S/O club membership ...I am more than willing to share...

Unfortunately, both my parents and my dh's parents were drama queens. So... lots of drama. Lots of "not talking to you because..." times (oh the blessed silence). My ILs told us on a regular basis that we were going to hell because my dh was not adhering to strict Catholic doctrine (not that they did either, but for some reason, my dh was supposed to. Logic? Went missing a long time prior.) And 99% of the drama they caused was over the most stupid stuff. I mean, honestly, they were looking for drama. My parents and MIL went to their deathbeds not changing.


To our shock, my FIL -- who seemed like the most rigid, dogmatic, jerk ever, the biggest drama queen of the four -- has mellowed and grown as he's aged, especially since remarrying a woman who encourages him to consider issues from other people's points of view. That idea had never occurred to him and now that it has, he has become much more open and much less prone to drama. He even apologized to me not long ago for some of the horrible crap he and his first wife put me through (too little, too late, but I apprciate the effort).

Only one child in the combined total of our two families took after those drama queens. One of my SILs. She is actually worse than all four of them combined. Her youngest is a carbon copy of her. Get the two of them together and the drama is through the roof. Even my FIL can't take their drama. My version of hell would be to get stuck in the same room with both of them for more than 5 minutes. Luckily for us, she has spent the vast majority of the last 35+ years manufacturing reasons to not speak with us, so we generally avoid spending time with her. 

That's how our family is too. We are varied in our political and religious beliefs but we all love and respect each other. We don't believe our views are to be put upon anyone else. They are ours alone. Although even my Christian family members are for equal rights for everyone. Because it isn't any of their business. Nor does it affect them in anyway shape or form. I'm very blessed.

My family is completely normal. It's all sunshine, rainbows, puppies, and unicorns. It's my husband's family that has some crazy people

I'm fortunate that basically all the members of my family are the type of Christians who understand that God is the only one who decides who goes to heaven and who doesn't so none of that in your face type of stuff. However, I do have this one sister-in-law who is very pious and holier than thou who thinks she's the best Christian ever. Most of dh's family do not like her. Most of the members of her church do not like her. Her children avoid her like the plague.

We are lucky enough to be very average too  We have one member of DH's family that we don't speak with but she speaks to the rest of his family and they understand why we choose not to have anything to do with her any more. The effort they put, in despite her behaviour, is mainly for the sake of her children.

Other than that we all just get along just fine

I am super lucky that both my family and my husband's families are low on drama. Not to say totally drama-free, because we are all human and sometimes, things do crop up. But we don't hold grudges and take sides and drag out or inflate disagreements. We solve them and move on.

We just got back from a long weekend with DH's extended family reunion - 4 days of about 40 of us just hanging out in a tiny town with nothing to do but spend time together. And it is glorious. This is the 15th year of the get together and every year, it's one of our most anticipated weekends.

And my side of the family chooses to go on a family vacation together every other summer and we all stay in the same house together! All 13 of us! We love it. So, obviously, we get along well.

DH and I were just talking this weekend about how lucky we are that we have families we actually *like* and want to spend time with. I wish everyone could have that.