blended families and cultural differences
Okay...I'm going to go out on a limb and ask something. Do different cultures behave differently when it comes to blended families and receiving the other halves?
The reason I ask is because my DH's family doesn't care about me and my kids and they try and exclude them every chance they get. DH has to constantly remind them that we have 5 children, not just 2. We have to remind them to refer to the children as "the kids" and not just "the girls".
I am hispanic. And in our culture, everyone is family. Maybe that's not all hispanic cultures but it is certainly that way in my family, and was in my ex-DH's family. As long as one person loved an outsider, that person was a part of the family. My extended family consists of numerous blended families and other people's kids that are not directly blood-linked to our family tree. But they are all loved and treated as our own.
DH's family is deep south where breeding is an art like horse breeding. They can't stand to have their family tree decorated with hispanic ornaments. I've had a hysterectomy so there is no chance of me "breeding" with their bloodline, so does that give them the right to cast us off as if we don't exist?
I don't think it's a cultural
I don't think it's a cultural difference either - I think it's individual. Although I do think the concept of family in general in the hispanic culture tends to be different on average than the general concept of family in the "white" US culture. SO is latino, I'm from a large Irish American family. My family of origin is close. They can be very welcoming of "outsiders" - to the point where they keep some of them in the family even after divorce. But they can also completely overlook blood relatives - like me. That's ok, I'm not really down with the whole "big happy family" thing the way they do it.
Certain members of SO's family have screwed SO the same way my family has screwed me. Some have stood by him - and some of mine have stood by me.
I notice that in SO's culture it's more common for extended family to live together than where I come from. And I notice a difference in attitude towards the oldest family members.
I don't know whether the difference is really based in anything emotional or culturally learned - or just a difference in economics causing a difference in the pace of life in general, and resulting in different choices.
SO's first wife is a latina, from his country. His family welcomed her - but they never really liked her. I met SO here in my country, and met his family for the first time earlier this year, when I traveled to his country, alone, to meet his mom for the first time and stay with her for a week. (Ummm - talk about nervous! We don't speak the same language! I've learned a lot of Spanish.)
She was *wonderful*. I feel a definite connection with her and now that I've met her I think SO, whether he realizes it or not, chose me because of my similarities to her.
Despite the fact that I'm "gringa", SO's family mostly likes me better for him than they liked his first, latina, wife.
SO's brother can't stand me. Probably because I told him exactly what I thought of him acting like a "big man" and trying to treat me like a "little woman" when he was living with us (here in my country) for a short period. SO defended me, so his brother doesn't speak to SO either.
If you had asked whether there's a cultural difference in what latino men and white men expect their wives to do in regard to their skids, I would have said I think there is. I think there's a difference in what a latino man was raised to expect from his woman, and I think that difference extends to what he expects for his kids as well. That's something SO and I have to deal with. Happily, SO is a realist, and is able to see the difference between the traditional roles he was taught young, and our actual reality today.
But is extended family drama culturally determined? I don't think so. I think you got a good family, and your DH got one that's more dysfunctional. In my opinion, of course.
Maybe the reason I get along so well with SO's mom is that she and I both feel, like you do, that family can be found anywhere, and we're both happy that's the case. And I'm white, so that can't be a latino thing. I really think it's individual.
L