Objetivo específico: RSO3.1. Desarrollar una RTE-T sostenible, resiliente al cambio

As highlighted earlier, all but one of the men included family members on their map. The majority of family members included were ‘blood’ relatives, however some men also included relatives by marriage (such as aunts and uncles,

brother/sister in law), as well as step-parents. Participants who chose to include family members, often discussed their reasons for including them in ways that overlapped with the meanings and definitions they had attributed to friendships.

Indeed, two of the themes, “being there for you” and “spending time with” were common in men’s discussions of why they had chosen to include family members.

Although I didn’t ask the men to define how they understood the term ‘family’, many of the men did make distinctions between ‘close’ or ‘immediate’, and extended family members. These distinctions often followed a particular logic, with parents, siblings, and grandparents (where cited) being described as ‘close’

family members, and aunts, uncles and cousins of being described as extended family. For a small number of men (Taylan, Terry, Eamon, Colin and David) these

more ‘extended’ or ‘distant’ relatives such as cousins and aunts were described as being close family members. For example, describing his great aunt, Taylan

explained:

“...even though she’s a distant relative she’s more like another granny to me because since I moved to [name of town] five years ago she’s like- well I don’t have any fa-, I don’t have any of my close family near me so she’s kind of been there for me and stuff and so she’s been more like, she’s been like a close member of my family, more than a distant relative I would say.” (Taylan, 25)

For Taylan, the support his great aunt provided for him, in the absence of other family members, was a key factor in his ‘closeness’ to her. Similarly, David

described his female cousin as being a friend. In contrast to his relationships with other cousins, he noted that he and this cousin had more in common, as prior to meeting his boyfriend, they were both single and socialised together. He

explained:

“I think because she’s the only single cousin that because I, up until I met [Boyfriend’s name], was out and having fun and things, she would meet me and we’d go out, or we just have the sort of same happy-go-lucky lifestyle in that we don’t necessarily need to have a relationship, whereas everyone else is now settled down and has kids. So I think that’s why we have our close relationship, and the fact that we’re still, we can still go out and have fun...” (David, 27)

David here draws on the idea of ‘shared interests’ and ‘spending time with’ as a reason for him being closer to this female cousin than other extended family members. Like Taylan and David, the other men who described extended family members in this way all drew on ideas around support, and shared interests as an explanation for their close relationship.

4.4.7 ‘Being There For You’: Family Members

Similar to discussions of friendship, many of the men noted that they had chosen to include family members within their PC because they were ‘there for them’. For example, Terry explained that he trusted that his mother would always be there for him if he found himself in a crisis:

“...obviously close to me is my Mother, I find she's like a great inspiration to me, she's just a complete role model, she's kind of put her life on pause for me and my sister and now she's kind of got her own life now... I think she's just, she's always there for me in a crisis.”

(Terry, 27)

Terry went on to link “crisis” to making important life decisions, as well as requiring practical or financial assistance. This was echoed across many of the other men’s accounts. Indeed, close family members were framed as being a trusted source of advice and support around practical issues (for example, changing jobs or moving home) because the family member was likely to ‘know them better’ and thus be able to advise them on the best course of action. This is illustrated by a quote from Eamon’s account of his family relationships:

“But just cos your family know you more, they just know how you handle stuff and so they just know like the best things for you to do.”

(Eamon, 24)

Among those men who included family members within the innermost circles of their PC map, it was common for them to frame family members as knowing and understanding them better than friends.

Family members, particularly parents, were cited most often as sources of support and advice around financial issues, with around half (n=13) of the men interviewed discussing seeking and receiving financial support from family members.

Furthermore, both men with friend and family dominated PCs reported accessing financial support from family members, and as such this did not appear to be patterned by the composition of the men’s PCs.

David, in his late twenties, described looking to his parents for support around money. He explained this was not simply in order to receive money, rather, because he believed they would be less judgemental than other people:

“If I had money problems – which I have done in the past, and I think everyone has to be honest – I’d, went to my parents. I, I’m not, I don’t necessarily, didn’t ever want them to give me money or anything, I just wanted them to know, “I’m having problems with money, I’m not going to have money for this that or the next thing,” and instantly they were like, “right, we’ll give you this, we’ll give you that,” even though I know they don’t have much, they’ll be like, “right, we’ll give you this.”

But that’s not necessarily why I would go, it’s just that those are the people that I think that wouldn’t judge me for having money

problems.” (David, 27)

Of the men who discussed receiving financial help from family members, over half (n=8) stressed that this help most often was provided by their mother, because they felt comfortable asking her for help around money. However, this was not always the case. Quentin noted that his father had helped him through financial difficulties and would “never see me short”. His reason for going to his father was that he was more skilled financially than his mother.

Five of the men discussed other family members such as aunts, grandparents, and siblings as sources of financial support. Taylan discussed the financial support he had had from his parents and grandparents and when moving away from home:

“...there has been times when it’s been like, I’ve really struggled, especially financially. You know, like before I was at college I had jobs, before that I was unemployed for quite a long time and my parents and my grandparents are really good at helping me out when I needed, when I was in a hole really... but also like, you know, between them all when I moved down here they all kind of chipped in and, you know, furnished my flat for me and stuff like that which not every person’s parents would do so I have been quite lucky in that sense.” (Taylan, 25) A minority of men, Nick, Tom and Gary, explicitly stressed that they would rather be independent in relation to financial matters, and therefore would not seek support from family members.

Family members were also framed as a potential source of emotional support.

Three of the men (Kalen, Dexter and David) talked about how the death of a close family member had increased the feeling of closeness with other family members.

For example, David, whose brother died when he was a teenager noted that the death of his brother resulted in a stronger family bond:

“...in terms of relationships I have with family, because we went

through such a huge thing with my brother dying, I do think that we are a closer family and that we’ve got that sort of instant support if

anything was to go wrong.” (David, 27)

With the exception of the issue of death and bereavement, it was less common among the men to describe seeking emotional support from family members than from friends. Where men did talk about seeking emotional support around issues such as relationship breakdown and coming–out, sources of support were highly gendered, with female family members such as mothers, sisters and aunts most often being cited as engaging in more of this ‘emotional work’. None of the men explicitly discussed the gendered dimensions of seeking and/or receiving support from family members, indeed it was presented in a taken-for-granted way, with the expectation that such female family members would understand and be non-judgmental in relation to displays of emotion. Only Taylan and Tiernan explicitly included discussion of male family members in relation to the provision of

emotional support. Both men stressed the strong bonds between them and family members which resulted in them being able to be open with them about their feelings.