You have to force it just a little. The family I started was so boring at first. I was doing the same things. I used story mode thing, answered the questions and got my first evil sim witch. Made her a roommate and she was a witch too. One was in the criminal career and one was a chef. They lived in Sulani.
I had just switched pc's and on this new one, my husband has pretty much no choice but to watch me play! So he starts telling me what I should do. He played TS1 back in the day. Hasn't seen it since. He is telling me what I should do.
The chef wanted a dog. I got her a bull mastiff. Then saw that they can be familiars. So I got the evil one a bulldog. They met the body builder lady and her wife. We didn't know they were married at that time. He said, move that redhead into the house. I did. Only to find out they were married. He told me to get them divorced. I did. They got so depressed. The redhead ended up falling in love with my evil sim lady. The body builder lady would come every other day bringing food and and crying while she ate it. I decided to give her a new love because she was just breaking my heart. I made her, they met, fell in love, and married in one day.
My husband says, have the chef take her new wife too! Haha! NO! I just can't do that. Yet...
The evil witch and the redhead are expecting their 3rd child soon. The chef quit her job and is a movie star.
So my advice for keeping this game fun is to let someone who has never played it tell you what to do. They don't know the limits and they come up with things regular players never think about. Crazy stuff even! We are all stuck in our ways. Let someone else tell you what to do.