Ugh. Update in comments. No, I'm not in jail ;)

novella1186

jdluvr06 said:

I'm glad you had a nice day. You're family is really crazy. Comes join mine. They are crazy in a good way.

haha thanks! I have a few relatives who are crazy in a good way, and it's the best!

mikenberger

jdluvr06 said:

I'm glad you had a nice day. You're family is really crazy. Comes join mine. They are crazy in a good way.

Shit, my grandma pulled the "I'm your only grandma." line today to get an invite to the rehearsal dinner. In which I had to invite her husband, then my aunt and uncle because they are all traveling together and my aunt would RAGE if she wasn't invited.

Fucking psychos. I swear my mother was hatched.

jenajjthr

Novella, I've stayed out of your family drama because there isn't anything I could've added that other PP's haven't added more eloquently than I could have. You are doing great in learning how to distance yourself, letting BSC roll off your back, smiling and going on with your life. I'm very proud of you for that....that takes so much.  

I know cutting toxic people, especially our immediate family, is easier said than done. The words are so easy to write in this pretty little box....If they are so mean to you, they make you cry, then stop talking to them....see not that hard at all.  Just some keystrokes and voila...I wrote it. In reality though, letting go of even the most toxic family member isn't that easy....there is the hope, however unrealistic, that someday they may not be so BSC and everything becomes puppies, unicorns, and rainbows. So we keep hoping and dreaming, we keep trying to reach out, hoping that the next talk, the next meeting, the next time we are the better person, they will magically change. 

The sad reality is toxic people rarely change into the better person we want them be. The only advice I can give is keep working on your boundaries, you are doing better with every post, keep your distance, learn to take care of yourself when they push you past your boundaries....no need to cry over lunch....do something to make yourself feel better instead...focus on yourself...not them, and at some point.....when you are ready....let them go.   I know that will be a hard choice to make, I've done it myself. My bio dad was my toxic person, not to the extent of your  mom and sister though. I couldn't have him make me miserable in my life anymore, but the straw that did it for me was when he started hurting my kids. So....I let him go. I haven't looked back since. 

I will say I tried to let him back in once, but he started to pull the same crap....so bye bye once again. I have no regrets. I have the choice....to let him give me pain and anxiety or I can choose to live without him in my life. I can't control his behavior so I have to choose not to have him in my life. 

I'm not saying you have to be this drastic.....but if they refuse to change their behavior, and it continues to cause you pain and suffering.....this is an option. Good luck no matter where you go from here. 

FiancB

Yeah... cutting out toxic family is way easier said than done, especially if they are "just" really obnoxious but don't actually do anything, like, physically abusive. Even then, it's hard.  My sister and her husband are in this process with his mom, for his privacy I'm not even sure what all happened but long story short it's bad enough to where he has PTSD and all these other mental issues. Still took him til the age of 36 or so to cut her out.

So then naturally, she moved from being 4 hours away to 8 miles and joined their church.

Easier said than done.  It's always really tempting to play peacemaker and there's always going to be some lingering sense of obligation and duty to associate with family, no matter how fucking terrible they are. 

themuffinman16

I can completely understand how stuff like this upsets you. Sometimes BSC people upset us, and other days we are able to shrug it off. It's usually around big events we realize how things are supposed to be if we had healthy relationships.  When it comes down to it, all of those special moments in our lives, the drama never really seems to get in the way. We wind up being so happy enjoying the moment, that we can see past the day to day bullshit. I am glad your shower was wonderful, and I am so relieved your sister acted as close to a grownup as she could manage. Lol.

 Next big event... you're getting married. Yay!

novella1186

Thanks, ladies! 

jenajjthr, thanks for sharing your experience. I'm glad you were able to make those healthy decisions. 

allispain

novella1186 said:

I am glad that you had a good time. You deserve one day without any drama but I am a little mad at your mom. After you told her specifically that BSC sister wasn't invited, she brought her anyway. She is such the enabler that she will always try to get you two to make up. That would drive me so crazy that I would be putting some distance between me and BSC family after the wedding.

Yeah, FI got stuck hanging out with my dad for a couple hours, and he said the ENTIRE time they were hanging out, it was one long lecture from my dad about how he's not an asshole. Seems very apparent that my dad knows he has done some shitty things and we aren't happy with him. So he goes on and on about how great he is.

