Familys, love or hate em???
Oct 12th 2003, 10:31 pm
#46
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2003
Location: My Place
Posts: 529
Bloody hell guys, after reading all this it makes me wonder wat i've got to moan about, my family must be fairly normal.
Still i'll moan anyway, the problem i have with my olds is thhat they have never and probably will never accept me as an adult, they still treat me as if i'm about 12 and dont think i'm capable of doing anything adult, like raisong my children and certainly not looking after the dog (who should in their opinion be sent to stay with them and not be taken to oz). We live 600 miles apart and dont see each other very often but speak on the phone alot so i dont see things being any different when we get to oz, but i'm getting the whole guilt trip thing from them and because of this i'm not going to go back home before we leave, i'm just going to take the cowards way out. My SIL is a strange one, she just ignores all of us, wont go into my parents house just sits outside in the car if my brother visits them, anytime i go up there and stay with them she doesnt come home untill she knows i'm in bed and then leaves again before anyone is up in the morning, doesnt bother me but the kids dont understand why they havent seen their aunt in over 3 years.
I just hope i make a better job of raising my family and hopefully keeping my kids as friends not just kids.
Friends, they are the ones that will help you enjoy life and you'll find out who your good ones are when you move away.
Lynn
Life is for living dont waste it on people who want to drag you down.
Still i'll moan anyway, the problem i have with my olds is thhat they have never and probably will never accept me as an adult, they still treat me as if i'm about 12 and dont think i'm capable of doing anything adult, like raisong my children and certainly not looking after the dog (who should in their opinion be sent to stay with them and not be taken to oz). We live 600 miles apart and dont see each other very often but speak on the phone alot so i dont see things being any different when we get to oz, but i'm getting the whole guilt trip thing from them and because of this i'm not going to go back home before we leave, i'm just going to take the cowards way out. My SIL is a strange one, she just ignores all of us, wont go into my parents house just sits outside in the car if my brother visits them, anytime i go up there and stay with them she doesnt come home untill she knows i'm in bed and then leaves again before anyone is up in the morning, doesnt bother me but the kids dont understand why they havent seen their aunt in over 3 years.
I just hope i make a better job of raising my family and hopefully keeping my kids as friends not just kids.
Friends, they are the ones that will help you enjoy life and you'll find out who your good ones are when you move away.
Lynn
Life is for living dont waste it on people who want to drag you down.
Oct 12th 2003, 10:55 pm
#47
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Aug 2003
Location: Cheshire
Posts: 309
Originally posted by lynnj
but the kids dont understand why they havent seen their aunt in over 3 years.
At least you won't have to explain that to the kids once you're in OZ.
Friends, they are the ones that will help you enjoy life and you'll find out who your good ones are when you move away.
Lynn
Life is for living dont waste it on people who want to drag you down.
but the kids dont understand why they havent seen their aunt in over 3 years.
At least you won't have to explain that to the kids once you're in OZ.
Friends, they are the ones that will help you enjoy life and you'll find out who your good ones are when you move away.
Lynn
Life is for living dont waste it on people who want to drag you down.
Oct 12th 2003, 11:53 pm
#48
Home in 2010.
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2003
Location: UK-Holland-OZ-UK-OZ-2010 Back to UK
Posts: 664
Re: Familys, love or hate em???
[i]
Anyway, that's a bit about me. I wouldn't bother trying to sort things out with your family, just accept that you're all different and concentrate on the good things in your life. The more you worry about them, the unhappier you will become. we're only here once, so let's all make the most of it!! Good luck.
Noodle.
Anyway, that's a bit about me. I wouldn't bother trying to sort things out with your family, just accept that you're all different and concentrate on the good things in your life. The more you worry about them, the unhappier you will become. we're only here once, so let's all make the most of it!! Good luck.
Noodle.
Thanks for everyone who responded to this thread made me realise that familys are a strange bunch and mine are no different from every other unhealthy one out there.
Oct 13th 2003, 4:17 am
#49
I Know What's Going On!
Joined: Jan 2003
Location: On The Outside Looking In!
