I'm new... my first question. I hope you can help. Here's my situation:

When I was growing up, my parents used to send me and my siblings to visit our long distance cousins for about a week almost every summer. There is one cousin who was just horrible. She threw tantrums, always wanted to physically fight, always wanted what someone else had and would steal it if she could, cursed out her parents etc. In our adult years, we barely keep in touch except when we see each other at major family events (weddings, funerals, etc.). And the last few times that I've seen her, she still displays the bratty behavior she had growing up. She is extremely envious of others. She has announced (no invitation was extended to her) that she wants to move in with one of our cousins who happens to have an extremely successful career. It sounds to me that she wants to mooch off his success. She has called other cousins randomly to borrow money. At family functions, she dumps her 5 year old daughter (just as bratty as her mother was) off on one of us and disappears. She's even mentioned a few years ago that she would like to send her daughter out to spend a whole summer with me and my husband. We don't even have kids yet! Who would she play with?

It's been over a year since I've seen or even spoken to her and all of a sudden I get an email saying she wants visit me for a weekend with her daughter. I want nothing to do with it. Based on her history, I can see her overstaying her welcome, complaining about how expensive the flight was in order to get pity money, envying and begging me for something in my house and just being downright unpleasant company.

Basically, how do I pleasantly say "I don't want you to visit, but see you at the next major family function"?

Dear star3,

If I were in your position and a family member whom I really detested and whose moral character I thought was reprehensible asked to visit me, and I thought it would not turn out well, I would find some way to tell her the truth, which is that I find her behavior extremely disagreeable and that I would not like her to visit me.

That's the best advice I can offer, as that's what I would do. I have a lot of relatives I don't particularly care for (as who doesn't!), but they don't impose themselves on me, nor me on them, so that solves that problem: we just stay away from each other. Your problem, though, seems to be a bit different. Good luck!

I have a cousin like that and she is the bane of the family. I would simply tell her no, she and her daughter are not welcome. Putting your foot down now will save putting it elsewhere in the future. If she asks why you can tell her that her bratty behavior is not wanted in your house. If she still wants to come and visit - make sure she and her daughter are at a hotel. You can plan some kind of get together and still keep some level of control over this and your sanity. But you do not owe her this. In fact, no one in your family owes her anything at all. Heaven help your cousin who she wants to move in with. Hope he puts his foot down too. Good luck to you.

I'd suggest that if she wants to visit, you recommend a near-by hotel, but let her know you don't want a house guest. I don't think you really even owe her a reason. Good luck!

Since seeing the others' answers, I wanted to try to go a little deeper, at my peril, I know, because family psychology is a touchy subject for just about everybody as are matters pertaining to the emotions that touch us anywhere too deeply. I feel I should have brought this up first, rather than what I did say, because it is more truthful, but I went "unconscious" and just thought about the surface of the issue.

I am the "black sheep" of my family, loved and tolerated by some, and avoided by most, especially cousins and the younger family members. I believe that is because I have a truth sense and what some may call a "bull detector" second to none, and I'm not afraid to say what I see, plainly, clearly, and with little equivocations. This can be deadly in almost any family because most families are viper's nests of anything but traditional "family values," as they are touted far and wide in our country (America).

Having said that, I'd like to say that a lot of times, I've noticed, when people criticize others for "bad" qualities, like jealousy, etc. which qualities we all share to some extent, and what's important is how we deal with them, the people doing the criticizing are often no freer of these qualities than the people they criticize. That's the sticky part. In psychological parlance, it's called projection. That's how we get rid of our own bad qualities, by blaming someone else for them. It's also known in some religious circles as hypocrisy.

I'm not accusing star3 of being a "bratty, jealous, moocher." I don't know her; but she may know herself, as well as the rest of her family members who ostracize their cousin. I heard also that when people with personality issues like star3's cousin get counseling and start to change, the whole family goes haywire because they have no one left to project all their own negativity onto.

An example of this between friends, is that Oprah Winfrey and her best friend, Gayle, took an 11-day cross-country trip from CA to NY and Gayle was complaining that Oprah was not keeping her company as the passenger when Gayle was driving because Oprah was reading and wearing headphones where she couldn't hear Gayle's bad singing. Oprah then showed a clip of Gayle sprawled out in the passenger seat in a reclining position sleeping away! That's not exactly keeping the driver company, is it? The very fault Gayle was finding with Oprah.

We all tend to do this in one degree or another; it's just natural. The only way to overcome it in any degree is to do more introspection, which we may do in counseling, therapy, analysis, or in our own solitary quiet times, and bring back to ourselves what belongs in us, rather than blaming others for it. The more you do this, the more you'll find that when you are blaming others for faults, the more the faults really belong to them.

Sermon over! Cheers, everybody!

P.S.--I DO think that families owe their members some things. The best families I have seen are supportive of their members, more so than critical, and not only when the going is easy, but especially when its difficult to do so. You can fall in and out of love with your spouse, get married or divorced, friends forsake, leave, etc. but once you are born into a family, you are of it, by the very blood that runs in your veins, until you die. Blood is thicker than water, as the saying goes, and nothing will wash out the things we share that are written in it!

Wow avataress, that was profound. While I love looking into the psychology of the situation and the idea of introspection, I don't believe the problem is that deep. I just don't enjoy her company. Family or not, for my own mental health I need to avoid "toxic" individuals. She's family, I love her and wish her the best. And in times when she needs the support, I will be there for her. But in the meantime, I prefer to keep our interaction limited.

As you wish, star3. The psyche can be very dangerous when looked into too deeply without the right tools. If you feel comfortable avoiding going any more deeply, and you don't have to, then perhaps that is best. Again, I must say that you are the final arbiter of what you do and you will hold the final responsibility.

I'm amazed at the questions people ask on this forum, which, except for those of the very young people, strike me as situations they should be able to use their own judgement to decide, which is what they have to do anyway. I suppose they just feel better getting others' opinions to balance out their own, even the opinions of complete strangers seem to be better to most than having to simply rely on themselves. I have come to prefer my own council most because I have found it to be the most truthful, reliable, and the most in my best interests, and it gives a dignity to the way I live my life, in spite of how it turns out: I did it my way! My best to you!

I have a huge, sprawling family.

For some members of this family, I would do anything within my power.

Others are just like your cousin... I've bent over backwards for them in the past, only to get walked all over. They have also been the last people in the world to help me when my chips were down.

I say tell her you know of a GREAT hotel/motel/ B&B close by your place, and you'll look forward to having lunch with her on Saturday.

She doesn't need a reason, but if she presses for one, you can let her know that you feel that her personality and your own clash, and you prefer just to see her at family functions.

(I deliberately don't live closer than 35 miles to any member of my family)