UsernameEmailRegionInterestAOL IMICQ IDYahoo! IDMSN IDJabber

functional families
Now that Andy and I are approaching the two-year mark, things with his family have settled down quite a bit. When I first met them, they liked me, as I'm sure they didn't think it would last. Once we'd been together for a few months, he moved in with me and that was the start of the problems with his family and me. They weren't ready to let go of their 'little boy'. Actually, I should say his mother wasn't ready .. his dad helped him load up the Jeep *lol* His mother blamed me for taking him away, and ever since then, there were issues. At the fair this year, however, I think they realized I was here to stay, and that while we aren't all that similar, I'm not a bad person, just very different from them. They all enjoy drinking and smoking pot, and are very social. I, on the other hand, don't drink or smoke and I am rather anti-social. I realized something, too, that I hadn't thought of before.

His parents were the 'cool' parents in the town where he grew up. His friends spent more time with his family than with their own. It was a relaxed atmosphere where they didn't have to hide anything about themselves or their habits, and they weren't pressured to believe anything other than what they did. His sister once said they felt that I didn't want to be a part of their family. I think his family is starting to realize, I am not a high school kid who needs to be rescued from their strict, religious family. I am not trying to find a place to hide or escape from my life. As much as I would like to become a part of their family, I don't need to. I have my own. And I am satisfied with the person I am. I don't need to drink or smoke to 'fit in' with them. I'm happy being me. If that requires a bit more effort on their part to communicate with someone who hasn't been 'socially lubricated', then so be it. I'm not changing me to conform to them. I'm strong and independent, and I think initially they were threatened by how different I was from the normal young person. I think they also may have felt that my refusal to join in the festivities was my way of judging them in some way, and I think now they can see that isn't the case. People are different, and that's ok. I don't need them to be like me, or even like my own family for that matter. And I can see now that they finally don't need me to be like them, and that's nice.