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I've noticed, over the course of my lifetime, that I often favor "blood relatives" over my in-laws. This is the case even when, in my rather large extended family, I don't know if the person is actually related to me or not until years after meeting them.
Case in point: I can't stand one of my aunts. In fact, I think a lot of people in my family don't really like her but put up with it because "she's family". I avoid her whenever possible, something some relatives (including her sons, with whom I share a friendship) have begun to notice. My excuse is that while my uncle decided to make her family, I did not, and have no obligation to please her other than to keep my uncle from gettting upset.
I wonder if it's something from my living in the south growing up, where some bloodlines are still thought of as more important than others. I know more than one family that did not allow a wedding to take place because either the bride or the groom wasn't up to the standards of the rest of the family. A few have even threatened to completely cut off a couple if they ever have children. But this doesn't explain the ones whom I didn't know if they were related until much later.
Now: I have no problem with my uncle marrying whomever he wishes. But I simply don't feel she's "one of the family". Maybe because I think she has the all the class of a dead cat, maybe not.
This bothers me because it's not like they're lesser people simply because they don't share a similar genetic code with me. Some of them (well, a lot of them, really) are really pleasant people, people that I get along with, but for some reason I still favor my genetic brothers and sisters. What gives? Am I an ass? Is it plausible that I feel that family members have been around longer, and have shared experiences with me that others have not, and therefore I feel closer to blood relatives? Or does that sound like rationalizing? |
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