Are all families dysfunctional?

Underneath yes, Dysfunctional is there all the time some time. hidden sometimes to the fore It often depends on the present circumstances and how you feel yourself.
Especially Christmas when the round of "Aren't we an amazing family" round robins flood in. I often feel like sending a negative one back to let them see what they really sound like but would they pick up on it?

Yes, all families are dysfunctional- and learning to live with our own and others' dysfunction is the essence of successful relationships.

doodledog I have always believed that Tolstoy got it entirely the wrong way round in that first line.

This is a good place to debate the meaning of dysfunctional. I WhatsApped my sister to see what she thought. She said, ‘It means families who don’t see each other for months on end even without Covid.”

Think dysfunctional isn't the norm, individual is. Marketing has an awful lot to answer for giving the impression we should look like, act like, live like their impression just to get us to spend more on their products.

Book
I don’t know what to say, you sound so sad.
Hopefully there will be some light at the end of the tunnel for you. At least there are plenty of people here to offer much wiser advice than I can

To answer Elengrans' question
Elegran Sat 30-Jan-21 12:50:48
Never mind defining disfunctional, how do you define functional ?

Virginia Satir an American social worker studied this and then wrote a book called Peoplemaking. This is what it says on the internet

"Mother of Family Therapy" Her most well-known books are Conjoint Family Therapy, 1964, Peoplemaking, 1972, and The New Peoplemaking, 1988. She is also known for creating the Virginia Satir Change Process Model, a psychological model developed through clinical studies.

it is an easy book to read and includes ideas such as 'Age appropriate rules' and open communication and warmth as being important.

Also - Family Therapy deals with helping dysfunctional families become functional by transforming patterns of behavior into patterns of choice. Attributes of dysfunctional families include guarded behavior and hostility toward each other. Attributes of optimally functional families include warmth and tenderness. Satir believes that changing low self-esteem through communication is a major goal of FT, and she identifies 3 possibilities for change. Therapy outcome is viewed in terms of change. The therapist's role involves leading the family into new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

If they weren’t before they will be after this pandemic ☹️

Every family have there problems , some bigger than others .

There is a difference between a family being disfunctional and one having some disagreements and sometimes rubbing each other up the wrong way. Labelling those that aren't perfect as disfunctional is a symptom of the modern craze for labelling any state of mind that isn't manic happiness as mental illness and showing a need for some expert to take charge. I believe one of the fastest growing and most lucrative professions is now "life coach" or other similar self-descriptions.

As for saying that ALL families are disfunctional - stuff and nonsense. The function of a family is to take care of a child until they are able to run their own lives, and to put them out into the world equipped to do so. If ALL familes were disfunctional, all the billions of people who had been released into the world from them would be unable to run their own lives, let alone the organisations (and nations!) they are in charge of.

I believe two words are hugely fashionable and overused right now. Dysfunctional, and narcissist. To overuse them downgrades the cases where they do apply. Also too many people without mental health problems bleating about what's good and bad for their mental health.

That is not to Emily but to others earlier in the thread, who stated that all families are disfunctional. Clearly they aren't!

Yes, Readymeals anthing that pisses someone off is claimed to be bad for their mental health, and woe betide anyone who says "Tough. Have a think about how you can either change this or put up with it,"
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

I so agree Elegran, this fashion for labelling all behaviour as being a symptom of a mental health issue, devalues true mental illness in my opinion.

This post has made me feel better. I had found myself being a little jealous of the perfect lives friends seemed to have...

During the first lockdown several people commented (by phone obviously) that a mutual friend’s daughter seemed to be relishing her time with her beautiful daughters. They spent all their time either in their garden or in the spinner nearby. She posted so many photos on Facebook. I learned from my friend that the reason she was outside all the time because her husband was working from home and shouted at them all the time to keep quiet and out of his way.
I come from a lovely family but even so there are things that I wouldn’t share with anyone else.
We are non of us perfect, so if that makes us dysfunctional then so be it.

I think all families have areas that could do with a little improvement.

If they haven't, then I've yet to meet them.

And areas that need a little improvement don't automatically add up to disfunction.

That's true.

Everyone lives their own version of whatever life they choose.

I have a few friends with whom I tell it as it is and who share similarly with me. We support each other through difficult times which have involved everything from teenagers going seriosly off the rails and husbands having affairs to divorce. At the moment my family are doing really well and my Christmas round robin might be seen as bragging by some but it wasn't always thus. The worst bits never made it into the annual letter which is always a summary of the best bits of the year, with the only bad bits that were included being deaths of elderly relatives or pets - nothing embarrassing there!

However I know a family who are truly disfunctional at the moment. We're worried about the children as the parents head towards probable separation and divorce, yet the facebook post at Christmas from one of the parents appeared to tell a very different story, leaving us rather puzzled as they referred to their 'lovely family' with a picture of laughter and smiles being in complete contrast with the private messages received from their partner a coule of weeks earlier!

I may only post the good stuff but if things are less than good I don't post a complete fantasy either. I just choose to stay quiet and share the reality with the few close friends who love me despite it all and are there for me however bad it gets, just as I am for them.

Perhaps posting a fantasy is an attempt to try to convince themselves that something they wish for actually exists, rather than telling it as it is. Personally I find that really sad!

My marriage broke up partly because my husband thought that everyone else’s marriage was perfect compared to ours. I tried to explain to him that most marriages had rocky undercurrents but he didn’t believe me.

I’ve yet to meet anyone with a completely carefree life.
My daughter tells the tale of one of the ‘playground mums’ she rubs up against, whose Facebook life looks perfect. My daughter happened to be at an attraction the same time as playground mum (pm) and family were there. Pm apparently spent most of the day snarling at her husband and being short with her children, yet the Facebook record looked idyllic...

There's only my sister and I left in our family and we both get on each others nerves cos we are so different and when I listen to friends about theirs we are not the only ones. All families I think have to have problems of some sort, it can't always be wonderful. My sister only contacts me when she needs me for something, I seem to be the one always contacting her to check she's ok. My best friend who I've had from school cares and knows more about me than my own sister which is sad.

Interesting because I have a friend who seems to always get everything she wants. She is an avid photographer who posts on Facebook frequently about the “fabulous” day she’s having skiing, kayaking, apple picking - whatever. I’m close enough to know that she was estranged from her mum and her dad passed after a long illness so her life has had some “downs.” I also know that she’s become estranged from what were very close friends. I finally realized that she has been, in general, pretty lucky and gets everything she wants - but her secret is that if, for any reason, she can’t get something, she convinces herself that she doesn’t want it. She easily dismisses or disdains things that others may want that she doesn’t have so, in essence, she’s basically structured herself to be happy, if that makes any sense.

A friendly acquaintance during the teenage years was fond of telling everyone that her DD was perfect - they had never had a moment's worry about her behaviour. We who knew what her DD got up to - via our own teenage offspring who moved in the same circles - kept our heads down and said nothing.
A few people have said to me over the years they wish they had my life; I have grimly but silently reflected that if they 'walked a mile in my shoes' they might think very differently, but I have never felt inclined to discuss big family problems or ongoing serious trouble with anyone - and there has been plenty of both. So - the dysfunctional family may look perfect; those who think they have a perfect life may well be dysfunctional - but what is a normal life? Who is to say what isn't?