# Revitalizing/Maintaining Relationships With Distant Family Members



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

My sister moved away (1000 km) about 25 years ago. I have tried to visit every year (finances and death of father prevented me in the past 4 years). We have been close all of our lives and have also maintained slightly more than monthly email and telephone contact. Still, in the past few years, there _seems_ to be an underlying hostility and distance developing.

My sister has often mentioned that she is active on FaceBook. I sent her a friend request a few years back, but she declined my request. I was hurt, but thought that perhaps she did not want me inside her circle.

Contact with my niece and nephew is always pleasant, but I am constantly straining to find things to talk about. I feel that the relationships are largely one-sided: I write an email and they might or might not respond. Aside from knowing email addresses _that they rarely check_, I have no telephone numbers, no FaceBook or other social media contact invitations, no addresses. I send cheques for birthdays and Christmas, but rarely even receive a thank you.

Today's telephone conversation with my sister ended with the remark that when one doesn't see people regularly, the conversations are always about the same things. I asked her if she was referring to our conversations. She was sort of non-committal, then said she had to get moving to bake a cake.

Oddly, I wrote my niece an email for her birthday recently and mentioned my difficulty in finding much to say, since we have had so little contact. I was inviting closer contact. I never received a response. Perhaps it was misunderstood?


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

That's a sad story about Facebook, Brotagonist. You sound like a really nice brother and uncle. I'm afraid I don't really have any advice for you though, as I'm pretty bad at keeping in touch with people myself.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

That is a sad story, bro. I feel for you. 
My family experience isn't like yours, fortunately. I have one sister, 4 years older than me. My brother in law is one year older than me and was a fairly close friend before they married. My mother is still alive. My sister and husband just left a few hours ago after being here for Thanksgiving (I live in Chicago, they live in Detroit). My sister and I were fairly close but my ex wife drove a wedge between us, as she hated my entire family. When I divorced about 15 years ago my ex and her clan (who were overinvovled in our lives, a major source of tension) did their best to turn my kids against me, and that was a source of great pain. It was great to be able to receive support from from my nuclear family and to get to know my Niece and Nephew, who were then teenagers, better, and establish traditions such as getting together every Thanksgiving. My second wife gets along very well with them, and now my kids and I are close again,
so things are fairly good there.
I have had a similar experience to you, however, with old freinds. I left Detroit in my mid 20s and while i go back yearly, and attempt to recontact a handful of close friends in the area, it isn't to well reciprocated, and when we do get together, it is often stilted and awkward.
I think that your Sister's refusal of your friend request is not justified. It sounds like she appreciates the distance between you and wants to maintain it, and I suspect that her kids attitude towards you is a reflection
of her attitude, a mixture of affection with a certain lack of concern about your feelings.
Regarding Social Media, it is a complex phenomenon. I only got a FB account when one of my kids got married and put their wedding pictures on it. If you wanted their pictures, you had to have an account. I got a kick out of immediately being contacted by many people I hadn't heard from in years, and for a couple of years I was fairly regular Facebooker. I grew bored with it, and it got irritating when many work acquaintinces kept contacting me through FB, so I stopped looking at my account a couple of years ago. Apparently I have irritated many people by doing so. My sister in law who was in town this weekend let me know that she was quite hurt because I didn't respond to her friend request, of which I was blissfully unaware
Then my nephew who was just dumped by his long term girlfriend told me about having to change his status, and delete the pictures that contained her... what a mess!


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Thanks for the comments and support, Figleaf and Triplets.

Yes, I know that social media can be awkward: who would want to have all family members, friends and colleagues all meeting one another? Both that and either accepting or rejecting friendship requests can put one into potentially awkward situations. I don't know FB well enough to know how easy it is to maintain separate circles (I know that google plus has a very well-tuned system for keeping circles distinct, but I have never trusted it enough to actually put it to the test). I have also remained aloof from social media, because I am not interested in re-connecting with my kindergarten, high school and previous job colleagues. As well, I am reticent to post anything more than superficial on such a site, as I don't know how the information is used and what the potential repercussions could be (but I have heard ghastly stories on the news). I simply object to having my life and all of my utterances documented and categorized for who knows how long. The prospect doesn't appear to offer me any benefit. It's a shakey tighrope to walk. Still, exclusion can be painful, too.