Posts: 1,499
Hi all, after my response to Tazzy’s post, five people contacted me about their parents. I received ‘thank-you’s’ from them all and was asked if I’d posted this on the site. Well, below is a copy of my reply. It may seem blunt, but hopefully there are some bits that you can use. Good luck, Steve.
My wife’s family and our closest friends know of our plans to emigrate. We have two kids, Luke who’s 11 and Lia who’s 5. My wife’s mum has another daughter who emigrated to South Africa nearly 30 years ago and she knows that we are doing what we think is best for us. She knows that she won’t be around for ever, and has said that she won’t try to stop us. She can’t come with us but there is a new retirement visa where we can sponsor her after two years and she can come out that way. It’s very important to leave with options for the parents open. They may not take you up on the offer later, but it makes the process so much easier as they know that they’re not going to say goodbye forever.
Emigrating can be a horrible process for some people. People have to get their skills assessed, some people have to raise money for the application, some people have to sell their houses, the worries of the medical, taking children out of school, giving up jobs, fear of starting a new life all over again, wondering if you really are doing the best for your family and so on. But all these things a ring your control. The only thing that isn't in your control is how your family is going to react. Unfortunately, people have been burdened with a thing called ‘emotion’, which triggers another burden that we have all got, guilt. Unfortunately, the two of these things together, can often take away self-esteem and self-worth. Families are very, very good at using the emotional blackmail card, when it to getting what they want. Whether they mean to or not, people can be very selfish. Tazzy is going through what a lot of people have gone through from parents or grandparents, and the emotional blackmail card in her case is the grandchild.
In my job, I meet a lot of people and of the older ones that I have spoken to, most of them have said that if they had the chance years ago, they would have done exactly the same thing. A lot of them also have children who have emigrated to Australia and have said that although they were wary at first, they knew that deep down, they would have a better life in Australia. It's funny, but a lot of the people who don't want their children to go are the same people that wished that they had jumped at the chance to go to Australia for £10 years ago. The ironic thing is that these people would also have been leaving family behind and may have been taking children or grandchildren with them. These are also the same people who would have told their parents that this was their life, and don't try and run it for me.
As we grow up, we get to know just how emotional our families are, we know what hurts them and we know what upsets them. We know what to say and what not to say. With this in mind, if you have an emotional family, I think it is best not to tell them, while you are in the process of fact-finding and applying. This only causes unnecessary stress, worries and arguments at a time when you don’t know if you’re going or not. If you don’t get in, you don’t have to tell them. If you’ve got emotional parents anyway, though, you’ll probably get the “How could you keep it from us?� line. Either way, you can’t win. And if you know you can’t win, don’t even try to win.
I’m going to start getting pretty blunt now, so be careful. My philosophy is not for everyone and I tend to say what others are afraid to but I know it works. Here goes…
The saying, “ You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family�, is so true that most people are too frightened to use the saying to its fullest potential. Your parents will die eventually, I warned you this was going to get blunt, and if you keep putting off what you want to do, because of your family, eventually it will be too late to do what you wanted. I mean it's because you can only apply to emigrate to Australia up to the age of 45. After that you have to wait for retirement. People who have parents that die are normally over 45, and therefore it is too late to emigrate. Let’s have a look at ‘friends’. Friends are chosen very carefully, they are picked from millions of other people either because they are the same as you, like the same things, went to the same school, like the same music or are the complete opposite from you, but you see something in them that you like. It may be that a bit of your friend is a bit of who you want to be. Either way, there is something in that person that you can relate to, look up to or admire. If friends upset you, you can always find new ones. It's not the end of the world. You don’t have to go through life with the same friends, If they upset you, you either sort it out or you move on.
Family, on the other hand, you are born in to by accident of birth. Simple as that. You grow to love them because they feed, clothe and nurture you when you are young. When we grow older, we may not always like what they do. Just because they are ‘ family’, you do not have to put up with it. Family can be very hurtful, selfish, unfeeling, manipulative and stubborn. If this were a ‘friend’ you would dump them, wouldn’t you? Or at least, read them the riot act and try to sort it out so they don’t do it again. So if you can do this to a person who you have chosen to be a friend, why can’t you do this to a person who you had no choice to be with?
