Do you love your cousins?

41 comments

1. I mean…depends on if you know them well and are close to them. Otherwise they’re just people who happen to be related to you.

2. I don’t. But that’s just my particular case. I guess it might be very individual.

   So, in my case, they’re more like distant family to me, we meet quite seldom, once in a big while. I haven’t grown attached to them especially because my extended family has always been very scattered and did not visit themselves.

   So, I do love my cat and I don’t love my cousins.

3. I’ve met my cousins (4 out of 4) once in over twenty five years . We live 100km apart. We used to be closer before we were adults but grew up 400km apart so we only saw each other a couple of times a year when we went there for a couple of days each time.

   Growing up having no other reference i thought cousins was sownthing that you weren’t at all close with. None of my friends ever talked about their cousins.

   I have no feelings about my cousins.

4. We have no nedative feelings, it’s fun when we meet, we were together a lot as children, but we don’t meet often, it was… well more than half a year for sure. So really, nothing you can call love, more or less “used to be friends”.

5. I like my cousins but outside of social media I’m in regular contact with only one and that’s only because he’s my occasional employer. I’m probably a very unemotional person but I can’t really say that I even love my aunts and uncles even though they’re mostly very nice people.

6. My cousin lives 540 km away. I haven’t seen her in years and even when we were kids I saw her once a year. We never were close so no I wouldn’t say I love her, but I would care if she got ill or something.

   In general I do not use the word “love” for family.

7. Some of them. Some others are more distant. One I *hate*.

8. I wouldn’t use the word “love”, makes me think of Alabama lol. But we hang out atleast once a week and travel together for about a month every year. I am about as close to them as I am to my sister.

9. One of my cousins is like a sister to me. We are close and always make sure to visit one another once in a while.

   She was my biggest ally when my disastrous coming out happened (someone spilled the beans to my family before I had a chance). She made sure that they are cool with it and went on lecturing them about that “gay is ok” and all that. Couldn’t be more grateful for her.

   My other cousins are more like friends I see once or twice a year and we enjoy each other’s company but it’s not anything special.

10. One cousin I only met once in my life, when I was four. The other I’d see more as a child, but he didn’t live in Denmark for much of my childhood and now live in Australia. I keep in touch, write birthday messages for him and his kids, stayed with him for a couple of days when I was in Oz years ago. But I still don’t know him well enough to love him.
    Also dont think family = love, lots of people dont love their siblings or parents. No one are intitled to your loved. I dont love my mum, she is a terrible person who treats eveyone around her (expect my brother) as shit. Lots of horrible people have kids or siblings, no one owes them love.

11. I don’t know my extended family on my mother’s side, they live very far away. On my father’s side, only have one cousin that’s actually related to me, and two from the step sister of my dad. I didn’t see them in years, and we live relatively close, like within a km. I’m happy I don’t see them, they’re trash. My only blood related cousin lived on a farm in a neighbouring village. I see her once or twice a year. She isn’t much better, though. My father’s side of the family is terrible, I don’t even talk to them. If I see them on the street, we say hi and hurry away.

12. Yes I love both my cousins ant the Second cousins that i Know personally.

13. I’m not particularly close to my cousins. I get on with most of them but they’re hardly a sibling-level relationship for me.

14. No. I see all of them maybe twice a year, they’re so much older than me that we didn’t grow up together, and I’m not very close to my aunts and uncles either.

15. I haven’t seen my cousins in years. I don’t even remember the last time. I definitely would not consider them close family.

16. My mum was the youngest of 8, so I have many cousins who are spread out over a wide age range. So my oldest cousin is only 7 years younger than my mum, so he’s very close with her. I am mainly close with the children of my youngest aunt, as we are the same age, and we had many sleepover with eacht other. The main bulk of cousins I see once a year with new year, although I have not seen most of them with covid. I’d like to strengthen this bond a little bit more though, and we have been talking more on social media.

    On my dads side, my family lived very far away (Houston, China,…) and we did not have money to ever visit them. They would come over from time to time but it was hard to keep in contact especially growing up without social media.
    So yeah, too many cousins to keep up and meet frequently. But if someone is in a pickle, we can always call anyone and they will come to help. You’ll always have someone to help you move or sleep on their couch if you have a bad break up or something.

17. Nah. I like them and wish them every happiness. But we saw eachother about once a year growing up and now it’s more like once every 4 years (mainly weddings or funerals) so I just don’t know them very well. I have friends I would put first and they no doubt feel the same way about me and my sister.

18. Nah. I have 4, two are younger boys I don’t have much in common with. We lived our childhoods 150-200km apart and met up only for birthdays and such. When I was 13 we left to China for a few years and would come around only twice per year. At the same time my older 2 cousins got boyfriend’s and their parents let them go and see their friends rather than spend time with us. Which really pissed me off. It was literally twice a year and we lived on the other side of the globe? You could have suffered through.