The experience has kind of made me think about what family is. To some, I suppose, it might exclude all but parents and siblings (or parents and children). It can be painful to see so clearly that one is excluded from what is perceived as family (or circle of close friends, depending on the situation).


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

I'm planning to leave Facebook, which I haven't actively used for about six years. (I would have done it sooner,but I hate it so much that even deleting it seems like an unpleasant chore.) Email is better at allowing me to maintain contact with people I either want to be in contact with or feel I should be in contact with. On Facebook, on the other hand, I have a pending friend request from a guy who dumped me on Christmas Eve twelve years ago, the thought of whom makes me feel physically unwell.  That sort of thing is an occupational hazard on social media when you have a really unusual surname. As far as siblings are concerned, my brothers haven't ever included me in their social circles and pretended not to know me at secondary school because I was so unpopular! This was obviously hurtful at the time, but I've accepted it now and my relationship with them is relatively minimal and my feelings towards them are pretty much indifferent. It's a little sad, but the only meaningful relationship with family members I've had is with my own children. Hope they don't disown me when they are older!


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

That, too, is very sad, Figleaf. It is a shame that time has not healed the rift between you and your brothers... but you have your children. I am sure you are a beautiful mother!


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

brotagonist said:


> That, too, is very sad, Figleaf. It is a shame that time has not healed the rift between you and your brothers... but you have your children. I am sure you are a beautiful mother!


Thanks Brotagonist! It just feels like my family are random people I was somehow thrown together with, and now that we're all going our separate ways geographically, there probably won't be that much contact. Luckily having kids is such a full-on activity that it leaves no time for worrying about other people, so that one automatically develops a thick skin. Perhaps the only thing we can do about unsatisfactory family relationships is just to distract ourselves from brooding on the subject by focusing as much as possible on some other meaningful thing, be it child rearing, friends, or hobbies.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

We live on an island and my Dutch family members live on the mainland, about 140 km away. My wife's family lives in St Petersburg (father), in the Czech Republic (daughter) and in Auckland (son). We never joined any 'social' media and the only intermediary we use is Skype, without video, just as the modern way for making long distance telephone calls. My wife's daughter and son are on Facebook, but they sent their photo's to us by email, no problem.
Every year we visit twice my wife's daughter, husband and grandchild in the Czech Republic. There we also visit lifelong friends (two couples), who are as close as true family. 
Three years ago we started to visit my wife's father in St Petersburg and this also has become a once-a-year tradition. My wife maintains contact with her father through Skype; she calls him every three days. 
As to my Dutch family I notice quite some estrangement. First of all, we cannot take part in the informal cyclical exchange of birthday celebrations etc. because of our 'insular' island life. When you get off the island you have to arrange stays for the night(s); you just don't hop over & in for small talk... Also there is something like envy: we do not go just for holiday abroad, no, we happen to have this 'extra' (family visiting) attraction what they do not have... Of course we also do 'enhance' our regular family visits with looking around in say, Vienna, Prague, Carlsbad or the Hermitage Museum. Somehow it has become difficult to share these wonderful nice holiday/family experiences with my Dutch family, apart from my parents.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I think that not being able to casually get together does create estrangement. Regular visiting, face-to-face chatting &c: these are the bases of relationship building. I empathize the envy of your relatives—looking around in "Vienna, Prague, Carlsbad or the Hermitage Museum" trumps going to the mall  Yes, the closeness of other countries and cultures and the effortless transportation possibilities are aspects of life I miss from Europe.


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

brotagonist said:


> My sister moved away (1000 km) about 25 years ago. I have tried to visit every year (finances and death of father prevented me in the past 4 years). We have been close all of our lives and have also maintained slightly more than monthly email and telephone contact. Still, in the past few years, there _seems_ to be an underlying hostility and distance developing.
> 
> My sister has often mentioned that she is active on FaceBook. I sent her a friend request a few years back, but she declined my request. I was hurt, but thought that perhaps she did not want me inside her circle.
> 
> ...


Dear Brotagonist,

Where do I begin? I can't even imagine the pain you must have gone and probably are still going through... With the exception of my wife, daughter, and mother(my father died in 2006) I am fully estranged from my relatives - Yes, I know about rejection, really well. But still, my heart sinks every time when I hear about other people's misfortunes in their personal lives. Thank you for broaching this subject matter - I helps me to deal with my situation a bit better.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I've been hesitating as to whether I should tell a story of my own, since mine is not about blood relatives, but I think now I will tell it.