Emotion is a powerful thing that stops us doing or saying a lot of things. Sometimes we let our emotions get the better of us and we keep quiet for an easy life. We bottle it up. And the more we do this the easier it becomes to do it again. If we’re not careful, we find ourselves living our lives through someone else’s choices. We’re too easy to please the other person and not ourselves.
I do speak from experience, believe me! I haven’t seen my family for nearly 10 years and I couldn’t be happier. They have only seen my son a few times and have never seen my daughter. I have found a way to sort out which emotions I want to feel and which ones I don’t. It’s my wife who can’t understand how I can just ‘switch off’ certain things like that. She say’s every now and again, “Don’t you miss them?� and I can honestly say, ‘No’.
But it doesn’t have to get that far. If you nip this in the bud, there is no reason why a family cannot go on with you in another country. You don’t have to fall out before you go, just sort out before you go. They are going to get upset, they are going to get emotional and they may get angry. But you have to be strong and consistent for yourself and for them. Consistent for you, because if you show worries or doubt or you keep changing your mind, then they may play on this or think that you’ve not thought it through and it will prolong your own agony. You have to be consistent for them because deep down they want to know that you’ll be all right. This will be the final proof for them that you are ready to fly the nest and make it on your own. You may have thought that you had already flown the nest, but in your parents eyes, you were still not too far away, and they knew that you would always come back to the ‘nest’ if you were in trouble.
If none of this works and your family are still a babbling mess on the floor, then you have to use the only language that they understand, emotion. Play them at their own game, but play to win. Ask them what they would have done. Ask them to forget what you’re doing, and to put themselves in your shoes. Don’t ask them closed questions where they can answer with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. Ask the open questions that start with ‘who, when, why, what, how and where’.
Set the scenario for them;
“Mum, Dad, imagine it was you in our shoes and you knew that your children were at risk on the streets and you feared for their future? Now suppose, just suppose you had the chance to bring your family up in a safer environment and give them a better standard of living and a better chance for the future because, let’s face it, things are only getting worse here, aren’t they?�
Then ask some open questions, like,
“How would you have felt, if you really thought you were doing the right thing but YOUR parents didn’t want you to go?�
“What would you have said to someone who tried to talk you out of wanting a better lifestyle for yourself and your children?�
“Why don’t you want me to give the kids a better chance in life?�
See what I mean? They can’t just answer ‘yes or no’ to any of these questions, it’ll get a discussion going and you’ll find out what their real ‘fears’ are. Once you find out, you can deal with them and put them to rest. (Their fears, not your parents!)
I don’t agree with the idea of only going for a year to see if you like it. Your parents will think it’s another hair brained scheme that’s doomed to failure, and you’ll be to cautious to set down roots or try anything permanent because in your head, you’re already going back. Say to them, “Look, if we go, there’s no reason why you can’t come out to us�. “Maybe once we’re there we could sponsor you to come out or maybe you could retire over here. After all, it would be a better lifestyle for you as well as for us�.
Well, I’ve waffled on enough and put the world to rights! You’re on your own now! Remember that YOU control YOUR life. Your grateful to your parents but you have you own family’s future to consider now. Remind them that if you had moved to Scotland or Spain, for example, if anything goes wrong in the family, by the time you make arrangements to travel home, you still wouldn’t be able to get home ‘till the next day. Same from Australia, it’s still only a day away, isn’t it?
Good luck,
Steve.
My wife’s family and our closest friends know of our plans to emigrate. We have two kids, Luke who’s 11 and Lia who’s 5. My wife’s mum has another daughter who emigrated to South Africa nearly 30 years ago and she knows that we are doing what we think is best for us. She knows that she won’t be around for ever, and has said that she won’t try to stop us. She can’t come with us but there is a new retirement visa where we can sponsor her after two years and she can come out that way. It’s very important to leave with options for the parents open. They may not take you up on the offer later, but it makes the process so much easier as they know that they’re not going to say goodbye forever.
