Family Matters

Ian and I got into a little fight today.  We have different ways of communicating our anger in a fight: I raise my voice and slam a door or two while Ian furrows his eyebrows.  (Clearly Ian’s way is much healthier, but slamming doors doesn’t cause wrinkles in my forehead.)  I know it's over now because he just brought me the plug for my laptop, and an angry Ian would have said something snarky before delivering the power cord.  Plus I hear him eating barbeque potato chips and watching X-Men.  Angry Ian would be drinking water and reading a brooding political book like Profit Over People.  

We were arguing over something extremely stereotypical: my inlaws.  Specifically, Ian and I both struggle with our relationship with his stepmother.  (Inlaws, stepmother - I told you it was stereotypical).  We’re stuck in this horrible cycle of mutual disdain and extreme sensitivity.  We don’t know exactly when this cycle began, and we don’t know when it’s going to end.  So let me give you a few examples of what goes down with the three of us:

• In an etiquette misstep, I comment to Ian on the missing “e” on my namecard at Stepmom’s Thanksgiving dinner a la Anne of Green Gables.  Stepmom overhears me and takes this as a personal insult.  She fires back during dessert by criticizing my cooking in front of everyone.  I don’t know that she’s upset about my “e” comment, so I feel taken aback.
• Ian makes a lighthearted joke comparing Stepmom to a person we don’t know she dislikes.  At dinner an hour later, Stepmom says to Dad, “Can you believe Ian compared me to that person?”  Ian feels antagonized.  
• On Christmas vacation, I am helping Stepmom make a tasty stuffed french toast breakfast.  Visiting Aunt comes up to take our picture.  I lean in, but Stepmom shakes her hand to say “no” and backs away from me.  Maybe she feels uncomfortable because we all still have our just-woke-up faces and hair, but I feel like she just doesn’t like me.

I can see the dude-bros out there rolling their eyes and wondering why their girlfriends always tell them they should be more sensitive.  I know, dude.  This is sensitivity on steroids, and the three of us are Barry Bonds.  Other members of our family have said “Don’t be so sensitive” and “I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way.”  If I were giving advice to myself I’d say something like “Just let it roll off your shoulders.”  But somehow the three of us are all really sensitive, we are sure it was meant that way, and we hold onto the littlest comments with an iron grip in our memories, refusing to let them go.

I know we’re not the only people in the world who struggle with family relationships.  The stepparent-child and the inlaw relationships are so susceptible to strife that they’ve become celebrated pop culture stereotypes a la Cinderella and Meet the Parents.  Even outside of those roles, families often have particular divisions.  Indeed, as I’ve grown into adulthood, I’ve started to notice the political relationships within my own family that I never noticed as a child - that this aunt doesn’t like this one, and that nobody actually likes this uncle.  Even my Dad tried to comfort me when I was upset about a Stepmom incident by saying “Annie, this is just how families are sometimes.”

But that’s not good enough for me.  Ian and I both want a better relationship.  So why are we having trouble getting one?

First, all relationships in our lives are each painted with the primer of past interactions, and those are hard colors to change.  Has someone been really mean to you in the past?  Then you’re probably not going to like if if they criticize your new haircut, right?  A criticism from a criticizer is another example of rejection.  But a criticism from a friend is an anomaly, so we might take it as a joke or as an expression of concern.  

This craving for acceptance certainly translates into the struggles we face with Stepmom.  Taking the examples above, the “Does he/she like me” question clouds the lenses through which we judge each others’ actions.  Every one of our actions, no matter the intention behind it, is judged as evidence of acceptance or rejection of the actor, and all three of us - me, Ian, and Stepmom - are guilty of this judgement.

So because the Anne-Ian-Stepmom relationship has been painted over and over again with the solid color of “rejection,” we end up over-criticizing each other’s actions, and they build on top of each other to create a very precarious relationship.  It’s like each misinterpreted comment is another block pulled from the base of our family Jenga set and placed on top of our mounting frustrations and insecurities, and we all just end up tip-toeing around each other hoping not shake the table and make the tower fall.  Ian’s the kind of person who wants to just keep stacking the blocks, but sometimes I just want to knock the tower over to start anew.  Hence the fight.  I felt insulted and confrontational today and wanted to knock the Jenga set over.  But that would break the cardinal rule of marriage-family relationships: “Only I may criticize my family.”  

So why can’t we shake the feeling of rejection?  Because the three of us are stuck in a a contorted cycle of over-sensitivity.  

First things first: I’m really tired of being called “too sensitive.”  Sure, it makes me cry and gives me headaches in cases like this one, but I generally consider sensitivity to be a character strength, not a weakness.  Us sensitive folk are very in tune with other people’s feelings, we’re great listeners, and we make great friends.  And because we have such a strong desire to be accepted as part of the group, undoubtedly a Darwinian trait, you could even say sensitive people are more evolved.

So feel free to call me “sensitive,” but I’ll take that as a compliment.  You see, deep down, the three of us are so sensitive about our relationship because we care about it.  Family is the most important social group, after all, so our craving for acceptance within it is very powerful and the feelings of rejection must be equally as powerful.  I know when it comes to family strife, it’d be easier to be unemotional about it and let it roll off my shoulders.  But surely indifference is more tragic than emotion.  

And that’s my real point: our family members may hurt our feelings and say the wrong things and we’ll hold grudges for awhile.  But we react strongly because we care about them above everyone else.  So as Ian and I salve our wounds and nurse our grievances, perhaps we should realize that we’re hurt because we care about our relationship with Stepmom.  Maybe we care a lot.  And that’s what we should tell her.