You see, I used to have a very good friend, someone who was actually closer to me than most of my relatives outside of immediate family. She was an evangelical missionary from the United States, and I met her when someone invited her as a guest speaker to my English class at college. I was 16 at the time, she was twenty years older. She became a sort of spiritual mentor to me. She introduced me to Christianity of the Protestant variety (which I found to be much more attractive at the time than the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths I knew), she was there when I got baptized two years later, she guided me through my Bible studies and gave Christian advice on prety much any problem I faced in life.

Then it was time for her to go back to the US. A year later I signed up on a Work&Travel program and went to visit her. I spent almost a year at her home in Oklahoma, got to go see her parents in Chicago, met her friends, people at her church etc. We went on road trips and even engaged in a bit of political activism (putting up signs for come conservative candidate for congress all around the town). It was a fine time.

When I went back home, and it became apparent I would not be coming again any time soon, we decided to keep up a tradition of calling each other once a month. One month I called, another one she did, and we would talk for an hour or two about our lives and our Christian experience. I told her about my man when I first got to know him in cyberspace. I called her on the day I flew into Germany for the very first time to meet him, because she wanted to make sure I was alright and the man was legit (quite understandable). Of course I told her he was an atheist and would probably never be anything different. She promised to pray for him, and at some point she said: "Well, I am sure you know you cannot marry him or anything until he comes to Christ". Maybe she noticed that the amount of Christian talk in my conversations somewhat steadily diminished as the time passed, but she never said anything about it. We kept exchanging calls for several years.

I met her when I was 16, now I am 28, and the last time I heard from my friend was almost a year ago, January 2015. The day after I came back from my Bavarian vacation (those two weeks really changed a lot in my life) I dialed her number, feeling so happy that I would share my joy with the entire universe. "Blah blah blah Germany... blah blah blah mountains... blah blah blah awesome.... And by the way, two years from now, in winter 2017, my man and I are going to get married!" - "Oh well... I knew you would do it..." And since then it's been silence.

Now, as regards Facebook, I only check my page maybe once in a few months. So it was not until much later that I saw I had been unfriended by both my friend and her parents. Sometimes I really want to call her and ask what happened, but pride prevents me from doing it.

Well, now that I've gotten *all* of my load off my chest, not just a part, I will at least stop engaging in American-bashing on here


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Perhaps the friendship was strongly rooted in your shared interest. You broadened to the whole wide world and she didn't.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Figleaf said:


> I'm planning to leave Facebook, which I haven't actively used for about six years. (I would have done it sooner,but I hate it so much that even deleting it seems like an unpleasant chore.) Email is better at allowing me to maintain contact with people I either want to be in contact with or feel I should be in contact with. On Facebook, on the other hand, I have a pending friend request from a guy who dumped me on Christmas Eve twelve years ago, the thought of whom makes me feel physically unwell.  That sort of thing is an occupational hazard on social media when you have a really unusual surname. As far as siblings are concerned, my brothers haven't ever included me in their social circles and pretended not to know me at secondary school because I was so unpopular! This was obviously hurtful at the time, but I've accepted it now and my relationship with them is relatively minimal and my feelings towards them are pretty much indifferent. It's a little sad, but the only meaningful relationship with family members I've had is with my own children. Hope they don't disown me when they are older!


Holy halibut, this thread is not healthy material for me to read! While I can certainly commiserate with you guys over similar abandonment issues, it makes me feel physically ill much like yourself, Figgy. Families can be as fickle, capricious, "wherever the wind blows", and callous, as any other group of friends, it appears.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

brotagonist said:


> Perhaps the friendship was strongly rooted in your shared interest. You broadened to the whole wide world and she didn't.


I think she understood that I was fully grown up now and going to pursue my own happiness in my own way.


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## Guest (Dec 21, 2015)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I think she understood that I was fully grown up now and going to pursue my own happiness in my own way.


@Sieg
I'm sorry for your loss of friendship; you seem to suggest you knew it was doomed from the first time you mentioned the "a" word.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

dogen said:


> @Sieg


I really like this one 



> I'm sorry for your loss of friendship; you seem to suggest you knew it was doomed from the first time you mentioned the "a" word.


