18 Stories About Family Members Who Can Make You Want to Live on Another Planet

You can’t choose your family, but sometimes you wish you could. Some family members can bring you to the verge of a nervous breakdown, so that living in another city or even another country may sound like a very good idea.

• This arrogant, hysterical dude hit on me for a long time. But he was the son of the owner of the firm where my brother worked. So I come home, and there’s this guy drinking tea with my family. He made them a lot of promises, including a promotion to my brother.
  So, my parents suggested that I have to “be nice to this son.” Well, I freaked out and suggested that they should be nice to him themselves, because I’m not going to pay for their benefits. In the end, my dad said that either I would be a good daughter or I could move out. That same evening, I packed my bags and moved to a friend’s place.
  My mother whined about how stupid I was. My brother didn’t seem to like it, but he obviously didn’t want to lose his good job. He’s got a wife and a small child, a mortgage. Now I have no family, and that dude keeps on texting me nasty things and advises me to come to my senses. © Overheard / Ideer
• Once I was working as a nanny and my uncle’s wife asked me to look after their 3 children. I asked about the pay. Her answer killed me, “We are your family. What money are you talking about?”
  I’m sorry, I want to eat too, so I said no. So this lady just stopped talking to me. © Overheard / Ideer

• I was 3 years old when my father left my mother. In the end, I was raised by my grandparents, because it was a shock for my mum, and she was always ill. In his will, my grandfather left all his property to me. And then my dad showed up and demanded that I give him the money. No way.
• Our biological parents left my sister and me. Another family took custody of us both and raised us. And I consider these people my parents. My sister found our biological parents, and she’s in touch with them, but I don’t want to do that. She tries to give me their letters and I throw them away.
  My wedding is coming up, and my sister has been bugging me to invite my biological parents. I warned her that there would be security there, and if they showed up, they’d be thrown out.
• I watch my friends being friends with their siblings, and I’m jealous. My brother has been competing with me for my parents’ attention since I was a kid. I remember watching anime with my friends (and my parents didn’t approve), so my brother found out and snitched on me.
  The funny thing is that later he fell in love with anime himself. Our relationship is still strained, we see each other only on holidays at my parents’ house. It’s a shame.

• I got a job at a bank, and for some reason my older sister thinks I have a lot of money. Or rather, that’s what her husband who she adores thinks.
  My sister has a son, has just had another child. She stays at home. Her husband has been out of work for 6 months. So they’re asking money for the kids from me. I love my nephews, it’s hard for me to say no to my sister.
  I even went to a therapist with this problem. Then I plucked up courage and said, “This is the last time I give you money.” They tried to argue, but I stopped this attempt. I’m proud of myself.
• I recently told my mum that you shouldn’t have children if you don’t have the money to provide your child with everything they need. Parents need to make sure that children don’t need anything, have their own room, don’t skimp on their lunches or go hungry. Children also shouldn’t be poorly dressed so that everyone points fingers at them.
  I went through this myself, and I wouldn’t want that kind of life for my child. So, what did my mother say to me? She said I am selfish and only think of myself. I don’t know what to think now. © Overheard / Ideer
• My grandmother left me a small country house. I live there in the summer. I have a group of friends from my university days, who also like to come to my place and relax in nature. I’m always happy to see them, because they bring a lot of food, help with cleaning and taking out garbage. All in all, our weekends are great.
  But recently my mum called me and started reprimanding me, saying that she knows that I am an easy-going person, but that I should not allow other people take advantage of me. It turned out that my mum decided that my friends eat my food, leave behind mountains of garbage and don’t let me rest in peace during weekends. I asked her where she got these ideas from. She denied it for a long time, but finally admitted that the neighbor told her all this.
  A jealous woman who’s pissed off by other people’s joy. And she believes her, but she doesn’t believe me, her own daughter. We haven’t stopped doing our picnics, of course, but it’s terribly unpleasant that my mother constantly calls me and my friends, threatening to take away my country house. © Overheard / Ideer

• My older sister has always hated me for some unknown reason. I always had the impression that our parents loved her more than me: I was blamed for all mistakes, she got new clothes and I had to wear these clothes after her. She was the only one who had a personal laptop for studying.
  Once my sister took away my favorite sweatshirt, which I got from her, and gave it to her friend. Parents paid for her to study in another country, and she got married there, and I was told to sort it out myself. Now my sister thinks I’m worthless, but I still love her. I’m stupid, I guess. © Overheard / Ideer
• I’ve seen my grandmother only 3 times. She lives far away, she’s never wanted to keep in touch with me. Recently, at my aunt’s wedding, my grandmother came in a wedding dress. I didn’t pay much attention to it. Maybe she didn’t have money for a dress, so she bought this one in a thrift store.
  The whole evening, she asked my husband to dance with her. She even switched places with someone and sat at the table next to him. 3 days later, I went to visit my parents. My mum’s all red and disheveled. She can’t talk, she just laughs. I barely managed to find out what had happened.
  Mum brought the laptop. And then it was my turn to roll on the floor laughing because my grandmother posted some photos where it looked like she and my husband were getting married. There was also a video of them dancing and photos from contests. She wrote in her status, “Found the love of my life.” Even though she didn’t say that it was her husband in the photos, it all looked weird because she’s about to turn 60 and my husband is 35. My husband laughed like a horse when he saw these photos. © Overheard / Ideer

