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Before I go any further, let me state that I do think that some people deserve to be hoisted right out of our lives. I do not think that anyone "owes anybody" any time standing in the firing line of abuse.
But I read so many posts about cutting people completely off - and not just casual friends, but intimate friends or immediate family - people whose lives have played a big part in who we all are today. I want to offer another alternative. That's not to say that anyone has to take it, but it's something to think about.
Let's use unreasonable, disrespectful mothers as an example - since apparently there are a lot of them around.
You're raised by your mom. Your sense of self worth is shaped by her from an early age. Your personal habits, likes and dislikes, expectations, etc are all very much impacted by her influence on your life in most cases (I'm not talking about mothers who abandon their kids early on, just to clarify).
Along the way, you may come to realize that your mother is ape **** crazy. Or that she's a sociopath. Or that she's emotionally damaged herself. Or that she's got some sort of personality disorder. Or that she's completely unreasonable. Or that her personality is in direct conflict with yours. Or that her beliefs and yours don't match up at all. Pick your poison.
Anyway, if that's the case, I'm sure that you could probably write a book on all the crazy, unreasonable, and sometimes cruel things such a person has done to you. I'm sure you could make a good case for walking away from this relationship entirely and "living happily ever after," and I'm sure that some people have done just that.
But others have found that doing so creates a lot of other family drama and before you know it, bingo - you're cutting people off left and right! Your holidays are screwed up, or your kids don't know their grandparents at all, or every minute you spend around your mother makes your skin crawl.
I'm here to present another possible alternative.
If a dysfunctional mother raised you, I can promise you that you have emotional damage from that upbringing. if you just cut her out of your life, that may feel satisfying on one level, but what have you done to "fix yourself?" What have you done to model strength and to model your values to other people?
There is great personal satisfaction in working through one's own issues and then approaching these "toxic people" and saying, "Here are my parameters and my values. I insist that you respect those. If you cannot do so, then we'll have to part ways, which will be unfortunate, because I only have one mother, and you only have one me. Personally, I am disinclined to throw our relationship away, but I also am going to live by my value system. Here are my parameters:" And then name them.
For me they were, "You are not to call me at 6 am - or at 10 am for that matter - raising hell. If you write your manifestos to me in letter or email form, I am not going to read them. When you are in my house, you will show respect for my religious beliefs, my lifestyle choices, my political stance, etc. If you want to discuss these matters with me, I insist that the discussions be respectful, with no name calling, no insulting, no inflammatory language. You will treat me as an adult, not as a child. If you become rude to me in my home, I will ask you to leave. If you become rude to me in YOUR home, I will immediately leave."
Then I had to retrain her, which meant that there were unpleasant scenarios for a time. I did have to get up and leave her house on more than one occasion. I also had to tell her to leave me house. Once I had to insist that she PAY FOR A BUNCH OF LIBRARY BOOKS that she had written "BS!" and other derogatory notes throughout. I had to go 18 months without talking to her at one point because I had told her not to call me raising hell, and not to yell at me and then hang up - and she did so anyway. So...I wasn't going to call her till she apologized. She held out 18 months, but by golly - she apologized.
The end result is that I have a decent relationship with my mom. It took about three years of work on my part, "retraining her" - and retraining myself and my responses to her. BUT IT WAS SO WORTH IT. Now my mother is in my life - under my terms. She occasionally steps outside the boundaries, and I have to hold her to those boundaries, but I also know that (here comes the good part):
SHE RESPECTS ME.
This means a lot to me.
I'm glad I didn't give up. She is now an elderly, rather needy woman, and it's sad to think of her having to be alone if my father goes before she does. Now she doesn't have to be alone, and I don't have to worry about whether or not I gave it my best shot. I know I did.
Also, an aside note - I have a better relationship with my dad. Yes, this involved some confrontation - after all, he was the one who stood by and allowed her to abuse my brother and me. We had to work through that. But we did, and now we're a family. No family is perfect - but respect is possible in many cases.
I'm not saying that it's never appropriate to cut someone completely out of our lives. Of course it can be. It's not always the only answer though.
Yes. Because there are people who hate it when their atrocious behavior is pointed out by friends and family. Then they say, "Stop judging me!" which is the biggest cop-out line of all.
Yes. Because there are people who hate it when their atrocious behavior is pointed out by friends and family. Then they say, "Stop judging me!" which is the biggest cop-out line of all.