Emigrating can be a horrible process for some people. People have to get their skills assessed, some people have to raise money for the application, some people have to sell their houses, the worries of the medical, taking children out of school, giving up jobs, fear of starting a new life all over again, wondering if you really are doing the best for your family and so on. But all these things a ring your control. The only thing that isn't in your control is how your family is going to react. Unfortunately, people have been burdened with a thing called ‘emotion’, which triggers another burden that we have all got, guilt. Unfortunately, the two of these things together, can often take away self-esteem and self-worth. Families are very, very good at using the emotional blackmail card, when it to getting what they want. Whether they mean to or not, people can be very selfish. Tazzy is going through what a lot of people have gone through from parents or grandparents, and the emotional blackmail card in her case is the grandchild.
In my job, I meet a lot of people and of the older ones that I have spoken to, most of them have said that if they had the chance years ago, they would have done exactly the same thing. A lot of them also have children who have emigrated to Australia and have said that although they were wary at first, they knew that deep down, they would have a better life in Australia. It's funny, but a lot of the people who don't want their children to go are the same people that wished that they had jumped at the chance to go to Australia for £10 years ago. The ironic thing is that these people would also have been leaving family behind and may have been taking children or grandchildren with them. These are also the same people who would have told their parents that this was their life, and don't try and run it for me.
As we grow up, we get to know just how emotional our families are, we know what hurts them and we know what upsets them. We know what to say and what not to say. With this in mind, if you have an emotional family, I think it is best not to tell them, while you are in the process of fact-finding and applying. This only causes unnecessary stress, worries and arguments at a time when you don’t know if you’re going or not. If you don’t get in, you don’t have to tell them. If you’ve got emotional parents anyway, though, you’ll probably get the “How could you keep it from us?� line. Either way, you can’t win. And if you know you can’t win, don’t even try to win.
I’m going to start getting pretty blunt now, so be careful. My philosophy is not for everyone and I tend to say what others are afraid to but I know it works. Here goes…
The saying, “ You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family�, is so true that most people are too frightened to use the saying to its fullest potential. Your parents will die eventually, I warned you this was going to get blunt, and if you keep putting off what you want to do, because of your family, eventually it will be too late to do what you wanted. I mean it's because you can only apply to emigrate to Australia up to the age of 45. After that you have to wait for retirement. People who have parents that die are normally over 45, and therefore it is too late to emigrate. Let’s have a look at ‘friends’. Friends are chosen very carefully, they are picked from millions of other people either because they are the same as you, like the same things, went to the same school, like the same music or are the complete opposite from you, but you see something in them that you like. It may be that a bit of your friend is a bit of who you want to be. Either way, there is something in that person that you can relate to, look up to or admire. If friends upset you, you can always find new ones. It's not the end of the world. You don’t have to go through life with the same friends, If they upset you, you either sort it out or you move on.
Family, on the other hand, you are born in to by accident of birth. Simple as that. You grow to love them because they feed, clothe and nurture you when you are young. When we grow older, we may not always like what they do. Just because they are ‘ family’, you do not have to put up with it. Family can be very hurtful, selfish, unfeeling, manipulative and stubborn. If this were a ‘friend’ you would dump them, wouldn’t you? Or at least, read them the riot act and try to sort it out so they don’t do it again. So if you can do this to a person who you have chosen to be a friend, why can’t you do this to a person who you had no choice to be with?
Emotion is a powerful thing that stops us doing or saying a lot of things. Sometimes we let our emotions get the better of us and we keep quiet for an easy life. We bottle it up. And the more we do this the easier it becomes to do it again. If we’re not careful, we find ourselves living our lives through someone else’s choices. We’re too easy to please the other person and not ourselves.
I do speak from experience, believe me! I haven’t seen my family for nearly 10 years and I couldn’t be happier. They have only seen my son a few times and have never seen my daughter. I have found a way to sort out which emotions I want to feel and which ones I don’t. It’s my wife who can’t understand how I can just ‘switch off’ certain things like that. She say’s every now and again, “Don’t you miss them?� and I can honestly say, ‘No’.
