My Family Relations

I have come from a well-meaning but very scarring, ambivalent and dysfunctional family. My father was a sometimes physically, but often times very emotionally abusive person. Using a large amount of fear and intimidation of him to control our family and home. My mother regularly took out her anger and frustration towards my father on me since my parent’s first major separation when I was seven years old which in conjunction with the negative impact of my parents’ off and on separations leading up to their eventual divorce I developed depression, anger and other behavioral problems as well. I suffered many years of abuse from my mother as a result of these things. I understood both my parents cared for me, even though their actions often time both demonstrated it and contradicted it which lead to much confusion in relationships and friendships outside of my family. One of if not the most scarring experiences were of my mother and the adults she surrounded herself with sympathizing her abuse towards me because of the abuse she endured by my father and

Families, as units, are extremely complex and vary drastically from one another. A person might be under the impression that his or her own family is nothing special, especially if they are accustomed to their family’s routines. After analyzing my own family through the sociological lenses of an assortment of scholars, it is now clear that it is not as simple as it seems. Sociologically analyzing my family through the divorces that have occurred in my life makes it clear that divorce can have an impact on a variety of family dynamics, such as my parents and their jobs and domestic duties, the amount of involvement they have with their friends and family, as well as my financial dependence on my parents.

Six years ago, a summer afternoon, my dad hugged me and I said “I will be gone for three days, I have a job in Austin, but I promise that I will be back before your birthday. I promise.” Days, weeks, months almost two years passed by and I did not receive any phone call or text message from him. Throughout that time my dad was gone, my mom told me that she was getting the papers ready to divorce my dad. I was noticing that the last three-four years that I was living with both of my parents, their relationship was getting worse. It was not a healthy situation for anyone in the house. What I mean about not being healthy is that my mother and father were damaging one another, emotionally and verbally, which my brothers and I would watch everything. Every day was the same routine, we forgot how it was to have a peaceful home. Around that moment, I honestly never thought divorce was going to be their solution.

The only difference now, is that I am old enough to be the one to listen to my mother and let her vent out to me as she has never talked about this to anyone. My mother explains that she got into a heated argument with my father on their way back from the local little market because she undeniably caught him looking at another women in a way that she felt uncomfortable. Obviously, my father being the macho man that he often portrays to be, does not care about how she feels in the slightest about the situation because to him, that is what a man does. A man can look at whomever he pleases. A man can go wherever he pleases. A man can do whatever he pleases. I am confused to feel a tear drop onto my leg as I had not noticed that I was already swimming in a beach of my own tears. My heart hurt to see my mother breaking down like that. By that time, it was already so late in the night that all my siblings were already tucked in bed and sleeping ever so peacefully. My mother and I were the only ones still up as she could not get herself to go to bed with the man who had just broken her heart again. I often did not want to get involved in my parents’ conflicts because I tend to advice my mother on what her options are, such as divorcing him, leaving him, and moving away, but she always goes back to my father because she states that she was raised to stay by her husband’s side no matter what. “… but I love him” she

She told me she'd be back for me. I remember her calling me saying she's coming for me, but she never showed up. It was heartbreaking as a child, growing up without parents in my daily life. I never got the embarrassment parents are supposed to do, or the protectiveness from my dad. I would cry myself to sleep at night just wishing I had them both back. It's been 10 years, I've grown up. I'm so mature and smart. It's really sad that I can keep a job but my own mother can't. I've tried reconnecting with her, it's a slow process but it's going good. I can't do anything about my father though, he's a lost cause. Life is a bag of shit sometimes but you just gotta ignore it and move on. I've fucked up a lot, I wish some things I could take back but then I wouldn't be who I am now. I carry a lot of emotional baggage with me, A list of past histories, and A tragic backstory. I've had my heart broken more than once, and I've been used more than I can remember. I just hope that this relationship I'm in now last a fucking long time, because holy hell this guy, I pretty much worship him. He's everything to me. He's the type who doesn't complicate my life, he makes it easier to life

Our parents began arguing a lot. We were going through a financial crisis. My mother had gambling issues, which I did not know then. The first time I saw my father cry was when my mother got involved in a car accident. She survived but her left leg was not able to function as it was before. It is difficult for her to run and the pain returns from time to time. She remained bedridden for a while and I could see her getting depressed everyday not being able to go anywhere. The second time I saw my father cry was when his sister’s husband passed away in a car accident. I did not understand what was happening at the time, they gave me the phone to talk to her but she was just sobbing. Both my parents were tearing up while me and my brother were just confused and sad because everyone was crying.

