How would you have handled this family drama?

Let’s imagine an entirely hypothetical situation :rolleyes:, where your family of 5 (2 adults 3 teens) has been invited to one of the adults’ siblings on New Year’s Day, to watch the alma mater of several family members play in a bowl game. Another sibling and their family was invited as well - would probably be approx. 15-18 people for afternoon snacks and dinner.

In the car 5 minutes into the 15-minute drive, 2 of your family members get into an argument over something pretty minor. The other 3 have no dog in this fight. Neither of the participants is willing to let it drop or give in, so it escalates to screaming, crying, swearing. The driver turns the car home to drop off one of the 2 participants, as well as to pick up the forgotten hostess gift.

During attempt # 2 to reach our destination, the remaining combatant attempts to engage the other 3 in a discussion of what had transpired. Those 3 are hesitant, primarily because they think their carmate was pretty much at least equally at fault, and were not eager to either lie and say that person was correct, or come out and tell them they were wrong on the way to a social gathering. When the person was unwilling to discuss it later, the car got turned around a 2d time, as the other 3 tried to explain their impression of/reaction to what had happened.

When the family gets home, they find the first person had left a note saying they went for a walk. The 2d arguer decides to step outside as well without saying where they are going or when they will be back.

So - at this point, what do you do? Do you call the hostess? If so, what do you say? Do any family members end up going to the party?

Just curious how you folks would have handled such a situation. Wouldn’t have wanted to make it through an entire day of the new year without some kind of easily avoidable drama!

If the one that disappeared was one of the teens, I would say that no one was going to leave the house until that person was located. Sorry - I have tried the “let them walk it off” deal before with pretty disastrous results.

First one will be 20 tomorrow. 2d was a parent.

So…someone actually did the “turn the car around” thing?

Okay, you said that the driver turned the car around to drop one of the two participants off. I’m assuming that the driver was one of the people having the argument because otherwise, why not drop both of the arguers off? It also strikes that this person is really petty and kind of on a power trip. And then because no one can agree on that, everyone has to be taken home? I’m not respecting the driver at all right now.

Then again, I could be wrong. I’d like to know the actual details. What could possibly be so angst inducing that the car has to literally be turned around?

I think I’d probably call the hostess and tell her my family members are auditioning to be the next Osbournes/Hogans/Simmons family with their own reality TV show and are doing their damned best to find drama where they can.

I’d say the three that behaved like adults should have gone to the party without the other two, assuming the two arguers left at home could be trusted to be out on their own, and assuming the three non-arguers hadn’t had their mood completely ruined by the other two. If no one felt like partying, then all should stay home and apologize to the host/hostess.

If it was bad enough to turn the car around I would have left both of them the first time.

I would have just left the parent to deal the 19 year old and gone to the game.
Actually if it were my family they would have gone to the game so everyone could enjoy the fight.

It seems unlikely that this is your family’s first donnybrook. How does your family usually handle disputes? How would you like to see your kids work things out (assuming that the combatants were your children)?

I can imagine times when “Put smiles on your faces, full steam ahead” is the best approach, and times when it’s important to stop everything until the problem has been resolved openly and calmly. I can’t guess which scenario you were facing.

I’m not sure that “Go away until you can play nice” is giving you what you want.
eta

Ouch.

I’m a pretty firm believer that, with a few exceptions, forcing people to go to family functions leads to everyone having a shitty time*. In such a situation, the first time we went back home (and it would nominally have been for the hostess gift, not because someone was being a jerk), there would be an announcement that there will be a 20 minute delay while everyone gets their shit together, and then whomever was in the car at the end of 20 minutes would get driven to the shindig. Anyone who cannot, for whatever reason, pull their act together and play nice for the remainder of the day can stay home or go for a walk or chop wood, for all I care.

And when we got to the party, no covering or explanations would be provided. “Where’s Sue? Oh, she decided to stay home; you’ll have to take it up with her.”

*Note that this philosophy is not shared by all, and in fact I’ve pissed off a fair number of family members because I refuse to coerce my children into playing their proper roles in the Norman Rockwell dramafest. That’s okay with me; it may not work for you.

Maybe you guys need a third option (or more)? That’s pretty black-and-white, with a winner and a loser.

I would have made a beeline for the vino.

Actually, I would have dropped off the kid and refused to let the adult participant engage. You should have handed her a beer at the house when you turned the car around the first time. I’m not joking…anything to make the adult shut up. Chocolate, alcohol, cocoa puffs…everyone has something they’re willing to stuff in their mouths.

