with, but no more. My personality has changed (I call it mom-mode.. the type of personality that gets stuff done and doesn't mess around.. lol) and I need friends who are similar to me. I'm sure I'll find some eventually though. lol

Adamkane-- I know you're right. I need to stopped looking for validation because the only opinion that matters in my own and the divine. This is just one situation that I feel should never have to happen.. I mean, they're my family. It just seems like family is that one relationship that, no matter how many fights, they should always stick together. And that's not how my family is. I admit I haven't tried my hardest with my dad, but I've tried hard with my sisters. They don't think I have, but I feel that I have. My boyfriend still believes there's hope for the four of us, that if I put in a little more effort, it'd work out. But I don't believe that.

I DO feel like I have a higher calling. There's a path that's going to lead me to something great, I just don't know what yet. I wonder if maybe it's my novels. I've been writing for a few years now, two others have since been in the making and I just thought up an idea for a short story last night. I keep meaning to get more into it, to try to get published because that's where my life is, THAT'S the line I'm supposed to follow. But I haven't. I guess I'm afraid to fail. And if I write an entire novel and can't get it published, that's failing to me.

I got off track. lol

Be sincere and true... I like that. =)


Thank you both for your responses. I'll attempt to update as new information presents itself. lol


Blessings,
Sol

[adamkade]

Originally Posted by Isolde`Yewl

Thank you both for your responses. They really struck a chord with me.

cMarie, I agree with you on not severing the relationship. I don't WANT to sever it, but when it hurts so bad to watch them exclude me, sometimes it just feels like the best way. My mom and me used to be really close, too, and recently she's been... strange. My whole life, she's been my best friend, the only person I could be myself with and not get judged. But since I moved out, she's gotten closer to my stepdad, who I've always been kind of at odds with. I love him and he's my family, but he's stubborn and won't do anything anyone else's way but his own. These days, she feels more like his wife than my mom. Especially since my sister moved to the UK, she was really upset to be losing a daughter. So I thought it would make us closer again. But now she's shutting me own, the only daughter she has right now.

But I have my boyfriend. We've been together three years next month, we just bought a house together. We have a good relationship that I'm happy with. But I'm unhappy in my job and am struggling to find my correct path. My friendships are failing because of their lives taking them a different direction than mine. I've been trying to befriend people who are not right for me, the type of people I USED to get along with, but no more. My personality has changed (I call it mom-mode.. the type of personality that gets stuff done and doesn't mess around.. lol) and I need friends who are similar to me. I'm sure I'll find some eventually though. lol

Adamkane-- I know you're right. I need to stopped looking for validation because the only opinion that matters in my own and the divine. This is just one situation that I feel should never have to happen.. I mean, they're my family. It just seems like family is that one relationship that, no matter how many fights, they should always stick together. And that's not how my family is. I admit I haven't tried my hardest with my dad, but I've tried hard with my sisters. They don't think I have, but I feel that I have. My boyfriend still believes there's hope for the four of us, that if I put in a little more effort, it'd work out. But I don't believe that.

I DO feel like I have a higher calling. There's a path that's going to lead me to something great, I just don't know what yet. I wonder if maybe it's my novels. I've been writing for a few years now, two others have since been in the making and I just thought up an idea for a short story last night. I keep meaning to get more into it, to try to get published because that's where my life is, THAT'S the line I'm supposed to follow. But I haven't. I guess I'm afraid to fail. And if I write an entire novel and can't get it published, that's failing to me.

I got off track. lol

Be sincere and true... I like that. =)


Thank you both for your responses. I'll attempt to update as new information presents itself. lol


Blessings,
Sol

That is my goal too. I love to write and I have been focused on my writing and it is going really well. Keep at it, relationships are not easy. Maybe you are doing fine. Sometimes people just need time. Your Mum might be shutting herself down because she misses the daughter that moved to the u.k. Sometimes people shut themselves because to open themselves to others causes so much pain to have them move away. Maybe with a little time she will open up.

It is like when you cook a soup. It is not enough to have all the right ingredients in the pot. Your love perhaps is the heat beneath the pot. Now all your Mum needs is a little time on the hob lol sorry for the analogy. But yea just give it time.

Peace and love to you XXX

[annabelle239]

Originally Posted by Isolde`Yewl

Hello all. I hope you're enjoying your weekend.

So I'm sitting here, watching the 49ers lose, and I check my facebook during halftime. What I saw was every member of my family together without me and it struck a chord.

Let me give a little backstory. My parents divorced when I was 2. I have one older sister Lindsey. My mom has been with the same man Tom since I was 5. My dad remarried when I was 7 to Susie. Susie has two daughters Emilee and Hilary, both my sisters age. So Emilee is 29, Lindsey 28, Hilary 27, and me 24. So it's safe for you to assume that I've been left out my whole life. Well when I turned 21 I tried and tried and tried to be included when my sisters would go out together. I failed. It eventually hurt my feelings so much that I just quit caring. I stopped trying to be included because it hurt too much to see them post in facebook about going out together and flaunting how much fun they were having. Hilary actually got married last year and made me a brides maid. She had our order for walking down the aisle be the order in which she asked us. She had 8 brides maids. I was last. Her best friend and two other sisters were 1, 2, 3.. I was last.

Needless to say, I was hurt beyond words. All us sisters got in a huge fight. We agreed to try to get together more. And they still ignore me. Now Lindsey moved to Europe, we're in US. So now it feels like my only link to my dad and stepmom is gone. They don't call me. They don't invite me out. They post on facebook about a family vacation I wasn't invited on. And it hurts.

I feel like I've done all I can to be a part of this family. And I've failed. It doesn't seem like there's anything else I can do.. I guess I could just use some advice. I
Should I keep trying and risk being hurt over and over? Or should I give up and lose half my family? Talking to them does nothing.. they just blame me. So I'm running out of options.

Any ideas?


Blessings,
Sol

If it were me,i'd move on,and live the happiest life ever. related doesnt have to mean family.