Tl;dr – I (33F)’s family (70M,65F, 35F, 29M) didn’t wish me good luck or congrats or even mention my marathon. I think they forgot?
Context so I don’t sound like a brat, maybe I already do. My younger brother ran the Boston marathon and my entire family not only went most of them (including me) volunteered then stayed when he finished and took him out to dinner.
I ran the marine corp marathon as my fourth marathon. I was majorly injured 8 years ago after my third marathon. I turned to food and alcohol to de stress from there. The last year I’ve been really working on myself I hired a nutritionist, lost 48 lbs, got a therapist and stopped drinking altogether. I got back into running. I told my family how much this meant to me and how I was really trying. I told them about my long runs and how it felt good to be able to put in a lot of miles and how I started to feel like myself again
The week of the marathon and after I got radio silence
My mom called me two days to ask how many trick or treaters I got.
My brother called me a couple days after that to talk about himself and mentioned how he should start running to lose weight like me.
I didn’t want to mention it because I don’t want to be fishing for compliments. But I’m still hurt by this.
What should I do? Should I just accept the fact they really don’t care and want to talk about surface level issues?
41 comments
I don’t have advice for which I’m sorry but just wanted to say, well done on completing your marathon! It’s something many people will never be able to achieve.
Maybe cuz it’s your 4th one ,did they congratulate you on the first?
Well done on all your hard work!! MCM is such a great marathon. I hope you had a blast.
When it comes to your family, I’m sorry. Their behaviour sucks and you are right to feel hurt by it. You mention it’s your fourth marathon. Although the last one was 8 years ago and you had injury and other things going on which makes this one hell of achievement for you, it is possible that for your family it’s just another marathon that you ran. Because in their minds that’s what you do and it’s not a big deal. Now as someone who used to run marathons and currently can’t even run 5K, I know just how much hard work, determination and will power it took for you to get there again. But it is very possible that they just don’t get it.
Now as it what you should do: the only thing you can do in this situation is to have an open conversation. To tell them how hurt their non-reaction made you feel. It’s not about fishing for compliments. It made you feel like they don’t care about you. You should let them know and their response will tell you whether it was a thoughtless mistake on their part or are they really uninterested in your life. From then you can plan your new relationship with them.
This is your fourth marathon and you’re not going for a PR. Who cares.
Is your younger brother usually showered with praise while you’re not given the same kind of attention? I’m wondering if you’re the black sheep of the family, basically. If so it’s worth accepting that you can’t change them and they’re not going to support you how you need them to, focus your energy on friends who will.
And huge congrats on completing the marathon!
It’s probably because it’s your fourth marathon and they might be more hung up on your drinking, mental health and how you’ve treated others than your athletic performance? Doing something impressive for yourself- and it is for yourself, not other people’s validation- will not win your family’s adulation automatically.
What fairytale do you wish for? One where people constantly compliment you?
Just some hard truth, I also wouldn’t care and if you are like most of the marathoners I know and bring it up constantly in conversation, I’d get annoyed.
It’s an amazing personal accomplishment and you should be very proud. Nobody gives a fuck though. It’s like when I shoot a nice deer with a recurve bow and show it to my non hunting friends, they couldn’t care less. The only people who appreciate that kind of stuff are the people who know the time and effort it takes. Make some friends who run and stop caring about the opinions of others who don’t. Good luck!
Relevant joke:
How do you know if somebody has run a marathon?
They’ll tell you.
I am also dismissed by my adult siblings. I know it hurts, and I’m sorry it happened to you. Best thing you can do is lower your expectations of them.
Idk why these other comments are acting like it’s nothing just bc you already ran a marathon.. they should still congratulate you and wish you luck. Also since it’s your first marathon since you were injured and started drinking makes it even more special. Congrats on your accomplishment and it’s good to hear you are feeling more like you! Don’t let anyone take that away from you
Sounds like you should ditch the family. That’s divorce tier people right there. Divorce them from your life.