I’m leaning towards this as well.

I would have got a taxi. :rolleyes:

I like WhyNot’s answer, also TroubleAgain’s.

I don’t force teenagers to go to family functions. Sulking people are a drag. I say the same thing as WhyNot, “Where’s Sam? Oh he decided he’d rather stay home.” with nonchalance.

In a perfect world, I would have left the arguers at home and gone on to the party with the civil ones. What would likely have happened: I would have pressed on to the party and stayed huffy all afternoon.

Possible exception in this case - I would rather listen to 10 teenagers arguing rather than suffer through a football game. :stuck_out_tongue: .

I guess in this “hypothetical” situation any one of the people could have insisted on getting out of the car - and thus out of the situation - at any time. As for whether to go to the party, that would be each person’s decision.

I suspect a lot of people endure this kind of “drama” during the new year. Happens whenever family and alcohol are in play at the same time.

Not just once, but twice in one day! :stuck_out_tongue:

Wait, you’re assuming I was not the parent involved? What am I talking about, this is a hypothetical, right?

There is no way on earth any of you could possibly imagine how mind-bogglingly stupid the subject of the disagreement was. I’m not even sure how I could describe it…

I (dad) was driving. Wife was one of the disputants. Oldest daughter home from college was the other. Dad and other 2 kids so incredibly had no interest in the issue. None of us could believe the mom was making an issue of it - especially once we were in the car. And none of us could believe the daughter was insistent about digging in her heels at this point.

After we dropped off the kid and headed back, my wife wanted to “discuss” what had happened. Of course, to large extent she wanted us to say she was right and the kid was wrong. Which none of the 3 of us believed. I tried several ways to avoid a direct conversation. Didn’t want to flat out lie and say, “You were right, hon.” Nor did I want to say, “What on earth were you thinking?” But when she would not agree to at least let it wait until after the party, I decided if I was going to be anywhere near honest (which I generally try to do) the mood in the car wouldn’t be what you want stepping into a party. Fortunately, at this point kids #2 and 3 decided to weigh in by informing mom exactly how unreasonable she was being. That really helped cool things off! :rolleyes:

And as expected, as diplomatic as I tried to be, I was accused of not being adequately “supportive.”

Damn, I wanna come to your family’s gatherings! :cool:

When we got home and daughter #1 and spouse were MIA, I called my sister to let her know we weren’t coming. No, my family is not a stranger to disputes. And in the past, my wife has made up some kind of excuse or another. “Someone got sick” is probably popular. But I don’t play that game. I just apologized, saying 2 of the family got into a huge disagreement on the way over, such that none of us was in any frame of mind that we could contribute to the gathering (paraphrase).

Would you have lied or told the truth?

Today I’m feeling kinda guilty, thinking that my sister went to the effort and expense of preparing to have us over, only to have 1/3 of the guestlist not show. But I don’t think there is anything really to do at this point. She works a really wierd schedule and rarely checks her e-mail, so there is no easy way to just casually call her.

This a.m. my wife surprised me by saying she was surprised the rest of us hadn’t gone after she stormed out. And said she had thought about going by herself. :eek:

Really, it never crossed my mind. The 3/4 of us at home were in no mood for a party. And I didn’t want to predict my wife’s reaction if we went without here.

Happy New Year!

Man, talk about just the thing to motivate me about going back to work this morning.

I believe the best answer to your wife at this point would have been “Let’s discuss this later - the rest of the family are expecting us and we don’t want to let them down”

I’m finding this really interesting in light of your earlier thread “Why won’t you women just DROP IT!”.

Is there some kind of pattern? One of those Mars/Venus things?

Just to add, at this point

I would have got the other kids in the car and driven to the bowl game. No reason you should all miss out just because your wife and daughter are both acting like 15 year olds.

If I was one of the 2 kids who got hosed out of going to a family party because Mom and Older Sister were being bitchy, I’d be really mad.

If I was your sister I’d be pretty peeved too. But that’s a personal thing.

Honestly, if I was The Driver, I’d have been ok with Mom and Daughter being gone from the house because I know the value of a good “time out” session. I wouldn’t have sat around and waited for or looked for them. No way would I have ruined my or my kids’ or my sister’s afternoon by making sure 2 adults (mom and daughter) felt hunky-dory.

Seriously…will you tell us what the argument is about? I have to know now!