You make a really good point.
Walking away or saying "I'm cutting you off!" is sometimes the easiest thing to do, but it's not always the most mature or most edifying thing to do.
We need to remember that we have the opportunity to model mature, wise behavior to others who are probably watching us.
Yes. Because there are people who hate it when their atrocious behavior is pointed out by friends and family. Then they say, "Stop judging me!" which is the biggest cop-out line of all.
Yes indeed, and adding the word "toxic" to the equation is meant to justify it even further. Who could argue that toxic is OK?
Yes indeed, and adding the word "toxic" to the equation is meant to justify it even further. Who could argue that toxic is OK?
'
Right.
I'm just saying that before we throw people out of our lives, we need to be sure we've done all we can from a mature, healthy perspective to establish our parameters. Often it's so easy to justify just cutting people out. We hear it all the time. It's not always the best answer, even when the situation is pretty bad. Often these are people who are mentally ill or emotionally damaged - how will us cutting them out entirely do them a bit of good? We can put a distance between us, we can stick to our parameters, but I think we should also take the opportunity to work through our own emotional baggage, stand tall and strong, and say "I place value on our relationship and it's worth it to me for us to try to respect and appreciate each other. I hope you feel the same."
Why is it my responsibility to model mature behavior, or retrain them on how to be reasonable human beings? I have a very full life, with plenty of people who I love and respect and do the same for me. I don't have time, room or energy to deal with toxic relationships.
On the City-Data boards, all too often it's recommended when one half of a married couple has an issue with the in-laws. You would think in-law was synonymous with toxic. Married couples need to be a bit more flexible and accepting to the other side.
Why is it my responsibility to model mature behavior, or retrain them on how to be reasonable human beings? I have a very full life, with plenty of people who I love and respect and do the same for me. I don't have time, room or energy to deal with toxic relationships.
I didn't say it was our responsibility to retrain anyone - I just said that often we have more OPTIONS than simply "cutting someone toxic out of our lives completely." You can do as you please - i don't know anything about the relationships in your life so I can't say what you should do.
That being said, I DO think that mature, responsible adults have the responsibility to model behavior that they expect from others.
I see what you're saying, but it begs the question of whether a relationship with the person is worth the effort of "retraining" them. Often enough, it's not. I don't think that would be a cop-out, because depending on what else you have going on in your life--kids, illness, job woes, financial issues--you may not have either the time or energy for it, and on your list of priorities, that person falls at the bottom.
Or, to put it in cold terms, what is the return on your investment?
Also, often enough, when people break contact, it's not to punish the other person--although some do. Often, though, it's to give themselves space to heal, either from what that person did to them, or other things going on in their lives that the other person is actively making worse.
I have had to put aside a relationship with a sister with whom I was once very close. When my ex-SO and I split up, not only was she not supportive, she was proactively negative, discouraging, and even punitive in her comments to me. She wanted to play up-manship with how rough her life has been as a way of minimizing what I was going through, and she was toxic enough to say, "Well, you made your choices, now you deal with the consequences." (CPG: Did you know that people freelance because they want to sleep until noon, so they deserve any hassles they get from clients who violate contracts and pay them late?)
It was like because she messed up her own life by her own poor choices--drinking her way through high school, getting knocked up her senior year, marrying at 19, divorcing at 24, and getting involved with married man after married man who went back to his wife--now it was my turn to suffer because I hadn't yet done so. She never had the wits, education, or guts to strike out on her own, so I deserve to fail because I do. My life had just been too rosy and I needed to be brought down to her level. I made more money than she did, so now I should have financial problems. I've never been "the other woman" or hit or beaten by a man, so I should be devastated by a break-up. It was like she relished seeing me in pain, yet felt I didn't deserve to talk about that pain or be helped through it because it wasn't nearly as much as what she had been through.
It was a disgusting display of both schadenfreude and martyrdom, and I don't know where I got the strength other than pure outrage at her audacity, but I called her out on her rotten behavior and haven't spoken with her since. I can honestly say that I do not miss dealing with her, and removing her from my life was an act of self-defense and survival. It freed up time in my life and room in my heart to talk to friends, go visit them, have them visit me, etc., and heal. Clearing out her negativity made room for their love and positivity, without which I would not have been able to turn everything around.
Life is short. Too short for toxicity.
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