Building Your Own "Family"

I hope to never feel that from my small, tight family.

By the time you are married - you HAVE started your own new family.
Your parents and siblings all take a step back in their degree of importance to you.
You need to find your own social groups and interests.
Stop seeing yourself as ostracized.
You need to be doing your own thing.
If anything - your old family is missing out and you should feel a little sorry for them - but they are even further away in importance to you - so just feel a teeny tiny bit sorry and let it/them go.
This is an opportunity!
You are going to be so busy you won't have time to feel lonely!
Volunteer at your kids school and church or join a social group to meet people.

I am a military brat. We never had family near us growing up. So we always had to make it on our own. I married military. Again, no family near.

So that I am married and have no family near me - it's nothing new or strange to me. I keep in touch with my family - we are pretty tight. My husband's family? His mother died in 2006 and his father just died in March. They were of the adage "no news is good news" and NEVER kept in touch or called unless there was a problem. After his mom died in 2006, I "forced" my husband to make a connection with his father. they made an "appointment" to call every Sunday at 6PM. They did that for the last 7 years. I am SO glad I pushed that. That changed his relationship with his father....for the better....

If you are having family trouble or decided to cut your family (blood relatives) out of your life due to drama, etc. I'm sorry to hear that. I would concentrate on my family - my husband and my children and make memories that way....learn to make due on your own....learn your strengths and weaknesses and then make it better.

I am sorry that you are estranged from your family! Good luck!

My 'family' came to me gradually, naturally.

Most of my maternal family is not in communication or toxic or dealing with the fallout of growing up in my mother's home. We are like survivors of something terrible; truly, it is difficult for us to all be around each other because most of our collective memories are pretty traumatic and abusive. Horrifying, really, and I have only one member from that side who still talks to me (I was the first and only to really break the cycle... there is freedom and ostracism that go with this).

My 'adoptive family' grew slowly... a best girlfriend who has never turned her back on me, even in my more selfish and stupid days; a former nanny client who opened her house and heart to me, who saw more for me and urged me to grow, supported me in the worst of times; friends who stood with me through a bad divorce-- I'd met them through my ex-husband and they were loving through all of that (I ended up 'getting them' in the divorce); a dear man who I grew to love and make our own wonderful child with who is now my husband.... and his old army buddy and his wife, who are now Kiddo's godparents....

I still have connection with my bio-dad and my half-sisters-- I sought them out when I was 14. One sister and I are very, very close; the other just cancelled plans on me yet again. Oh well...

Having 'adoptive' family means that when real family fails, this isn't a reflection of me, but of them, because I have my chosen family which does treat me well, loves me for me... we don't have all the baggage because we have chosen to be healthy with each other. We chose each other *because* we were healthy with each other. Being a sister in life, being loved and nurtured by someone who just saw something special in me and wanted me to be well-- for my own sake-- what an amazing and powerful gift their love and attention has been. As I grow older and wiser, those relationships become more equitable, more even, I am able to contribute more to other people's happiness and help them....

Having had the chance for a chosen family is a blessing; it does make the hard times hurt so much less and heals the heart. My chosen family helped to make me a better mom to my son and wife to my husband, with more love to give than I had ever thought possible.

I'm not sure what having a strained relationship has to do with it. When I married hubby, we created our own family.

We have lived all our married life states apart from family and yes, that was hard in the begining. But we are faithful to God and church and have found a purpose bigger than ourselves to live for and people who became our family. I also did a moms group and for 13 yrs have done a prayer group with several ladies for our children and schools.

Most of that time was without estranged family, just distance separating us.
The last two yrs has been with an estrangement from my mil. Believe me, without a LOT of pain that never would have happened. It was very difficult. I do miss her. I wish things could change but she is not going to change. It's not a day to day hurt. We have accepted it as our new normal.

My older sister and my MIL are my "mothers". Otherwise I have a family. But we live apart from all of them. It's better to be alone, lonely (for a little while) and HEALTHY than it is to be in a toxic family.

ADD: Oddly, what gave me some courage re. "choosing" family, was watching an old series on Showtime called "Robin of Sherwood". It was a story of Robin Hood and his people - but their relationships were SO tight, they were a non-blood family who would die for each other. It gave me hope in my early 20's.

I was completely separated from my family for a few years when I was younger. It was necessary for me to learn who I was apart from their dysfunction. I was able to build a family through the support systems I found for people who had had childhoods like mom. It was scary at first, but good for me over the long run. Some of those people are still in my family now that I have created my own family through marriage and child birth. I think a mild separation is good for most young adults for a while, it just depends on how dysfunctional you or your family actually is. I was able to reconcile with my family before both of my parents died. Good luck to you.

My friends are closer to me than some of my family. We have had several sets of friends that we have been super close with over the years, close enough that our kids called them "Aunt" and "Uncle". I have a group of ladies I get together with weekly for "girls night" and since our kids play together weekly and we do a lot of family activities together like camping, hiking, vacations etc, I consider them family.
I would not say it was difficult, only that forming deep relationships can take time and effort.

My parents live very far away and are divorced as of 20 years ago, so they have separate families very far from my separate family. I was never ostracised and we get along, but my daily life is all my own family and friends completely separate from them. I do have some family members I never speak to because they are pains in the neck. Since becoming an adult 20 years ago I have moved several times and visited them but they almost never visit me and don't know most of the other people in my life besides by kids and ex husband. I'm divorcing and hoping to meet a new husband one day so -more change! It's always been natural to me to live separately from original family. I'm adopted and we moved a lot with military when I was a child and rarely saw grandparents....maybe that's why.

Where I live now most people live near their family for their whole lives. I've heard many people say. 'I thought of doing ___but could I never leave my family". I've never looked at things that way.