It's easy for someone to say that family comes first when their family is seemingly normal. But for those who have family members who aren't the easiest to get along with, have committed crimes, or are just straight-up terrible, the task to love family no matter what gets harder. Here, we look at people who can't stand a member of their family and why.
(Comments have been edited for clarity)
Uncle In Prison
“My whole family disowned my uncle Gus. He violated my aunt and my cousin, and he’s been in prison for awhile. But, he’s out now. Nobody has seen him since before he went to prison the first time.
The last time I was around him, I was 4 years old and running around my house when he exclaimed, ‘She looks just like her auntie!’ My dad threw him out of the house.
The second time he went to prison was because he was catfishing a 14-year-old girl online. His wife was in on it, too. The girl would call his house and his wife would answer, pretending to be his mom.
We don’t talk about him.”
“He’s On His Own”
“We have a killer in our family. He’s in jail until 2025. There was none of that, ‘he’s an innocent man,’ stuff among us. No one has gone to visit him at all. When he gets out, he’s on his own.”
The Mother-In-Law
“My mother-in-law is an awful woman.
She puts up the ‘Born Again Christian’ front to the public. However, she is one manipulative and extremely sneaky woman. Behind closed doors, she is a terror. She is emotionally, physically, verbally, and spiritually abusive to any and all who cross her (especially her children and husband). The whole family is unfortunately so afraid of her that not many try to stand up to her anymore. She pits the children against one another and family against one another for sport by telling lies. She gets a rise out of causing people pain and feeds off of drama.
The past year it came out that she was stealing money from her handicapped father who has dementia. Not just pocket money, but thousands and thousands of dollars. After we discovered this, more and more things came out about what she has done over the years and has currently been doing. It just isn’t good.”
Narcissistic Mothers Are Barely Mothers At All
“My mom is a narcissistic, awful woman.
She literally does anything she can for attention (she faked cancer once) and doesn’t care about seeing her children or grandchildren.
She kicked my sister out when she was 15. I moved out when I was 16, and my brother was kicked out at 15, too. My grandmother absolutely despises her and I find great pleasure in knowing my grandmother wrote her out of her will because I know that’s all my mum is interested in. God forbid the day my grandmother passes, but if I had zero morals and didn’t love my grandmother as much I do, I would literally burn my inheritance in front of my mom (Joker style), just to watch her squirm.”
Money Is More Important To Their Aunt Than Anything
“My aunt on my father’s side is the worst.
She has always acted superior to the rest of the family because she was ‘richer’ than the rest of us. She lived in an exclusive area, sent her kids to the very best private schools, went on month-long overseas trips every year, drove expensive SUVs, had rich friends who also looked down on my dad because he lived out in the suburbs, and didn’t spend $100k/year on school fees.
The thing is, she wasn’t ‘richer’ at all, just more reckless with her money. She burnt through all her income and savings in keeping up appearances and pretending to be something she was not. Now she’s desperately begging my dad for financial advice, as she has 20+ years to live with no money. While my dad, who lived well within his means and saved carefully, has made our family financially free and clear for the rest of their lives.
She lives in a tiny, one bedroom apartment just to say she’s in a rich suburb. My dad advised her to sell up, buy some nice place out in the suburbs, live carefully within her means, and she’d have plenty to tide her over. She refused, of course, because she doesn’t want to live with the ‘plebs’ more than five kilometers from the city.”
Her Addiction Made Her Bad Habits So Much Worse
“I have the worst aunt in the world. I don’t even know how people like her exist and don’t end up publically executed. I’m just gonna make a list of all the things she’s done.
For starters, she’s a manipulative addict.
She also stole my cousin’s car at her own mother’s funeral. She ended up halfway across the country in prison and my cousin had to go pick up the car from, like, six states away.
Also, you know that thing where a parent says, ‘Oh, hey. I’m gonna grab a pack of smokes,’ and never come back? She did that three different times. The last time she left us alone in an apartment (my cousins and I were about 10 at the time) for about two days until my dad showed up. She disconnected the phone so we couldn’t get calls.
She never took care of any of her kids. My dad ended up doing that for her.
She got involved in some heavy substance abuse while at least two of her kids were in the womb.
She has also stolen something from every one of my family members. Credit cards, cars, cash, you name it.
