Limiting Contact- Holidays Approaching

Now I know that I have an extremely dysfunctional family. I could fill the entire blog with horror stories of my family that will make you stop and ponder whether your family is really that bad, afterall... But that isn't the point of this blog. This blog is to give advice for others who are dealing with families that only bring pain and disapointment with them to christmas...

Limit contact. That is the bottom line, when dealing with the craziness that rains down upon you from a dysfunticonal family.

So here it is, holiday time again, and this is the time of year that I have the most difficulty dealing with my family. I was trained from birth to go home for Christmas and to spend it with my parents regardless of the emotional torture that I know that they will put me through. As I am typing this, I am racked with guilt because I am NOT GOING this year. I am not doing it!

I am not going to watch my sister and her husband (the biggest moochers on the planet) open 400 expensive christmas presents from my parents (who they treat like pond scum) and sit there with my husband and our lone present, a jar of honey.... and folks, it isn't about money!! Don't be confused, the quality and the amount of presents is not what I am angry about. What I am an angry about is how worthless I felt as my sister opened presents for 3 solid hours last christmas and my husband and I had one little, $10 present between the two of us. We were done in 2 minutes, tops, and had to spend the next 2 hours and 58 minutes watching my sister in an elaborate production of how she is loved more then I am.

I remember how awful last christmas was. I got so depressed I actually ate a pie. THE WHOLE PIE! With WHIPPED CREAM ON TOP!!!! My husband and I were treated terribly, like 2nd class citizens, the entire time. My parents fawned over my sister to the point it was sickening, critized me at every turn, yelled at me like I was a 2 yr old for something that never even happened, berated my husband for asking to watch a football game on one of their 3 tv's, and then cooked food that would have required me to use my EPI pen and spend a week in the hospital. Total, complete, and utter disregard for my husband or myself. All of them, except my mentally handicapped uncle, bless his heart, made us feel 100% unwelcome and unwanted.

If you are reading this and thinking: Sounds Familiar - You are in the right spot.

So why, then, knowing that Christmas would be MISERABLE and a considerable strain on my marriage, do I feel guilty about not going????

Oh, and how am I planning on telling my family that I am not going to be there to watch the parade of presents for my sister?

That is the delicate part.... very tricky.

I want to say: HELL NO! YOU TREAT ME TERRIBLY AND MAKE ME DEPRESSED AND MISERABLE. MY HUSBAND HATES ALL OF YOU AND HE SHOULD AFTER HOW BAD YOU WERE TO HIM!! I WOULDN"T COME IF YOU PAID ME!

What I am going to say, in order to keep a relationship with them because despite everything, I do love them: I have the flu. Too sick to travel. We'll miss you terribly.