    I am having a wedding (a rather small one) this year and neither me or my fiancee are inviting our cousins. We don’t really even talk. I’m not excluding 6 people who do care about me to fit them and couple of their partners.

    I am inviting my mom’s cousins. I like them far more as people and they’ve always showed up for everything. One is only 7 years older than myself.

19. I have cordial relationships with them but we are not close at all.

    We grew up far apart and never really had occasions to get closer and now we are adults and all went our own ways and so we just don’t really feel the need to get close.

20. One first cousin is dead, the other two have vanished. I became friend with a second cousin. We are really close and speak weekly. What is interesting in the story is that our mothers who were first cousins were very close too. But my second cousin and I were not friends for many years, as she is 10 years older than me. As a teen and young person, I was close to her brother who is of my age. But after we met again, twenty years ago, we became friends. I don’t know anyone who has a BFF in the person of a second cousin. We joke that we inherited our mothers’ close friendship.

21. Depends on what you mean by love – I don’t quite know if it describes it. I care for my cousins, enjoy their company, and would always help them, if they are in real trouble, but I have friends that I am closer to than them and care for more

22. I have 2 whole cousins, one is a huge cunt that I could go without ever seeing again. The other is a slightly exhausting but sweet kid (turning 7 in April) but she lives like 1000km away so we don’t really have a lot of contact.
    So no, not really.

23. I have only 2 cousins, one of them is my age, the other is 4 years younger (her sister) and they live in my city. Since I’ve never met my father’s siblings, I don’t even know them. I met the first one years ago but honestly we didn’t talk that much and now I don’t know what she’s doing in her life. The latter, ehm I don’t even know how she looks like.

24. I think you didn’t take into account distance.

    Maybe you live/lived in the same city as your cousins and saw them frequently as children, because your parents spent time together. So you see them more like siblings.

    That’s not always the case.

    In my family, I’m close to the much younger cousin who lived in the same city and I saw once a week. But not to my 5 other cousins who were +1000km away and I saw twice a year.

25. I don’t get it why you’re so shaken by that. And don’t even start me on “it’s like saying you don’t love your brother”. Um, does anyone live in the same house as their cousins? No? Alrighty then. In my case, all of my cousins are pretty much the distant family, even though my aunt’s family lives in the same town. I’ll explain everything.

    I didn’t grow up with my cousins. All of my cousins are too old to relate to. Some are in fact old enough that I might as well try relating to their children. For example my uncle’s son is old enough that he had a daughter when I was like 8 years old. Tell me, how can I relate to someone who’s that older than me? This is already enough to feel distant to them.

    My aunt’s family lives in the same town, as I said, but we didn’t meet often enough. Meeting other relatives happened once in a big while or during weddings or funerals. I don’t even know half of them even though they might have heard about me.

    Now, here comes the fun part. My aunt’s family is right-wing. They vote for the political party we hate, some of them are catholic fanatics (this a red flag which is redder than Republican Texas) and some of them (duh, most of them if not everyone) don’t respect the LGBT people. And I’m gay. They don’t know this about me, but seriously I couldn’t stand hanging around people who hate others just because of the different sexual orientation.

    Could I call them family? No. We’re only related, but it doesn’t mean anything. If they knew that I’m “different”, they would definitely not want to see me ever again. But I’m smarter than that, I’ve made the move first and I don’t want to see them ever again. 1:0 for me.

    I even have some very distant cousins in New York, but I never met them and I’ll never will, I could only see them in a photo and vice versa. The only TRUE family I have is my parents and my sister. That’s plenty for me. I don’t need anyone else.

    And just so you know, nobody is entitled to your love. Blood ties don’t mean anything. Hypothetically, if your parents beat you up your whole life until you turned 18 and moved the hell out, would they still be entitled to your love just because they are your parents? I doubt it. I’d even say you’re somehow naive. Cousin is just a relative. Cousin doesn’t have to be considered family. And cousin doesn’t have to be entitled to your love.

    Honestly, I’m closer to one of my coworkers than I was ever close to any of my cousins.

26. I don’t. The last time I saw any of my cousins was probably 10 years ago and some of them more than 20 years ago.

    Prior to this I would only meet them at communions/christenings. I know them less than I know my boss or neighbours.

    The cousin closest to me in age is 5 years older than me, the rest are more than 10 years older. I’ve never head any kind of relationship with them.

    I don’t love my aunts and uncles either, except for one of my aunts who lives close to my mum and who was present throughout my life.

