Broken Families

Surviving a broken family is difficult no matter which way you look at it, but if you do survive, what's next? For me, the product of a divorced parental unit, I tend to cling to any and all idealized version of family in existence. For instance, my father married five times total. Each time he married, I would become attached to the children. The children (my step-siblings) would then be referred to as my brothers and sisters. When the inevitable divorce would occur between my father and step-mother, I then had to relinquish my relationship with my siblings. Every divorce was like a part of my soul was ripped away.

As a young teenager and child, these divorces were easy to survive. I was resilient and eventually got over it, but as I grew and matured, it became harder and harder for me to let go of these pseudo-family members. At each loss, I clung harder to my immediate family until one day, I just broke and rebelled against the very idea of family, but that's another story I will save for some time other than today. Today, I want to tell you a story about broken families.

The most recent relationship my father went through was devastating in more ways than my own selfish need for a never-ending family. The marriage in which I speak resulted in not only divorce, but also in death and disowning. In 1998, two years after my own marriage, my father met wife number four: Susie. Susie had three sons: twins aged 11 and another son aged 7. Because I was a young woman, someone who recently had her first child, I felt drawn to the older boys.

Dad would call and tell me stories of their growing pains and I learned to love them. I became attached, relating to the boys in a way I'd never related to any other step-siblings before them. I suppose I had finally let go of my own resentment from missing a childhood with my father and I was living vicariously through them. I created an attachment of sort with the twins. Soon, though, trouble arrived in the paradise of marriage and Susie and Dad's marriage began to deteriorate. The boys became teens, each needing to make their own family connections and grow to learn what their ideal version of family was. They began to meet and bond with branches of their family that they never knew before, their blood father's family.

One day, while traveling with a grandmother they had only recently met, there was an accident and one of the boys was killed while the other was horribly injured. The grandmother the boys had begun to love was killed as well. At this time, I lived thousands of miles away and was creating a life of my own with my spouse and family. We were gaining our independence and learning what family meant to us. It was a tough decision, but I chose to leave my family behind and travel the torturous road home to the funeral. When I arrived, I learned that through the devastation of death and divorce, my dad had disowned his own father.

Now, I'm no stranger to being disowned, but it still came as a shock to learn that because my Granddad chose not to attend the funeral, he would no longer be a part of my family. Needless to say, I was thankful to have made the trip home, lest I be the one disowned. Fast forwarding a few years to this Thanksgiving, I had three dinners. Even though I was able to visit my maternal family and my paternal family (minus my Granddad, of course), I still let people down. See, being married adds yet another layer to the complex orb of my broken and dismembered family: the in-laws. This year, they were unmeaningly skipped.

We had the best intentions of spending time with them, but when my family began showing up at my home, there was no way I could break away. I was condemned by my husband for allowing visits from x-stepbrothers and x-stepmothers, step sisters and no-longer-disowned parents. So, what's a soul to do? I drank and I cried. I tried hard to include everyone, but I failed.

I called the in-laws to apologize. I was told that I needed to squeeze them into my schedule. Fine. I understand that cards and calls are sometimes not enough. I suppose in order to squeeze more family into my unending layers of family members; I will have to let something fall to the wayside. Since I don't have the guts to leave any part of my broken family out, I guess the person who will have to suffer is me. Christmas will be here soon. I think I'll skip it.

 

 

Reviews

[THERISA]

Coming from a huge extended family on my dad's sides, i can relate how you feel torn in so many different directions at once. Sadly, i rarely talk with my own mom or kid brother. Past issues and the fact that i have come out as being trans, have complicated matters for me. Guess, one has to book or set aside days for, which relatives/family can visit you or you them. Hoping that you had managed a way around the Christmas headache. Thank you for sharing this very emotional concern that we all have to face in our lives.

Therisa

[Tusc]

My parents divorced near the time I was beginning my family, too. I know how hard it is to keep some sort of balancing act between families. There were agonizing times dealing with my mother, who lived an hour away and didn't understand that us going back to our home after visiting on Christmas Eve was not done to hurt her but to allow my daughter to have memories of her own, of waking Christmas morning in her house, her bed, and running down to her Christmas tree and presents.

[Yvonne Heidt]

Oh, how I felt this. Being left in the middle of the room - miserable, trying to make everyone else happy. Unfortunately, (it was always me, too) with our huge extended families, someone is left out.

Great write.