My two sister were only 12 years old, my brother was 5 years, and I was only 3 when my dad shot himself. My mom distanced herself from, my two sisters, my brother, and myself. As the years passed, my sisters and my brother had grown a connection with my mom but I didn’t. When I turned twelve, I told myself that i needed a relationship with my mom because it had always been important to me since I lost my dad. Throughout that year I tried to have a connection with my mom. As me and my mom grown closer that year I turned thirteen and I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I

My mother met my father in high school, and fell in love. They got married straight out of high school, everyone was telling my mother that it was a bad idea to marry him but she was just in love with him. They had a good marriage for the first few months, then he started drinking and doing drugs and it all went down from there. They were married for around 4 years, my mom said they were the worst years of her life. During this terrible time, my mom was physically and mentally abused by the man who she thought loved her.

When I was a kid I believed my parents were happy together and loved each other, but as I began to grow up I started noticing how toxic their relationship actually was becoming. They started to fight more, lie more, and love less. My mother began to hide things, not just from my dad but from everyone else as well. One night, when I was just about 13 years old my life crashed down and my idea of love crashed with it. My dad found out what my mother had been doing behind his back with the neighbor, but at the time none of us knew he was doing the same thing with his co worker. For months after this happened I didn’t even understand what love meant anymore because even though they had both cheated they still lied in the same bed at night and still

My mother and father separated in 2007, and the living situation was far from ideal. In fact, we all cohabited for 5 years during a not so civil divorce. In addition, my mother’s new boyfriend became a permanent house guest. Picture this, my mother, her boyfriend, my father, sister, and I all in one house. In the event that we were all in the house at the same time it certainly was not an episode of The Brady Bunch. It was nothing short of an intense, awkward, and hostile environment. For this reason, I can see why my 18 year old self struggled to grow as a young adult. Under those circumstances I had difficultly focusing on my education, maintaining romantic relationships, and expressing my emotions.

Growing up knowing my parents were divorced didn’t really bother me. I saw my dad and spent the night with him all the time, but then something terrible happened. He met this woman and they got married, and that was the day I lost my dad, someone I thought would be there for me always. When I first met them, everything seemed fine, I was still a little skeptical about the whole thing, but overall they seemed like nice people. Well, that lasted for about a year when my stepmom started treating me like I was less important than her other kids and so I stopped coming around and me and my dad rarely talked. This broke my heart, and for some reason my dad didn’t even seem to care we didn’t have a relationship anymore. At on point I even asked “Do you even love me anymore?” Looking off in the distance, “Of course I do Megan, why do you ask?” he said. I’m becoming impatient every second he’s acting like everything's okay. “Because you seem so stuck up your wife’s butt that I don’t even matter anymore.” he just looks at me like I stomped on his big toe. “ Megan, she’s my wife.” in my head I was thinking

In 1997, only two years after I was born, my parents’ marriage was progressively moving downhill. They soon signed papers declaring their divorce. By court order, my mother was granted sole custody of me and gave legal visitation days to my father requiring him pay child support until I reached age eighteen. My daddy moved out of the house and found an apartment nearby so that he was still close to me and could be around if he needed too, but for the most part, I grew up without a strong male example in my life each and every day. The majority of individuals would believe that living with my mom would hurt my relationship with my dad, but it was the exact opposite. Naturally, my father is a genuinely maternal and caring parent, more so than my mother. He would do anything in his power to make any rough situation simple and painless for me. On the other hand, my mom would ignore my problems and tell me to get over whatever I was reacting towards.

There were many different things about my family history because my parents both came from a different family background. The one thing my grandparents have in common is that they are Chinese. One different thing is that they are born in separate places. My grandparents on my father’s side were born in China then came to Burma, while my grandparents on my mother’s side were born in Burma. Another interesting thing they had in common is that they opened a coffee shop during their 20s.

The effects of them breaking up were unpleasant. My mother’s emotions elevated to a high level. She was frequently sad or angry. I was worried it was my fault she was acting that way so I did everything in my power to please her but, I stopped trying because I was making no progress. After many days of self-reassurance, I concluded that she was not mad at me but my father. Then, I proceeded to put the blame on my father for causing all of this to happen. I stopped because I knew that it wasn’t right to blame him for everything. It made me really upset to see her so sad all

My family happens to be deeply religious, conservative and often closed minded about certain aspects of life. In other words, everything that they tend to support and believe in as a family unit, tends to be something I can not personally agree with. As anyone can imagine, this has deeply affected my interpersonal relationship with my family in a negative impact. As an adult, I have come to my own conclusions about my personal beliefs about life and what those entail for myself. These beliefs are usually the exact opposite of what I grew up with, much to the disappointment of my family which has created a deep divide between us. This has probably affected my relationship with my father the most, as he has always been the most outspoken about his disappointment.