She has gotten multiple family members evicted out of spite (usually by planting illegal substances in people’s apartments or houses and calling the landlords or cops).
This one is by far the worst, though. She got my cousin’s dad murdered over illegal substances. She ‘borrowed’ over $10K worth of illegal substance. She then blamed it on him. The dealer showed up, tied him to a chair, and shot him up until he died. They just dumped his body in a parking lot. From what I heard, that guy was an extremely nice guy who just fell in love with the wrong woman. He was a great father. Here’s where it gets messed up, though. IT TURNS OUT THE DEALER IS THE REAL FATHER OF MY COUSIN. He didn’t find that out until we were well into our 20s.
My aunt is the kind of person who will destroy lives for no apparent reason. This lady has done so much more than that. Her son died in a motorcycle accident and she was up at the casket, taking pictures of his corpse. When he was young, she basically dropped him off after a couple months at his grandparents’ house for them to care for. She didn’t even know him.”
Walking Out On A Family
“My dad walked out on me and my mom when I was 10. He tried to patch things up with me, but he made me feel terrible.
When I was 22, he randomly texted me by getting my number from my mom. He asked to hang out just to catch up, I guess. We met at a sports bar, watched football, and he asked me to hang out again at his house that weekend. I thought, ‘Sure. Forgive and forget kinda thing.’
I got to his house and he had two kids. One was 17 and the other one 15. He also had a wife who he’d been married to for 18 years. I have never felt as bad in my entire life as I did when I realized that he left our ‘family’ to start a new one.”
He Didn’t Follow The Family Path
“Coming from a family of scientists with research-based careers (myself soon to be included), my uncle Thomas was easily the most despised in the family.
Uncle Thomas was by far, at least in my eyes, the best member of this family. But, God forbid I ever let that slip. While the rest of my family’s lives were planned out from kindergarten to a completed masters or (preferably) a doctorate, Uncle Thomas shot off the curve before he even finished high school. He barely passed and almost had to drop out to avoid failing. He never planned on going on to tertiary education. He wanted to become a musician, so he did.
I’m not going to exaggerate and say he became famous because he didn’t. He was a relatively well-known, but entirely local artist. He worked an administrative job in an office to support himself, never impinged on anyone else and raised two children with his high school sweetheart/wife in a family that was filled with love, laughter, and respect.
He didn’t have any great accolades to his name, he never had money pouring into his accounts, he never had extra letters added to the end of his name, and my family, especially his parents who stressed education above almost everything else, grew to despise him for it. Funnily enough, I don’t think the rift was even because he didn’t want an education. I think it was because, at least to them, they had failed him as parents by letting him get to where he was and wanted to distance themselves and forget about it. He _never _said a bad word about them, but they still treated him like a second-class citizen who was beneath them. They tried to distance themselves from him as much as they could. He had to ask ahead to make sure that he and his family wouldn’t be turned away from a Christmas lunch and was always judged, but he never showed how much it hurt him.
He was always the same happy, caring man that would laugh with the kids or play music for us to cheer us up. He showed me that there was more to life than words on a page, or jumping from one stepping stone to the next.
I lost him a few years ago. Don’t drink and drive.”
He Gambles Everything Away
“My uncle is basically the black sheep of the family.
He’s a gambler who still lives with his mother and he’s well into his 50s. He doesn’t have a job and he’s divorced. He left his wife because of his gambling. He even stole money from the family and tried to lie about it.
You’d think that his mother would have thrown him out decades ago, but that would have taught him to be responsible. Why would she do that instead of coddling him?”
His Perfect Student Act Fell Apart When The Family Learned His Secret
“Me. I’m the most despised person in the family.
I was the first person in my family to go to college, go to graduate school, or have a chance to get out of the rut of our normal existence I guess.
My younger cousins were told, ‘You need to be like him. He’s going places.’ I’d get phone calls and e-mails from them to talk about their problems, help them with homework, and things like that. They even applied for the school I went to because of the, ‘I want to be like you’ mentality.
On the other hand, my older cousins – even one aunt – would call me for advice on their breakups or divorce. One called me for legal advice once when he got caught doing some stupid things.
At my graduation, there were probably fifty people who came from all across the country. They were proud, you know? Someone was finally a success.
