Effect of geography on relationships?

Years ago, I moved way far from where I originally grew up. It seems like my relatives act like I don't exist. I try to understand that I must seem less important in their lives when I am thousands of miles away and not there to attend lots of functions. (birthday parties, holiday dinners, etc.)

I tended to go back to visit about once every 18 months, but have not visited in over 2 and 1/2 years. Health and finances have prevented that. I would appreciate to get phone calls from my sisters once in a while, but I've just about given up. I actually get nice letters, now and then, from more distant family members - cousins, etc. I feel really hurt by my sisters, but wonder if I'm expecting too much. When I've gone back over the past 10 years, or so, I've found that cousins make more of an effort to get together with me than these 2 sisters do. Growing up, we were real close. That's gone now. I'm feeling rejected when the only time we talk is if I call them. I don't want to bother them, if they'ld rather not be bothered.

I wonder if others have found that geographic separation withers away affection.

I think that is true. In my experience it's true with relatives and friends. For me, no matter how hard I tried the other person could not be bothered.

Rose,
I think that long-distance relationships of any sort are hard to maintain. As human beings we tend to be more concerned with what is happening in our immediate area and to those immediately around us. We also communicate so much in our body language and facial expressions that when those areas of communication are lost we don't feel so close to the person as we did.

Also a lot of our day-to-day chit-chat is about trivial things. If you were there, I'm sure you'd be hearing all about what the neighbours are up to, or how their children stubbed their toes or all sorts of small things. Your sisters are probably thinking "why would she want to know those things from all those miles away?". Your relationship with your cousins has always been different from your relationship with your sisters, so they're used to having a long-distance relationship with you and have kept that up.

Try not to feel rejected by your sisters. I'm sure they still love you but have busy lives of their own and are probably so wrapped up that it's difficult for them to find the time to sit down and pick up the phone.

Thanks for the feedback. It is true about people feeling more easily connected when they are near each other. I do try to understand that.

One of my sisters has a lot of problems and I wish I were nearer to her to help her. My other sister has a good life. She has distanced herself from the rest of us. That seems to be how she wants it. I'll never fully understand what led to that. I guess I just have to accept that things are as they are.

I have three brothers, one of which lives "near" me and the other two in California and Hawaii.

I think different ages and stages in one's life make a difference. I know I was closer to the brother in Virginia for a few years but right now, I'm almost closer to the one in California. The one in Hawaii has separated himself from the rest of us kind of like your sister. My stepsister, who is even physically closer than my close brother, I use to see on some holidays but that has gone now too.

I think, like friendships, we have to work at family relationships when we're grown or they just kind of fall apart like long-distance friendships tend to do. I have really good friends from high school and even later, one of whom lives where my closer brother does but I never see them, rarely get emails or snail mails from them, etc. If we contact one another on Facebook or something there's always that, "We have to get together this year!" message around Christmas/New Years, etc.

I think it can be hard to manage one's own life and immediate contacts and juggling distant relatives; I have a 92 year old aunt I love dearly who is probably partially responsible for this particular bout of insomnia where I get up at 3:30 and am posting on PC here at 5:00? She called my cell phone about 4 weeks ago when I was in Florida on vacation, at a bar and had to go outside to answer but she could not hear me and we ended up hanging up but only after she was telling me she had just gotten out of the hospital. Have I called or written her back? No. I have difficulty doing phones, especially with her (she's mostly deaf but critical about how one speaks, it's the speaker's fault she can't hear :-) and just don't get around to writing her, though I was pretty good at that in the past. But what is there to say? My life isn't that exciting that there's much to talk about with many people but my friends here or my husband? I think everyone's life is pretty much like that so when we get long distance it places even more burdens on us for maintaining any sort of relationship.

Thanks, Perna. I think we gravitate toward people who help us feel good about ourselves. Your aunt is critical. Also, she's unrealistic about what to expect on the phone. It doesn't sound like she exudes warmth. She called to tell you she had been through some difficulty in her life. She interrupted your evening in way that did not enhance your life. I think I see why calling her back, or writing her, might seem like a tedious chore.

