Thanks for the details vj... it makes more sense now!

I'd be feeling hurt too, that they hadn't confirmed the time with you ahead of time. Although on the bright side, they valued your opinion and invited your parents! If only they'd remembered to tell you.... (I would guess that they figured you knew roughly the right time based on the conversation, and maybe they didn't have an exact time and figured that everyone would just get ready in the morning and then head out??? That's how my family and extended family works... it's always a bit chaotic like that but it lets everyone get ready at their own pace) ((keep in mind, I understand how and why you were feeling hurt and stressed out, I don't like last minute things either, nor feeling left out of the loop))

I totally get not wanting to risk saying rude things while drunk, so I get why you didn't go to dinner that night. Did you ignore them knocking on the door?? I would have been really upset if I had been your sisters, and I'm sure you would have been really upset if you went to someone's house, knew they were home, and they didn't come to the door. They couldn't have known that you had been drinking - did you let them know that later and that that was why you didn't come to the door?

I think I can see both sides of this situation... and as I do not know your family at ALL I am running on the hopeful assumption that they aren't total jerkface narcissists and hope that maybe they're a fairly normal (if inconsiderate) lot. You seem to need more of a routine than the rest of your family does, and your family is a bit more last-minute in their planning. Is it always like that? If so.... I would recommend trying to let the need for control go.

(What a hard thing to do right?! I'm so bad at it myself!) My friends (yeah, not family, but that's too complicated for a story) are notoriously people who run late. I don't know why it is, but I befriend a LOT of perpetually late people - when I am a perpetually early person and FEEL paniced and late if I'm ten minutes EARLY to somewhere! I was constantly being upset and hurt by their various latenesses, because it's really inconsiderate to leave someone waiting - it was just like they were showing me every single time that my time and life was not as valuable as theirs was.

So I had a choice: either make some adjustments to myself, or end all those friendships. There's absolutely no way I could change them, and they would actually get mad at me if I was angry and upset at them! So.... I chose to change my own expectations. This causes them to be upset sometimes, but I let those friends know that I no longer trusted their sorry butts and KNOW that they're going to be disappointing and rude... so I was adjusting my routines to cater to their faults. I was pretty upfront about it, because I wasn't able to let go of the fact that really, they WERE consistently inconsiderate.

My way of adjusting? If I wanted to see them at 5:30, I'd say to meet me at X for 5pm. I wouldn't even plan on arriving until about 5:20. No longer cared if they got there before me or not, and in fact it did happen a few times where my friends would beat me to somewhere - and guess what? They would be upset that I wasn't already there! My responses were "Well... it's not like I haven't had to wait hours for you, and I figured that you can start dealing with that end."

I would also plan out locations to meet that had somewhere where I'd be perfectly happy to sit and read for a while, and then I'd take a book. Because at least then when they were late, I wouldn't be having to stand around feeling like an idiot.

But - the 'moral' of the story is - I had to let go of all expectations that they would act in a considerate manner. So in a way, I had to think a lot less of them. But it allowed me to maintain a friendship - and by now I can usually laugh it off and I don't expect ANYONE to ever be on time.

Maybe you could start trying to do that? If your family makes tentative plans again... and they aren't considerate enough to let you know the exact details (or they haven't GOT the exact details, or think you know them already)... well, just get ready for the day right away. If you had other things to do that day, do them earlier on. If that means that you're out running errands when they're finally ready to go - oh well for them! They'll just have to wait for you.

I hope that you start to feel better about it though...