Then they found out I was an addict. They also found out that I sold illegal substances to pay for school. You know, the whole thing. It’s not like my story is rare.
Almost overnight, the phone calls and e-mails stopped. Almost everyone unfriended me on Facebook. The only people who’d still talk to me were my mom, dad, and grandmother.
At my father’s funeral, none of them would talk to me or even really look at me.
That was almost a decade ago. Since then I’ve talked to exactly two of the people from my extended family.”
Uncle Carl Was Always In Trouble With The Law
“I’ve got this one uncle, let’s call him Carl.
Carl was disturbed from a young age. The first time he was put in charge of babysitting his little sister (my mother), he went and got his dad’s weapon. He then threw open my mom’s door (which doesn’t lock), held up the weapon, and said, ‘One of us will be dead in the morning.’
Here’s Carl in a nutshell:
Carl got a girl pregnant in high school, about the time he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The girl took in this information and terminated the pregnancy. Carl flew into a rage and tried to kill the girl. He was arrested and released. He was about 17 years old.
He also began believing it was somehow his family’s doing, and became vitriolic, attacking and accusing them all of being ‘out to get him’ by requesting he take his pills. He frequently ran away from home, returning in tattered clothing they’d never seen before, requesting money.
He also became a raging pro-life activist, stalking and attempting to kill major pro-choice advocates. The biggest of these was Hillary Clinton. He made an actual attempt on her life.
Because of all this, he was incarcerated again. Upon release, he was tailed by Secret Service whenever he got within city-range of Hillary Clinton. So they set an actual tail on the paranoid guy who always thinks he’s being followed.
The last I saw Carl was when my mother finally agreed to meet with him, in a safe public location, near a hospital and a police department, to discuss whatever new trouble he’d gotten himself in. Carl showed up with no teeth. To this day we have no idea what happened, but all of his teeth are gone.”
Aunt Leaves The Family In The Dust
“My uncle’s ex-wife is easily one of the most hated people in my family. In reality, my uncle too.
The ex-wife was 17 years his junior and they met while he was working in Germany. When they married, she seemed like the sweetest person, very helpful and fair.
A few years later they had their first daughter. Things really began to take a dip from that point. They would appear at our house near dinnertime and expect to be fed (eventually they learned that we would have salmon on Thursday nights and would come on that night) and they would ‘borrow’ my sister’s clothing and toys and never return them. Once, we all went camping. It was them three, my family, and my grandparents (unrelated to my uncle). They left the baby in my grandmother’s care, made my mother cook and clean for them, and spent the weekend doing whatever they wanted. They didn’t pay for their accommodation either.
The ex-wife once watched her daughter draw all over our new television while smirking like a cartoon villain.
They put in a third of the money for my grandmother’s house along with my other uncle. However, it came out in conversation that they expected, upon my grandmother’s death, to get half the value of the house. We moved my Nana out of that situation pretty quickly.
Pretty much their gifting MO was to go halvesies in things and then claim they bought it alone. My grandmother’s puppy was one of these cases, as well as her car and her television. Nana still gushes about how generous they were.
Her daughter and my sister were best friends and were only a few months apart in age. One day, they came over for dinner and she said in passing, ‘Oh, tomorrow Maria, Anna, and I must go to Germany to do paperwork. But, don’t worry. We will come back in a week. We don’t even need to say goodbye.’ That was seven years ago and we never saw them again.
My uncle sold all his things in Australia and moved to Germany with her. He looked after the daughters while she studied in Italy and paid for her studies.
As it turned out, she’d been cheating on him with various coworkers since they were married. She told the whole village he was physically abusive and she was scared of him (most of the village didn’t buy it, as her family is crazy).
She still won’t let him bring the girls to Australia to visit their 90-year-old grandmother. She also convinced the youngest that her daddy’s house is scary.
I probably haven’t given a strong enough argument for her being the worst, but she really is.
Jekyll And Hyde
“My grandmother is a manic depressive with a drinking problem. She is in a mental hospital right now, but she would often get wasted on Christmas and start yelling at everyone while we opened presents, before passing out.
When she was sober, she was like any other nice grandma. When she was wasted, she was unlike anyone I’ve ever seen, almost like she was possessed. She would say the meanest things and exploit your insecurities and mistakes. She would start fights with my younger sister when she was just a little kid. However, she absolutely adored me so she wouldn’t normally target me.