But it doesn’t have to get that far. If you nip this in the bud, there is no reason why a family cannot go on with you in another country. You don’t have to fall out before you go, just sort out before you go. They are going to get upset, they are going to get emotional and they may get angry. But you have to be strong and consistent for yourself and for them. Consistent for you, because if you show worries or doubt or you keep changing your mind, then they may play on this or think that you’ve not thought it through and it will prolong your own agony. You have to be consistent for them because deep down they want to know that you’ll be all right. This will be the final proof for them that you are ready to fly the nest and make it on your own. You may have thought that you had already flown the nest, but in your parents eyes, you were still not too far away, and they knew that you would always come back to the ‘nest’ if you were in trouble.
If none of this works and your family are still a babbling mess on the floor, then you have to use the only language that they understand, emotion. Play them at their own game, but play to win. Ask them what they would have done. Ask them to forget what you’re doing, and to put themselves in your shoes. Don’t ask them closed questions where they can answer with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. Ask the open questions that start with ‘who, when, why, what, how and where’.
Set the scenario for them;
“Mum, Dad, imagine it was you in our shoes and you knew that your children were at risk on the streets and you feared for their future? Now suppose, just suppose you had the chance to bring your family up in a safer environment and give them a better standard of living and a better chance for the future because, let’s face it, things are only getting worse here, aren’t they?�
Then ask some open questions, like,
“How would you have felt, if you really thought you were doing the right thing but YOUR parents didn’t want you to go?�
“What would you have said to someone who tried to talk you out of wanting a better lifestyle for yourself and your children?�
“Why don’t you want me to give the kids a better chance in life?�
See what I mean? They can’t just answer ‘yes or no’ to any of these questions, it’ll get a discussion going and you’ll find out what their real ‘fears’ are. Once you find out, you can deal with them and put them to rest. (Their fears, not your parents!)
I don’t agree with the idea of only going for a year to see if you like it. Your parents will think it’s another hair brained scheme that’s doomed to failure, and you’ll be to cautious to set down roots or try anything permanent because in your head, you’re already going back. Say to them, “Look, if we go, there’s no reason why you can’t come out to us�. “Maybe once we’re there we could sponsor you to come out or maybe you could retire over here. After all, it would be a better lifestyle for you as well as for us�.
Well, I’ve waffled on enough and put the world to rights! You’re on your own now! Remember that YOU control YOUR life. Your grateful to your parents but you have you own family’s future to consider now. Remind them that if you had moved to Scotland or Spain, for example, if anything goes wrong in the family, by the time you make arrangements to travel home, you still wouldn’t be able to get home ‘till the next day. Same from Australia, it’s still only a day away, isn’t it?
Good luck,
Steve.
Oct 13th 2003, 4:37 am
#50
Forum Regular
Joined: Apr 2003
Location: Montreal, Canada
Posts: 136
Re: Familys, love or hate em???
Originally posted by nicholls clan
Since all this happened on Friday night I have calmed down and cheared up a lot.
Since all this happened on Friday night I have calmed down and cheared up a lot.
I really love my parents and my big brother but I can only see them a few hours at a time because they make me feel too sad. They all have so much problems in their lives, so much unhappiness that seeing them almost makes me feel guilty to have a great husband and a pretty happy life.
Also, because I've always been the stable one, they confide in me a lot (especially my mother) and I just can't take the pressure anymore. It's like our roles were reversed. I always have to cheer her up and tell her how to get out of troubles. I've been doing that since I was a kid and I can't take it anymore. I just want to be left alone.
So, I've become more and more distant to protect myself. It's very selfish but I'm just not strong enough to keep going. 15 years ago I had an opportunity to go to London (I'm French) for 6 months. Came back 2 years later. It felt so good to be away from them, so liberating, I knew that was my answer if I wanted to grow as an individual.
We've been living in Canada for 4 years now and haven't been back to France to see our family. Can't wait to get our visa and spend the rest of our lives (hopefully) in Australia. We've planned a few weeks in France before going though, but are dreading the time we'll have to spend with our families. So happy we'll also see our friends on the way. That will cheer us up! They're actually the only one we missed. Sad, but that just how it is. I don't want to feel guilty about it anymore.
Vanessa
