Twentieth Century Fox
Written: Monday, November 1, 2010
Nearly 20 million Brits aren't speaking to members of their family after bitter bust ups - and the majority held their mothers responsible, a study found yesterday (Sun).
Four in ten Brits admitted they are currently fueding with someone in their family.
And the arguments are most likely to be over lending money, favoritism and disliking a relative's partner.
But while most arguments are resolved within a year, one in five people admitted they have gone more than three years without talking to a loved one.
Unbelievably one in ten have refused to speak to someone for more than 20 years.
The stats emerged in a study carried out among 3,000 adults by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment to celebrate the launch of Family Guy Season 9.
A spokesman for Fox said: ''It seems that we all have difficult family members and that we all struggle to get along from time to time.
''Although mums were the family members we were most likely to fall out with the study showed that women were much more likely to recognize if their family behaved dysfunctionally and if there were problems in the family.
''But it is sad that so many people don't talk.''
The study also revealed that a third of Brits would go as far as calling their families 'dysfunctional' and that they are happy to go for long periods of time without talking to someone.
And women took the blame for family feuds with eight out of ten people surveyed saying that it was women who were responsible for starting any trouble.
A third even said they had gone for periods of time not talking to their mothers.
After mums, dads were in second place when it comes to the relatives we are most likely to fall out with, followed by sisters.
But many of these family feuds never get resolved with one fifth of adults admitting that a family member had gone to the grave before making peace.
Forty per cent of Brits admitted to actually disliking members of their family with women being much more likely to dislike or hate someone than men.
However, researchers found that most Brits do wish that their families would get along and would like to make peace as soon as possible.
But half admit that they often feel they get dragged in to things through family loyalty.
More than half think there is at least one black sheep in every family.
