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I'm glad you were able to cut off contact with someone who acted so maliciously towards you. I can only imagine how much hurt and pain you went through. She sounds jealous of you. Not worth the betrayal to hold onto. Certainly not her toxicity.
Family members who have a warped perception on life.. can really make life miserable for those around them.
Thanks, Kat. Yes, she has always been a jealous person. I remember one time when I was 18, another sister and I went out to meet this sister and her second hub at a roller rink to skate on adult night. I was talking to the hub, and this sister skated over with murder in her eyes. Then she recognized me. Ugh.
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.
Food for thought.
After reading your post, all I can say is many kudoes to you for going the distance with your mother, for sticking it out while you were standing up to her bullying, adjusting your responses to her as you needed to, instead of throwing up your hands in disgust and deciding you'd be done with her for good! I'm sure it would have been easier for you to declare yourself done with her for good, and I don't think too many people would have blamed you for doing so. But you know, both you and your mother came out the winners in the long run.
Kathryn---I read your post yesterday and did some thinking about it.
Kudos to you for being able to train your mother. It sounds like your father didn't try to run interference either. I'm sure that it would have been difficult for you to train your mother had he done so.
I'll give an example. My mother died 15 years ago but she was a narcissistic alcoholic who was good at making life miserable for others. My father, who is still alive, was the perfect enabler. Whenever I would stand up to my mother, he would jump into the fray and take her side. Then, later he would tell me that he agreed with me but please, don't say anything to her because he would never hear the end of it. So...trying to train her would have been a waste of time for me---especially when the rest of the family wouldn't get on board or at least be supportive.
My mother would often lie about me to others. My aunt (her sister) ended up barely speaking to me due to my mother's lies. Heck, my aunt refused to ask for my side of the story. Part of the problem was that my aunt was the favored daughter---the more talented one, the better looking one (according to my grandfather). So, my mother resented her. My aunt knew this so she was constantly defending my mother's actions (still does long after my mother's death).
With all that going on, training my mother would have been a waste of time---never mind emotionally draining. So...when they retired to the other end of the country, I only saw them infrequently and would go weeks between phone calls. It was so nice to have that physical distance!
So...again, I'm glad it all worked out for you in the end. You certainly have the patience of Job.
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."
I only stop dealing with toxic people who I'm not really close to, like casual "friends" and secondary family. I wouldn't do it to a sibling or parent unless they did something really messed up to me.
Of course it is. And what you may have inadvertently done here is cause people who have had to make that decision to second guess their choice and rehash their process - which you may say is a good thing, but for some it certainly is not.
Often people are not able to heal from issues caused by toxic people until they have actually removed themselves from the situation. And whether they have issues themselves at that time is not the point. You don't have to be healed/wiser/the better person before you decide. Sometimes that's not possible, nor wise.
I'm not speaking of people who cut people out of their lives precisely because they are a toxic-poor-me person. But of people who may have struggled mightily with it, who have found the courage, and who you are now telling just didn't do as good a job as they could have, didn't try hard enough, didn't fix their own side of the fence, could have done better if they'd just do things the way you do them.
Well for some people getting rid of the environment is paramount, above and beyond fixing one's own self. Especially if minors are involved. And unfortunately they may never be as at peace as they could be. But they did the right thing regardless. I would hate anybody reading this to think they failed at making the right decision, when the decision wasn't really a choice.
For example, did you wait until you'd fixed yourself before you left and set boundaries with your ex husband? I hope not. Your children were more important than doing it the "right" way.
And we're talking truly toxic or completely unmanageable very close relationships, I assume. Otherwise, people come and people go, for all sorts of reasons, and that's just life.
See the bolded part - that's not what I told anyone. If people took it that way, they misunderstood my point, unfortunately.
And no, I didn't get my head completely straight before I removed my children from an abusive environment, but I had definitely started down the road of self introspection and examination, because I didn't want to make such a monumental decision (divorcing their father) without plenty of forethought - and I also didn't want to take them out of the frying pan into the fire.
Also, another thing we haven't really discussed at all, but which can be an important element is that sometimes we have the option of putting someone out of our life TEMPORARILY in order for us to get our own act and head together after exiting a bad relationship, or while THEY get THEIR head together. Not all "exiles" need to be exiled permanently, though they may need to be exiled for a length of time.
For instance, my brother, who is bipolar and schizophrenic. While he was unmedicated and untreated, I could not allow him access into my life - or very little access in a very controlled environment. I certainly couldn't let him be around my children. Sometimes this took considerable effort on my part. But I am so glad I didn't sever my relationship with him completely because I was able to help my dad have him involuntarily committed - where he has received EXCELLENT care and is vastly improved, so much so that his treatment facility is allowing him to lead classes. And I can have a controlled relationship with him, which is very edifying to both of us. Can he come spend a week with me? No. But he can come spend a day or two with me, or we can have lunch together or talk on the phone for an hour and thoroughly enjoy each other's company. I'm very glad I didn't write him off entirely, even when he was literally a physical danger to me.
I understand the "well you are emotionally damaged so look at yourself first before you make such decisions type attitude." What I usually see is people trying with their family so many times that they are only letting themselves become even more damaged.
If someone is continuing to abuse you and you give them nine chances, you should not expect that on the tenth chance they are going to change. Maybe some people are strong enough to endure that. I know that in my case I am not and I'm not ashamed to say so.
The cons usually outweigh the pros of constantly trying in a dead end situation.
I'm not saying to tolerate ongoing abuse. I'm sorry, but I don't know how to make myself much clearer. If you're being abused, lay out your parameters and the other person must respect them. If they don't, they must accept the ramifications. All I'm saying is that the ramifications don't always have to be "You're toxic - get out of my life." They can be, "I asked you not to bring up that subject but you have. So I'm leaving."