Well done on improving your health and completing a marathon. Your 4th. Wow! Impressive! Start training for the next one. Do it for yourself, let the others catch up 👍
You should tell them that their lack of support was hurtful. But also you should place less emphasis on their opinion. Families don’t always ‘get you’. Decoupling your happiness from their approval is healthy. Hopefully, you have friends who are very supportive and impressed.
You did amazing, sweetie. Congrats on all your achievements. 💪
Communicate with your family. Yes, it sounds like they forgot. Tell them about it and how you don’t appreciate them forgetting while you’re at it. Say it was important to you. They will probably apologize and you will probably forgive them and you can all move and they can do better next time. It doesn’t sound like you have a bad family, but yes I think they did forget and not realize how big this was for you. Communicate. Don’t let it stew.
Congrats on your marathon! Keep it up ✅
It’s just that sometimes people DGAF, or can’t recall. Even though they are family their world & what goes on in their heads is not the same as yours at all.
I’m assuming you’re not having this as your only topic of conversation?
I understand fully as most of my achievements and disasters went unnoticed or unacknowledged by my family. I don’t bother telling them much now & live in relative peace. Not info- no judgment.
I feel you have done an amazing thing, your physical & mental strength is surely incredible to keep training so hard.
In a way it may be because you being a female is part of it, if your brother got applauded for the very same achievement , and looking at your mum & sister’s comments on your lovely home. Congratulations & power to you doing you.
So, is your brother a “Golden child”? From your post and comments, that sounds like the situation here. Making fun of purchasing your own home and refusing to acknowledge your accomplishments with any of your marathons sounds grim. It might be time to focus your energy on other relationships and put these people on limited contact. This will be especially difficult at the holidays, and I’m sorry your family seems to be unable to celebrate you. Well done on taking control of your life, running your marathon and managing to purchase a home in this economy.
There is a level of self promotion that looks like fishing for compliments, vs letting people know what’s going on in your life.
My husband said his dad taught him to let his actions speak for him, and not to boast. This resulted in his dad having absolutely no idea what accomplishments were. Therefore, everything was either ignored or assumed. After several years of his dad demonstrating how proud he was of his other kids accomplishments, I told him of my husbands. He had no idea because hubby didn’t tell him, AND dad wasn’t in his daily life to know this.
Once dad knew, he started asking about it.
People only know what you tell them. If you don’t tell, they don’t ask.
Maybe mention the things you want attention for. Maybe share your excitement instead of just mentioning it. They will mirror you. Silence gets mirrored the same as excitement.
Accept they don’t care as much, now, and continue the relationship, or back away. Everyone’s an adult so it’s an easy fix.
Could they have just forgotten without meaning anything by it? Did you mention it right before the race? Did you post a picture anywhere? Did you bring it up afterwards at all? Sometimes people get caught up on the grind and just forget about stuff especially considering that while it’s an accomplishment, it wasn’t your first one or anything.
I’d say in the future (provided there aren’t some kind of toxic dynamics going on within your family I’m unaware of or something) text them one picture the day after your race or something with a brief caption saying you finished your race. Maybe that’ll help them remember it’s important to you going forward.
I don’t have any advice, but I wanted to say that it’s amazing that you’ve made such an amazing come back, found the drive and dedication to beat your bad habits and get back to running. You should feel proud of yourself. What you did is not easy!
Lets face it – It’s really important to you, but not to them.
If one of your brothers got top 10 in the world at call of duty for the fourth time, and was constantly talking about how he’s been practicing and playing call of duty, you probably wouldn’t care. Maybe you would? But probably wouldn’t call him to congratulate him.
But it’s even worse – for some people, you doing this makes them feel bad about themselves so they don’t want to bring it up.
Luckily your brother is inspired by you and is talking to you about running, so that’s really good! You should feel good you’ve made them want to be healthier.