I felt that way about my own parents when they were alive 2000 miles away. I knew I had to call them on Christmas eve. All that day I would dread it. I knew my mother would ask how I was doing and interrogate me to see how I might be screwing up. I knew my father would yak and yak about himself and ask me nothing to show sincere interest in me. He'ld slip in some oblique insult toward my boyfriend. Who needs that? Who wants to be subjected to that? Not I. No one does. Yet, I miss them now that they are gone. I tend to remember the good things . . . the great holiday dinners they put on. I look back through rose colored glasses. Yet, part of the reason I was willing to move so far away was because there was a lot that I didn't mind distancing myself from.

It also meant there was not much help that I gave them when they got older and needed help. One of my sister was there to give the help needed. She went to the doctor's appointments, took my mother shopping, etc. It wasn't heavy duty caregiving, but it was of enough importance that they valued her for it. They left her most of what they had . . . the house, its contents, some financial assets. I truly felt that I relinquished claims on that stuff when I went far away. I figured that was the trade-off. I encouraged my father to give my sister P.O.A.

None-the-less, I was left something (financial) that I thought was nice. But all heck broke lose when it was made known that my two other siblings were left nothing. They had been problem children who, when growing up, caused my parents some grief. It seems that my parents' plan was to settle all those scores with a spiteful will. Only my sister who was POA knew what was coming after the second funeral.

She has been a person of such character that she has given the two "disinherited" sibs generously out of what she inherited. Still, as most people can probably imagine, nothing she does will seem right to them. I have 3 sibs, no 2 of whom speak to each other. The POA sister, accused me of encouraging the other two to be mad at her. Believe me, they needed no encouragement from me. Each got a lawyer - the real pros at fomenting ill will. That was futile for these sibs, as was no surprise to me. They got what the "endowed" sister chose to share. Of course, in their eyes, they got short-changed. What was really wrong, as I saw it, was that my "endowed" sister participated in the scheme to emotionally "sock it" to the two dispossessed kids. And she allowed herself to be used as a lackey. Both parents passed away with no one knowing what the will said. "Disinherited" sis was at the bedside of each parent, oblivious to how badly she was regarded by each of them. I thought the whole thing stank. I told as much to POA sis.

So I guess I know why POA sis is polite to me, but that's all. She knows I don't think much of what she participated in. (Though I'm impressed as all get-out at how she has given to the other two.) People hate criticism, as I hated it. Even when it's unspoken. POA sis was cold toward me prior to the making public of the will. I guess, she knows my values and foresaw that I would be horrified.

So my parents orchestrated that their children would have animosity for each other. I wish they had died penniless, instead. That's how my grandparents all died. My aunts and uncles survived with warmth for each other. I wish I had that. Never having had children, I so wish I had that. My heart is broken.

My two "disinherited" sibs, whom I've treated with kindness and generosity, now treat me with resentment . . . not that they have much to do with me. It's not jealousy over money. (I didn't get enough to cause that, and I gave freely.) I guess they are mad that I was "loved" and that they, in the end, were not. Actually, growing up, it was always I who received the lion's share of my parents' praise, esteem and attention. That's probably got something to do with all this. I can't change how we grew up. Always, I've tried to acknowledge whatever hurt I knew they had felt over not being of such favored status. I tried to make up to them for what attention they seemed to lack from our parents. I could not. That is not doable.

This has gotten off the topic of "geographical" distance. I guess I've gotten to what seems the heart of what grieves me. I have cried typing this. I get suicidal thinking about it. As the child appropriated to meet my parents' emotional needs, I did not have a normal childhood. Growing up, I did not have friends, as my sibs all did. All I had was them, my sibs - my "always" friends . . . now, my "never again" friends.

Surely, I am not the only person to whom this sort of thing has happened. Somehow, I suppose, one is supposed to get over it. It seems that I am not doing so, but falling into deepening despair. I keep wishing for those days when it seemed that there was enough love going around for everyone, and we did have fun all of us together. My world is broken and I can't fix it.