Often when we stick to our guns, people find it possible to modify their behaviors. Of course, some people will NEVER modify their behaviors but we don't even know if what we're asking is reasonable till we've closely examined our own psyche, character, and standards.
I think there is a gross underestimation of how hard it is to cut ties with a parent. So much loss, grief and mourning. I'm sure there are people who do it for dramatics. But I will give people the benefit of the doubt about how they came to decide and proceed.
First, I'd like to say I appreciate that you are bringing this topic up. It provokes a lot of thought and gets people thinking about how they need to take care of themselves and their families.
No, it probably shouldn't be the first option, but I assume most people who have done this have been putting up with things for a while with no relief in sight. For me, it has been >7 years total (3 years on and off, 4+ years of frequent contact). I've tried at least three solid times to say, "just distance yourself. Maybe you can go out for coffee once in a while or see each other around the holidays." When I've tried to do this, I end up getting some out-of-nowhere, explosive, would-be guilt-inducing diatribe (and I've not even verbally told this this to the person or had any contact with her; I've just stepped back and thought for a couple of days).
OTOH, I have a sister who was horribly verbally abusive me as a child (and she was an full-grown adult, to boot). She started to pave a pretty good life for herself, but now the shoe is on the other foot. She's unemployable, a former addict, married to a verbally-abusive drug dealer/alcoholic, and can't dig herself out of her situation. As badly as she treated me, I never cut her out. I distanced myself from her and made my own path. At points I had to set boundaries, but she is reasonable enough to respect those boundaries. Some people just aren't.
BTW, this is pretty much what I cleared my calendar permanently of last night:
Yes! You and I are actually in agreement on this issue. Some people are incorrigible. Others are often doing the best they can with the tools they have. And others are often simply on automatic - it's how they were raised and it's all they know, and we can model a better set of dynamics for them and they may come around eventually.
I agree with this. Also in dysfunctional families, sometimes there is a hive mind thinking 'if you're not with us, you're against us.' Any rearrangement of that dysfunction causes anxiety; such as someone who has cleaned up their act and wants to be civil, kind, polite, and mindful of others feelings. In dysfunctional families, someone who wants to get mentally healthy is a threat to the way the family runs (usually on dysfunction), and so the abuse towards the person who has decided to change is magnified.
Every situation is different. I think you're a strong person whether you decide to stay and turn the other cheek, or cut your losses and seek healthier relationships from which you receive what you need.
I agree, but there's also another possible scenario and it's one I've lived first hand.
My family was VERY dysfunctional, with a mentally ill mother AND brother as well as a grandmother and aunt. You can imagine the hot mess, and my poor dad didn't know anything about mental illness or how to deal with it so he ended up enabling my mother and protecting her from the ramifications of her actions rather than helping her get the professional treatment she needed. AUGH. THEN my brother was born, and he's also mentally ill and wow, the two of them fed off each other like, well...like crazy. I retreated from all this madness as much as I could via books and school - I'd come home from school and go straight to my room and read read read read read read read. I knew something was broken but I couldn't put my finger on it - of course, since I was a child. But I also knew inherently that I was a strong person and that my mother was not - and that she felt very threatened by my strength (actually probably just my SANITY). Very early in life, I developed a sense of pity for her as well as a sense of independence. But I wasn't mature enough to see that my dad was a big part of the problem.
It took getting into an abusive marriage and seeing my children threatened to get my attention. The blocks began to fall into place and I began to realize with horror that my father had abysmally failed at his NUMBER ONE JOB which was protecting his family and especially his children. Wow - and he didn't even have the excuse of mental illness! You can imagine how this devastated me - but whew - it was also good to confront and work through. Things started to make sense and my way became clearer.
When I told my parents I was filing for divorce, and I laid out my parameters with my ex husband, and told my parents about the horrific abuse he was guilty of, you would think that my family would have rallied around me in support. Heh. No way. My DAD did, but my mother and my brother felt very threatened and defensive. Why was that? Because they realized that I wasn't going to put up with abuse - from ANYONE - any more. Yep, that's right - not from my ex husband - and not from my mother and my brother - and I was going to let my dad know that I wasn't going to make the same selfish mistakes HE had made for so many years.
This threw everyone into a tizzy - I really upset the apple cart. And you are exactly right about the abuse being magnified - my mother and brother came at me full force and my dad stepped back and once again shrugged his shoulders and said, "What do you expect ME to do about it?"
It was a very, very difficult three or four years in my life. But I was determined to get through this with dignity. It wasn't that I was so great - I just felt that I really needed to model strength and dignity for my children. Someone had to make a difference and turn our family from dysfunction to functionality - if not the former generations, then the future generations. With or without my parents and my brother, I was going to make it happen.
The really great thing is this - my dad began to see the value of what I was trying to accomplish. This wasn't overnight but it was progress, every month. He began to implement changes - and my mother and eventually my brother began to realize that they'd be out on their ears if they didn't make some changes. This wasn't easy to do at all - at ALL. It's still a challenge. My mother is still mentally ill, and my dad is still predisposed to crater to her completely unreasonable demands - but he's gotten a lot stronger, and the cool thing is that both my mother and my brother are MUCH BETTER OFF than they were when they were allowed free rein with their rampant mental issues.
Fifteen years later, I have a very good relationship with my dad and a cordial relationship with my mother and a pleasant relationship (though somewhat distanced) with my brother. To me, this beats the heck out of throwing them all away fifteen years ago when they were ALL truly toxic and without exception did not have my best interests or those of my children in mind. My kids have their grandparents in their life and my parents are truly crazy about those kids and great grandkids. There's a lot of love that wouldn't have been possible to enjoy fifteen years ago.
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