Though, once she got plowed and insulted me for no reason. Another time she said I was fat and lazy when I was just visiting on holiday break from college. I had been working my butt off while going to school, so that hurt.
She used to live with her sister but was basically kicked out because she would abuse her. They were both elderly, but my grandma is surprisingly strong and less fragile. I still feel love for who she was when she was sober, but it’s really her own fault for where she is now.
Irresponsible Younger Brother
“My younger brother is horrible.
The current problem we have with him is still unresolved. He was texting and driving in a truck my parents bought for him and hit a construction worker on the side of the road. He lied to the cops in the police report, implicating my other brother who had nothing to do with it. The guy he hit lived, but he had to have multiple surgeries, is messed up for life, and is suing my parents and other brother. When my parents got the letter telling them they were getting sued and saw how different the police report was from the story he told us, they asked him about it. He flipped out on my mom, making her cry, and claimed it was everyone on the planet’s fault but his that this happened. In the same breath, he demanded they pay his rent for his apartment. When asked where all his money goes, he tells them he is saving for one of his numerous lavish vacations he takes every year and that is why he can’t afford rent.
I could tell stories for days about how much of an idiot he is.”
Not Forgiving A “Grandfather”
“My grandfather is the worst member of the family. Well, he’s not my real grandfather, but my dad’s step-dad. He is the reason my family broke apart when my dad was a kid and I now have an entire family I know almost nothing about.
My dad was nine and had two younger siblings, a brother, and a sister. He and his real dad went on a long holiday. During this time, his mum (my grandma) took in a lodger at her house and they fell in love. So when my dad and his dad returned, she wanted a divorce. Both the lodger and my dad’s dad had the same name. My grandma was asked by all her brothers who she wanted to be with. She said Y and they were all relieved until they realized she meant the lodger she fell in love with, not her husband. There was a huge fight and she and the lodger got married, fled to the Netherlands for a few years with their daughter (my aunt), and left my dad and his brother at a relative’s place.
This changed everything. My dad lost his real father and siblings pretty much overnight. My ‘real’ grandad left, never came back, and never came back for his kids. My dad and his brother had been super close but grew apart. The lodger, his now-step-dad, loved the brother and sister, but not my father. He was deemed ‘too stubborn’ and ‘like his father’ for his own good. Cue the years of physical and mental abuse. My grandma was weak-minded and she did nothing to stop it at first.
Enter my mum in the early ’90s. My grandma, dad’s stepdad, and my aunt lived next door to my parents (she married late). My mum wasn’t spared from the abuse either. The step-dad would take all my dad’s wages and leave him with a small amount, which became more difficult when my mum became pregnant with me. He slapped my mum when he found out she was pregnant with me, telling her, ‘How dare you get pregnant?! You don’t even have the status to raise a child!’ My parents raised me anyway despite difficulties (I was born hard of hearing and had learning difficulties as a child) and had my brother, too.
My grandma was weak, but I know she always loved me and my brother. When I was 10, we moved to a different area of the city. My ‘grandad’ wanted to continue taking my dad’s wages, but Dad wouldn’t stand for it anymore. He had two kids to raise, household expenses, and an expensive mortgage to pay. It led to a fight but my parents had finally broken free.
I think my grandma and my dad suffered the most. My grandma started regretting her decision to marry my ‘grandad,’ especially in the later years of her life. She became addicted to painkillers and eventually a brain tumor developed (not sure what caused it). She was regretting her decision the most at this point and believed it was her fault my dad had suffered so much. She showed my family a lot of love. She survived the first time, but the tumor came back and she passed away in 2008. It makes me incredibly sad that she died with such a huge regret. It was also one of the only two times my dad cried.
My ‘grandad’ isn’t abusive anymore. He’s that unwanted guest who overstays their welcome and bites your head off with gossip and just annoys everyone.
I don’t like him at all. Not after all he’s done. I never met my real grandad because of him. The only thing that stops me hating his guts is that despite everything, he truly loved my grandma. He cared for her and loved her immensely after she became disabled from cancer. He did everything for her. He fed her, cleaned her, everything. She was completely bedridden for the last year of her life. I don’t doubt his love for her.”