    And thats my immediate cousins, aunts and uncles. The more distant family I’ve only ever met once or twice (or never) in my life.

27. I have a lot of cousins (30~) and most are much older than me. The ones I know best are dear to me, but most I don’t know too well. There are a few I might not recognise if they walked past me on the street.

    I have like a hundred second cousins and have never met the most of them (some have passed away already), so ‘love’ is not a word I’d use. I don’t feel negatively about them, I just don’t know them at all.

    My husband has four cousins. One of them is totally lovely, one is a douche, one I’ve met once and the last one never. My husband isn’t terribly close with any of them now as an adult.

28. Being related ≠ being close.

    One of my cousins is like my sister, others are nice enough aquaintances, and 2 of them I really don’t like.

    Nobody is entitled to your love except your underage children. Not even your parents – and I’m saying that as a parent.

29. I do even though we visit them few times a year and some live pretty far away

30. Some of them. I have lots. I barely know know the eldest four. I genuinely hate some of them, they are horrible, horrible, BNP supporting people. I love the youngest three very much and their children too.

    But I don’t think being related to anyone entitles them to your love. Some of my blood relatives are absolute pieces of shit, that I am related to them is embarrassing.

31. Yes, I basically grew up with my nephews, we spent all summers together and as adults still hang out sometimes, though mainly on family-related occasions, as we all live in different parts of the country.

    I am also on friendly terms with my second cousins (if that’s what you call people that are are your grandmothers/fathers siblings grandchildren). There are 2 of them that are of the most similar age and same gender that I am somewhat closer and then most of the others are more like “in my FB list and I greet on the streets but we never meet outside of formal occasions”, finally some of them that are of a notably different age I just know by face and name, but am not really in contact with. I know most of their parents very well and consider them very close relatives, but there are a few that were living far away throughout my life and I don’t know well (but my parents do, obviously).

32. No, I’m not close enough to any of my cousins to say that I love them

33. My cousins have been a frequent part of my life during youth. A lot less so after reaching adulthood, but yes.

34. Not really. I have a ton of cousins, almost none of them live close by me and I barely know most of them (I don’t even know a lot of their names). I can talk with them just fine on family reunions, but they are not much more than really vague acquaintces.

35. I have three cousins on my mother’s side of the family but I’m not really close to them.

    We get along fine but we have different lives. Before COVID I saw them once or maybe twice a year usually at a family gathering.

    On my father’s side there are only two single uncles without children and I see one of them pretty often (usually at my parents’ place)

36. On my father’s side, not really. All of my cousins are older than me and we rarely ever met in my life. A shame, since one of them seems to have a lot of things in common with me as far as our interests go.

    On my mother’s side, maybe? My cousin is 10 years younger and she lives like 6-8 hours away.

    This is just what happens when your parents move to another country on their own to start a family.

37. This rather seems like a ‘you’ thing tbh, I really don’t understand why you would be shaken by that. It’s got nothing to do with being “entitled to” their love: they’re not close, they don’t interact much, so they never acquired any particularly deep affection for them that they otherwise might have (or not, maybe their cousins are all assholes anyway). It’s not that deep.

    Nor is it strange or unusual for people not to love their sibling. In general you will have grown up with them so will have been a priori sufficiently exposed to them to develop a relationship, though that’s still not a given. But it doesn’t follow that you grow to love them, nor that those feelings can’t change later. Maybe there’s a big age difference, or you’re just rather different people and just never really clicked, or they’re just rather unpleasant people. Familial relationships, of any kind, aren’t magic. Being related to someone doesn’t, nor shouldn’t, automatically imply that you love them or have any particular obligation to them.

38. Anybody thought of “Sweet home Alabama” instantly or am I just a bad person?

39. I have one cousin who is like a sister to me. We grew up constantly around each other, even lived in the same house for a few years. So I definitely love her!

    As for the rest of my cousins, no, I wouldn’t say I love them. We don’t really have a one-to-one relationship and only meet up when there’s a family reunion. I’m mostly neutral to them.

40. Although most of my cousins still live in the same town, we have grown apart. Some have pursued interests I don’t care about and others have started families.

    This may sound harsh, apathetic even, but you don’t choose your family, so I don’t really see why you would want to keep seeing them so much, especially if their interests don’t match yours.

41. Sounds a lot like you’re projecting your very specific view on the world and getting upset that not everyone shares your lived experience. Lots of people aren’t super close with their siblings, live far apart, have children at very different times, or whatever other reasons there might be for cousins to not grow very close.

    I know some people that were or are super close to their cousins, but to most people cousins are just mostly acquaintances that you get occasional updates on through Facebook or your parents.

    The closest I’ve been to a cousin was a friend of mine from when I was younger that I discovered was my second cousin once removed.