I am not close to my family for other reasons. My parents are not JWs. The worst relationship is with my father.
To give an example of why, he came up to my mobile home after I first moved out on my own (about 12 years ago) and tried to rip my front door off its hinges with a crowbar. He's kinda famous for pulling this sort of stunt. I caught him and confronted him at the door. He said I hadn't called him in 3 weeks and he thought I must be sick, so he'd better break in and help me. Yeah right. I stared him down until he walked away. Note that he demanded I call him every single day of every single week during the move (I refused) and that he would leave 10 or 20 messages on my answering machine every few days if I didn't do whatever he wanted. The messages were not pleasant. Most of them were "to be continued" because the message timed out, so he'd call back and pick up from where he left off. Some of his diatribes would run on for 3 or more calls before he was done.
The crowbar thing was a stunt, of course. Meant to intimidate, to control. That's what he does. He knows its wrong, but he can't stop himself. This only makes it even worse because he has to justify his insane behavior by overcompensating with outrageous displays of hurt feelings. He showed up several times where I work and began to rant and rave, for instance. My father can be charming, so many of his friends probably think I'm dirt for avoiding him 99% of the time. But he can't help himself when I'm actually around. He went on and on about how I could "have it all" if only I wanted to race/tinker with hotrods the way he does. Problem is, I'm not too interested in that sort of thing. I'm a computer nerd. So what? But it's important that I do what he wants, not the other way around. He often demanded that I take an interest in things he wanted to do, then lost it when I complied. (I was only a kid, so I couldn't tell him no yet) For him to come to me about spending time together would have put me in charge, so he tried to reverse it in some twisted way. Can't have that. He needs to know that he can make me crawl, and I refuse to indulge him. That drives him bonkers.
Has he ever tried to connect with me by doing something I want or meeting me halfway? Nope, it's got to be me who defers to him. But he will tell any lie to me, about me, whatever--to get whatever he wants. He isn't afraid to use blackmail or to turn other people against me. I have never asked him for any favors, even when I literally had no money to buy food because I had lost my job. If I had, he would have thrown up a line of hurdles for me to jump through. "Do this, then I'll help. Okay, now do this, and maybe I'll help. No, not yet. Maybe this time..." Somehow, the help just never comes. To be honest, I wouldn't feel right about crawling to him like this anyway. I think it would be messed up for me to only go to him when I need something, so I don't bother. He's been like this since I was a kid. He basically makes my life too miserable to even contemplate. I do not feel guilty about avoiding him. He knows I have good reasons for doing this, deep down I think.
I have other relatives that have caused problems, like a crazy ex-stepfather and one whole side of my family that blames me for my mother divorcing him. I have pretty much cut all of them off. The only one I remain close to is my mother. Guess I'm a Momma's boy, but truth is she's all I have in the way of family. Sad, but I have no regrets about avoiding them. It would be nice to have a family once in a while, but I think this is part of how I got into the WT to begin with--for a time, the WT was my surrogate family. I have never had a traditional sense of family in the way others speak of.
As you can imagine, between my family and the WT, I tend to resent it when someone tries to get me to do something in a sneaky way or to play with my head.
Crap. Sorry about the long post.
IsaacJ