• My husband and I have been dreaming of our own house for many years, we have been looking for a place for a long time, we made our own project, included a few guest rooms because my husband always wanted to get all our families together. We saved money for 5 years and spent 2 years building the house.
  Finally, we invited our families. His mum, dad and sister climbed out of the car with sour faces, and first of all they said that they didn’t like the house, it was rubbish. They said that someone else’s place was a hundred times better. All day long they looked for flaws and angrily discussed them. It was apparently hard for them to be happy for us! © Success & Failure / VK
• I bought a car a long time ago, but now I work remotely and hardly ever drive. My brother used to take it for a drive, but after he once left for another city without asking, I stopped giving him the car. Since then, the car has been on the mind of both my brother and my parents, whom he used to give a lift sometimes. They have already tried to persuade me to give it to him, to buy it back for the same money for which I bought it 5 years ago.
  Last time my mum asked me to take her to the country house and on the way she burst into tears because she was ashamed (!) that her daughter had a car and her son didn’t. She said that people think that my lover bought it to me, that they whisper behind her back at work. Either my mum is a cheap manipulator, or she is really going crazy. © Overheard / Ideer

• There’s a distant relative, an old aunt. She always calls my mother and complains about life. The conversation can go on for an hour. After that, my mom complains that she has a headache. But out of courtesy to elders, she can’t end the conversation.
  So I taught her to say that phones emit radiation, and you can’t talk for more than 15 minutes a day. And it worked! My aunt doesn’t talk to my mom for more than 15 minutes herself now.
• My mom went away for a while, and she asked Dad to dig up half the vegetable garden and showed him where. When she came back, Dad proudly told her that he’d dug up the whole garden, including all her flower beds. It was a huge scandal.
• I love my grandmother very much, but it pisses me off that she thinks my husband is ugly. He’s short, red-haired and freckled. And I think he is the most beautiful man in the world, because for me, he is the most beloved, caring, affectionate and wonderful. And my grandmother is sure that our children will be ugly, and they will be teased at school.
  The most hurtful thing is that my grandfather, a tall, broad-shouldered brunet with brown eyes, offended my grandmother and my mother all his life. But my grandmother is very proud that he’s handsome. Annoying. © Chamber 6 / VK

• My brother is getting married soon, and his fiancée chose a very revealing wedding dress. It’s low-cut, with a thigh-high slit and a sheer back. I’m all for people wearing what they want, but our family is quite conservative and opinionated, and I know this dress will cause a lot of drama, especially with our grandparents.
  At a family dinner, I pulled her aside and gently suggested she might want to reconsider her choice, explaining the likely reactions from our older relatives. I made sure to clarify that I absolutely respect it’s her choice and her special day but wanted to at least warn her of what could happen. She got very upset and said it’s her wedding and she’ll wear whatever she wants. My brother is now mad at me, accusing me of trying to control their wedding. © This-Rock-4028 / Reddit
• My mum inherited a flat from my grandmother: my mum took care of her all her life. Mum has a brother and a sister. So they tried to sue for the flat, luckily, you can’t argue the will. An important nuance: brother and sister had housing, and my mum and I lived in this grandmother’s flat, and we had nowhere to go.
• I have a newborn baby and, like many new mothers, I’ve been dealing with a lot of stress and exhaustion. My newborn hasn’t been sleeping much, and I’ve been only breastfeeding. One day, I was completely exhausted and decided to take a nap, leaving my newborn with my mother-in-law for a few hours.
  When I woke up, I found my mother-in-law asleep. I checked the fridge and noticed all the breast milk I had pumped was still there. I asked her about it, and she told me she thought my breast milk was causing the baby’s sleeplessness because of my stress, so she decided to give her formula instead.
  I was furious. I’ve been very clear about wanting to exclusively breastfeed, and she knows this. She disregarded my wishes and made a significant decision about my baby’s feeding without talking to me. In my anger, I kicked her out of the house. My husband has been supportive about this and has accepted this. © Scared-Rush-4225 / Reddit

And here are family stories that prove raising a daughter can be a rollercoaster.