Relatives, do you consider them friends?

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I have this one relative that cut all connections to family. His reasoning were; "If they had never been my family/relatives, I would never have been friends with them."
I ask this in the adult +30 section because I believe some life experience would be good before answering a question like this.

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Do you consider relatives/family by the same values/attributes as you would consider someone else before befriending them?

I feel that family are one type of relation, and friends are another, and you can't rate them on the same scale. Family is family. I have a real hard time grasping the other way of looking at it, I just can't understand the reasoning.

R U sure you're not talking about me?!

Yes, I am. But I would love to hear why you believe what you do.

I think relatives and friends are different, but some people will fall into both categories.

For example, I have various cousins that I'm friends with on FB who I wouldn't be friends with were we not related, not because there is anything wrong with them but simply because we are very different people with different lives and interests. If my sister was not my sister, I doubt she would be friends with me - again we don't have a lot in common but we have a good relationship that certainly resembles a friendship. My Mum is one of my best friends, but I'm aware that wouldn't be the case if we weren't related as there is a 30 year age gap, we are from different countries. we don't share many of the same interests etc. I think a friendship with a family member is a little different than a friendship with someone who is not related to you. Sometimes we can build a friendship with someone we don't have a lot in common with because we share experiences with them over a long period.

I completely understand someone saying they do not wish to be friends with their family, you can't force a relationship that isn't there. With some members of my family I don't feel any connection whatsoever, but I treat them with the respect they deserve but there is little interaction beyond that. I think that's an acceptable position.

In fact there's not such a big difference. First and foremost they are individuals and you may or may not get along with them, and in case you don't get along with relatives, even closest family members, there's no sensible reason to stay in contact with them. I've cut off the whole bunch except my sister and never regretted it. Why wasting time with people i simply don't like (and the other way around,) even more so since more often than not we didn't even find a common topic to talk about.

I spent most of my adult life avoiding my family. At 50, I'm coming around a little.

Yes, I largely do use the same criterion as I would for friends, and geographic proximity is part of that. However, I think there are things to be gained from relationships with family that aren't the same with friends. Very, very, long term friends have a little bit of that, but it pales by comparison to, say, a sibling that was raised in the same household that you were.

I am in touch with my family of origin these days. And I have some chosen family as well. After skipping most of them in my 20's and into my 30's, I now attend as many weddings and funerals as I can, although I couldn't tell you the names of all of my cousin's spouses or kids or even where they live. (I only have 9 cousins, so it's not a huge number).

I deeply desire to be friends with my brothers, but they are so incredibly self-centered that they only use me and have no concern for me as an individual. I have 90% cut one of them off, and 99% for the other. This is due to them being very abusive (emotionally and physically). They are "users". They use my parents, who enable them to live destructive lifestyles, including profound substance abuse.

I do not want to be friends with people who are like them, regardless of whether or not we share some genes. This causes a LOT of stress between me and my parents because my parents feel that I should be obligated to love them unconditionally (yes, they say even in spite of how much abuse anyone receives, you should still love the abuser). This bothers me tremendously (literally, I tremble in anxiety whenever I see my brothers or hear their voices). I will have a panic attack if I think about them too much. But that's all supposed to be just fine, and I should forgive it all according to my parents. Needless to say, my parents' position on this issue makes me feel abandoned, neglected, and un-loved. They cognitively acknowledge the facts and claim that it just doesn't matter.

I love my parents dearly, and they are indeed my only two long-term, close friendships. I don't know what I would do without them. The older I get, the more it bothers me that they disavow my emotional well-being in relationship to my brothers' actions.

I find that the serenity prayer helps me a lot to cognitively deal with this situation-- I now know that I cannot change my parents' positions on my brothers. They will always be enablers. Unfortunately, the serenity prayer doesn't help with the emotional part-- accepting this fact.

I just say to myself, "This is bad. I wish it were different. I know my parents love me even though it doesn't feel like they do because they wholeheartedly support these two men who actively harm me." My brothers have always been jealous of me and the relationship that I have with my parents and the fact that my life isn't FUBAR due to drug use and a penchant for loose women. I suppose that's the silver lining... but even that has a bit of tarnish because my parents have always highly esteemed me and my mom has pulled the "at least I have one son who's not like that" card. This puts tremendous pressure on me to be perfect (in my mind it does), so it was one heck of a bad day when I told them (or tried to tell them) about my Aspie dx. We're still working on that...

I have seen some families where most of them got along great with each other. They went on vacations and did reacreational activities with each other. Some family members actually like each other!! Some families are mostly sane and treat each other well.
My family isn't that way. I could never be friends with my mother or siblings because they are mean, sneaky people who tell a lot of lies.
I wanted to be friends with my aunt. She is a terriffic person with a great sense of humor and much kindness. But she lives alone in an isolated mountain area---and really doesn't need people in her life. She likes being alone, pretty much.

I do not get along with my relatives, save for 3. Those 3 were brought up on a farm, and never forgot from whence they came.

As others have said, it depends on the person.
I have relatives who I only communicate with because they are a relative AND I'm doing so at the request of another close relative. (i.e. I wouldn't do so if not for the third person.)
I have many relatives who I get on OK with for the short-ish times that we are together (weddings, funerals etc) but where geography and different lives proscribe much contact otherwise.
I have a few relatives that I would class as 'mates' and less than five that I would class as a friend.

I have thought about this many times and have considered the argument of your relative as well. It's probably true that my family would never become my friends if they weren't family. But I think that's the strength of the family, they always stick together even if they consist of very different people. When I suffered a major depression and was in a mental institution, it was my family who came to visit me many times, even relatives I'm not that close to. While I don't have that many friends, I was surprised that they hardly visited me at all and they didn't even contact me that much. And when I saw them again afterwards they acted like nothing had happened.

Seems to me that friends abandon you when you become a burden to them, except for the ones who you're extremely close to maybe. So to me caring for your family is very important. I actually feel bad sometimes that they probably don't know how much I care for them since I haven't really found a way to express that. But it's definitely a different kind of relationship than the one you have with friends.

As long as I don't force myself to "make nice" when I don't feel like it, then we get along great.

But, if we weren't related we would have nothing to talk about.

The older I get, the more I consider my handful of close friends my family. They are the people I depend on most.

No I don't really consider my relatives as friends...
It's in this order for me...
1. Partner and kids
2. Family and relatives
3. Friends
4. Online friends
5. Acquaintances
See I've always considered them above most people...

I don't get on with my family, they're just people I know that I don't really like, and I see no reason why I should like them simply because we're related. I most definitely wouldn't seek their friendship if I wasn't related. However I see no reason to cut them out of my life for that reason.

The way I read that sentence is, "If they had not been relatives, and had been strangers instead, they are not people who I would have chosen to be friends with." Which is basically how I feel about my family as well. I am so radically different from all of them. Some of them are also @$$holes, so I have been tempted to cut ties with them.

I view friends as more important than family, because friends are people who choose to be with you despite not being related to you. Friends are people who have interests, values, and life experiences in common with yours. You are forced to be with your family just because you share the same blood, but otherwise, everyone can be totally different. That has been my experience, at least.