But at some point, if they don’t care about your hobby, it’s not on them, it’s on you to accept it.
Did you do it for yourself or for them? Be happy with yourself for what you accomplished. Them congratulating you does not change what you did. Learn to not care about what others think and you may be happier.
I agree this is hurtful. but, if you went back and forth while turning to alcohol they could still be feeling burned. Pick the person you think will be most willing to listen without giving excuses, and mention how you had wanted to hear some encouragement or at least some congrats on your completion. they hopefully will share with the rest of your family and things will go better next time.
That is your hobby not your family’s. Running a marathon is an accomplishment but it is a solitary hobby. This was your fourth marathon. I don’t know what you were expecting.
Run a marathon for yourself. Not for others. If they want to volunteer or whatever that’s great, if not, that’s not their responsibility. You def sound very entitled here.
> What should I do?
Be proud of yourself. I don’t even know you, yet I’m very proud of you for all you’ve done to get yourself back to where you want to be.
Invite them out to a celebratory dinner. Don’t tell them, just take them out to dinner. And ,at e at that dinner you mention how dark of a place you went to, how much effort it took to get back out of it, and how proud you are of yourself for running the marathon. And that you just wanted to have your family around to really soak in the moment and reflect on what you did.
Don’t make this about them. It’s about you, if they aren’t going to co granulated you, then congratulate yourself.
It’s ok to feel hurt. But don’t try to guilt trip them into compliments.
I have a shitty family that treats siblings unequally and still doesn’t show up for me in the way I want / hope/ask.
No amount of sharing my feelings, pleasing etc has yielding any chance.
At some point we may just have to accept these people suck and surround ourselves with better people (like friends).
I hope to make some better ones, As having this shitty support network is a big part of why I dived so deep into what I thought was a good relationship and really wasn’t.
Take care of yourself OP, celebrate your successes, wins and don’t look to them for validation. They may never show up for you like you want or need.
I’ve been waiting for 37 years to be treated like a human being, I don’t think they ever will.
Real talk: TBH no one really cares other than you; run for you, not to talk about it and fish for praise later. If you want to run, run; if you don’t, don’t.
Your family may be closer to your brother than to you, and that’s okay. You’re not entitled to equal time or attention. Just accept it and move on.
Not a ton to go off here about broader family dynamics but maybe look into golden child vs scapegoat and see if anything resonates for you there about your family’s relationship to you vs your brother
Have they always favored your brother?
I’m sorry they didn’t show up for you emotionally and physically. I would send them an email detailing your feelings.
Congratulations on getting healthier!
How do you know if someone has run a marathon? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
This is the start of your journey towards not doing things to get others approval.
OK, OK. Maybe that isn’t the only reason you did it. But the fact that youre upset means it was part of it.
Don’t do it man. Do things for yourself, for your wife and kids if you have them.
No one else matters and you can’t please them.
You mention an alcohol problem. What was that like for your family? Because if you’re glossing over a mountain of bad behavior post-injury, I’d suggest you start there in terms of finding out why nobody cares too much when you ran yet another marathon.
I don’t like your family.
You however are completely awesome. I’ve also done 4 full marathons. Its hardcore. Good for you.
Maybe you hurt your relationship with them when you were struggling with alcohol and theres still hurt/distrust there
Why should they care that you have run a marathon? How much validation and attention do you need?
I just want to say congratulations and you are an inspiration! Wow running a marathon is a massive deal and I aspire to do what you did.
As a fellow runner – accept that non-runners don’t give a crap about your running achievements. If you want people who understand make friends with other runners.
No one cares and no one wants hear to about it. I saw a sticker on a car rear window once that read “0.0” sums it up perfectly. Only thing OP should do is keep running and let everyone else live their own lives.
It’s just a marathon and you’ve already ran it 4 times. You aren’t going to get praise like a 3 year old every time. It’s part of growing up.