I was getting ready for a "big talk" about how my decisions are upsetting the Lord etc, but not for silence. Anyway I've learned something: not ever making friends with people who put ideologies above real human beings.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I really like this one
> 
> I was getting ready for a "big talk" about how my decisions are upsetting the Lord etc, but not for silence. Anyway I've learned something: not ever making friends with people who put ideologies above real human beings.


I hope you also feel being guided by the Lord towards your friend, even with him being 'a'. Ideologies above, behind, under & in front, I find them all misguided. Wishing you all the best for your shared future!


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

TxllxT said:


> I hope you also feel being guided by the Lord towards your friend, even with him being 'a'. Ideologies above, behind, under & in front, I find them all misguided. Wishing you all the best for your shared future!


Thank you! I don't want to turn this into a religious debate, but I think the Lord, if he was real, would rather be in agreement with my Christian former friend about not being together with an unbeliever. You know what the Bible says about not being "unequally yoked"... If anyone did indeed guide me towards my man, it is not him. It would rather be that other one, whom I have found all by myself, in complete solitude, without help from any missionaries wanting to convert me, the one who I sometimes really wish was real but still am not sure, the Teutonic Lord - Odin. It is quite in his character to do things like this just out of the blue...


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Thank you! I don't want to turn this into a religious debate, but I think the Lord, if he was real, would rather be in agreement with my Christian former friend about not being together with an unbeliever. You know what the Bible says about not being "unequally yoked"... If anyone did indeed guide me towards my man, it is not him. It would rather be that other one, whom I have found all by myself, in complete solitude, without help from any missionaries wanting to convert me, the one who I sometimes really wish was real but still am not sure, the Teutonic Lord - Odin. It is quite in his character to do things like this just out of the blue...


If your man is of the same Wagnerian commitment as you are, then all's OK!!!


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

TxllxT said:


> If your man is of the same Wagnerian commitment as you are, then all's OK!!!


He is not exactly a fanboy, but he does support and appreciate most of my interests - and I reciprocate. And he knows very well who Odin is: he was after all the one who let me borrow his books on ancient Germanic history


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Actually, thinking back, I should have expected something like that. At least I should have expected it at the occasion when I told my friend to stop bringing up the Third Reich every single time we would talk about politics/current events (as if all of a sudden I had something to do with the Third Reich), and she told me freedom of speech was her constitutional right and it's not her fault I don't know what freedom is...


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Actually, thinking back, I should have expected something like that. At least I should have expected it at the occasion when I told my friend to stop bringing up the Third Reich every single time we would talk about politics/current events (as if all of a sudden I had something to do with the Third Reich), and she told me freedom of speech was her constitutional right and it's not her fault I don't know what freedom is...


Sounds like you kind of outgrew her, what with this "you have to listen to me talk about this, cuz freedom" business.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

All my relatives except for my immediate family live more than 10 hours away by plane. The house is empty, and sometimes I have only classical music to keep me company. 

I am not very close with any of my siblings. My parents are great, but how much time can you spend with them? I can't spend time with my friends 24/7. 

When I visited my family in the summer, I realized how truly enormous it is. I guess this could go in the travel thread, but if I could travel anywhere, it would be back to them. I plan to do so this coming summer, but it looks like the plans aren't working out. 

Maybe this is why I'm not reluctant to go to college far away. I don't have very much to convince me to stay.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

I dont know what to tell you dude, but its certain some women are as cold as ice, behind the ''facade''.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Its so easy to ''lose'' friends if you are careless. But i think this was not the case here...Sometimes its just ''away from eyes, away from heart''...People are strange. You according to your story did absolutely everything to stay in touch with them, i cant believe for example they just take your presents and dont say even freakin' thanks?! People are...Uh...I think thats all influence of your sister who seems to have imagined some argument between you two that led to 4 year separation...But from your story it was just a set of circumstances. Anyways i hope things will improve in this year...I dont know you but i feel some close impulses to my own fate...I too invest a lot of emotions, care and worry into people i like, but some of them like the ''thieves in the night'' just run off with a package of my precious energy and leave me empty, hollow and depressed. Ingratitude is i think the worst of ''sins''...


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