Have you ever been to a family gathering where a physical fight broke out, or a verbal screaming match erupted?

Many, many of these involving my ex husband. One reason I left. I actually can’t recall the circumstances because, for one thing, he’d lose his mind over very small occurrences. He did this stupid, unbecoming thing to me right in front of the kids before I got smart: somehow , he’d get me on the floor covering my head and pretend to be kicking me over and over while clenching his teeth.
Strange; he was so quiet and nice when we dated and for a few years afterwards. Very bad memories. Hope his girlfriend kicks his butt.

Never

I only ask this because on my family toting gun question, there were a few people who seemed to expect that some sort of altercation would break out because you had family members in one place, so that meant the guy was justified in bringing his gun. Nevermind that no altercations have ever broken out.

Those same people think that all gun owners are nut cases with no experience handling a gun and can’t be trusted. This is simply not true. A few bad apples ruin it for everyone.

Yep. One uncle pulled a gun on another uncle. 3 kids were in between them, including me, and we were all yelled at and told to get in the house. I guess the stand off was diffused. One uncle left, one stayed, and my cousin freaked out and kept crying and screaming “he tried to kill my dad”. BTW, he had to get his gun from his truck, because what idiot brings a gun around children on a holiday?

My sister brought her abusive boyfriend to Christmas one year. When I arrived I was appalled that he was let in the house and I began to argue with my family about him, and then he started talking shit to me. He threatened me and my boyfriend at the time had to step in. Again, the anger diffused and the asshole left.

Then there was the Christmas everyone ganged up on me and I defended my atheism the whole fuckin’ night.

My Latino family does not believe in keeping things civil. We are family and we fight; family always comes first even when one tries to kill another. (And no we are not immigrants or ghetto. My grandparents were stable middle class. I think my nuclear family was the worst off financially.)

I think it was a 4th of July when my uncle hit my aunt in front of everyone.

Oh, another gun related issue happened when my aunt had a restraining order against my uncle and he showed up and threatened her while waving a gun around.

It’s shocking to me, and it was to you I’m sure…but was it unexpected @tinyfaery?

Ugh. I hate it when Fluther eats up my comment before I can post it!

@dammitjanetfromvegas “Those same people think that all gun owners are nut cases with no experience handling a gun and can’t be trusted.”

This is unfair. I don’t think that all gun owners are nut cases. I don’t think that all gun owners have no experience handling a gun. I don’t think that all gun owners can’t be trusted.

I do think that carrying a gun into a family gathering, whether or not one expects violence around the kitchen table, is crazy behaviour. He should have left the gun locked up at home – that would indicate to me that he is not a nut case, has experience handling a gun, and can be trusted.

No one expects anything like that to happen, even after it does happen. No one brought guns to Christmas every year after the first incident. No one expected it would happen again. I was a child when most of these things happened. I even caused a few of the fights when I was older. Shit happens and when it does, guns are no help, at least not in my experience.

Really. Who in their right mind would shoot a family member (under normal circumstances.)

@dappled_leaves It’s unfair that every gun owner is judged, but it happens all of the time.

I don’t judge all gun owners. I do judge those who are rabidly against stricter gun control. If they have nothing to hide, why should it matter?

@dammitjanetfromvegas I see what you did there.

My family get-togethers are like yours @Dutchess_III . I’ve never seen an argument, fight, or yelling. Ever!

I have never seen a fight or argument at any family get together. We are all very passive.

Easter.
My S/O’s brother threatened to beat the tar out of his brother in law. They’re close to the same age, they both farm, and they have kids the same age. It was just BS grandstanding.

As a consequence, there were 2 Thanksgivings dividing the 6 kids into factions of 3. Christmas was just a worthless mess. Oh, the drama! And it’s not my family so I just have to stay out of it, even though I have definate opinions.

The biggest drama we ever bad in my family was people not attending. Their loss.

Yep. It was never really a holiday in my family if there wasn’t anger and yelling.

Yeah,my wife’s oldest brother can be a real Ahole, a couple of years ago he was screaming at his son in front of everyone over an accident the kid had with his own car and own insurance,my brother in law was positive that his insurance was going to go up because his kid got into an accident, it was the kids insurance that was going up not his dads but he wouldn’t listen.

Not my own family, but there should be no surprise that in any gathering, the potential for confrontation rises exponentially with increasing numbers, and is pretty much guaranteed as alcohol consumption spikes.

I can’t recall anyone ever having an argument or a fight. People have left in a huff, but that’s the limit of it.

Our family gatherings are always very pleasant.

One Christmas my sisters had an argument. There was a bit of shouting and some tears. That was it. The dinner was still served and all was fine. I’m not sure women do violence on a big scale…

When I was younger, a friend invited me to stop by her house on Thanksgiving. The aunt got drunk and puked on herself.

To me, it would be a total embarrassment to scream at someone in the middle of a group of people like that. I once tried to bring up a very important, but touchy subject, with my husband. To forestall a scene I brought it up over lunch at a restaurant. To my horror it didn’t mitigate his reaction at all. He yelled like we were alone, then stormed out.
I just sat there, mortified.

No, our family just seems to pick that time of year to die.

Decades ago, a maternal uncle who had been disabled during a flight training accident at the start of the US involvement in WWII (a head injury that made him epileptic, followed by “shock treatment” therapy that worsened his condition) had a seizure at home, collapsed and struck his head on a bathroom fixture and died suddenly. (Christmas was also his birthday.)

Since he lived with his mother at the time, and she was the one who found him, the shock and loss to her meant that she became more or less incompetent for independent living, but she so hated life in a nursing home (and Alzheimer’s was a real factor, too, so that she did not even recognize family members who visited her daily), that she died at Christmas the following year.

Twelve years ago my dad died suddenly and unexpectedly from an accident at his home, two days before my own 50th birthday in late October.

Three years ago my last surviving relative from that generation on my father’s side died – not unexpectedly – a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving.

I have generally enjoyed the fall and winter months, but it seems like they don’t like our family any too much.

:(

My maternal grandmother used to be fond of exclaiming ”Nothing good ever happened in the month of March!”
My birthday is in March.

Me too.

Me three.

Me four.

Somebody was busy in June