During this lecture, he told FI how I upset my mom SO MUCH by saying I didn't want BSCS at my dress fitting. She felt SO BAD. It was SO HARD FOR HER. She felt bad ALL NIGHT. Because everything is always all about my mom and her feelings are the only thing that matters. K.

FI replied to this by saying, "well Novella spent her entire lunch break crying so..."


This sounds exactly like my dad. Who I cut out of my life a couple years ago. I still remember one day when I was home from college on winter break. I had started seeing a therapist to work through the emotional breakdown I had that year - brought on about 75% by things in my family. My mom asked me one day what I had talked about with my therapist. I told her I wasn't comfortable sharing that - that's why I was speaking with a therapist, so that I could have someone to talk to about those things. That night, my dad screamed at me for a solid five minutes about how I had made my mom cry and what an ungrateful daughter I was. Neither he nor my mom actually ever asked if I was okay - they just wanted to make sure I wasn't telling "family secrets" to my therapist (like about my dad's drinking problem...). I left the house, drove to a friend's, and stayed there for the evening. When I went home the next day, he brought it up again. So I left again - went back to my friend's house and didn't come home until dinner time. I think he got the point, as he never mentioned it again.

You can't change your family's behavior - you can only change how you react to it. It took me a very long time to understand that. We're talking years. And two different stints in therapy. And my parents' brutal, sudden divorce. Now that dad's no longer a part of my life, I am a much happier person. So is my mom - she's also a much nicer person. Go figure.

Dreamergirl8812

pinkrevenge said:

novella1186 said:

pinkrevenge said:

Like, if my dad had been an asshole for 22 years to my friend, I would have just said "Dad, no one fucking cares about what you think" and kept on moving.

It blows my mind that you cried through your whole lunch break because absolutely nothing your family does should be shocking to you anymore. I've only read this stuff for a few months and none of it shocks me. C'mon, girl.

I've pretty much said exactly that to him. He doesn't care. He just keeps talking.

Well I give up. Have fun with that shit, because apparently no one ever gets anything through to your horrific family but they're still invited to things for no reason.

Maybe you guys should all just have that big MMA fight you've been building up towards and then never ever speak to each other ever again. Because for serious, how do you all even? This is so frustrating to read. "My family constantly always sucks and today they sucked again and also water is wet but it's still amazing to behold and they will always forever be involved because ain't no one ever just quit them".

My head, it has been scratched.

My first thought was, how does novella know he keeps talking? I mean, obviously she walks away after telling him to knock it the fuck off, right? So how did she hear him?

If you don't actually shut it down, what is the fucking point?!!

novella1186

Dreamergirl8812 said:

pinkrevenge said:

novella1186 said:

pinkrevenge said:

Like, if my dad had been an asshole for 22 years to my friend, I would have just said "Dad, no one fucking cares about what you think" and kept on moving.

It blows my mind that you cried through your whole lunch break because absolutely nothing your family does should be shocking to you anymore. I've only read this stuff for a few months and none of it shocks me. C'mon, girl.

I've pretty much said exactly that to him. He doesn't care. He just keeps talking.

Well I give up. Have fun with that shit, because apparently no one ever gets anything through to your horrific family but they're still invited to things for no reason.

Maybe you guys should all just have that big MMA fight you've been building up towards and then never ever speak to each other ever again. Because for serious, how do you all even? This is so frustrating to read. "My family constantly always sucks and today they sucked again and also water is wet but it's still amazing to behold and they will always forever be involved because ain't no one ever just quit them".

My head, it has been scratched.

My first thought was, how does novella know he keeps talking? I mean, obviously she walks away after telling him to knock it the fuck off, right? So how did she hear him?

If you don't actually shut it down, what is the fucking point?!!

I mean "he keeps talking" as in he doesn't get the point, and the next time her name comes up, he'll say the exact same shit again. And I'll tell him to fuck off again. And the next time her name comes up, he brings it up again. He does the same thing with other people as well. My aunt that i'm super close to is "Crazy and delusional", my other aunt is "an idiot and so stupid it's dangerous," etc. 

I honestly think it's part of his own mental problems, to constantly bash other people to try to make himself look better. 

He's always talked about people like this, all the time, every chance he gets, even when people walk away, ignore him, tell him to fuck off, whatever. He just keeps talking. 

novella1186

allispain ugh that sounds awful. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. It's a lot like my mom; she's more worried about what I might say about her and what other people may think of her than she is with dealing with the real issues or making sure I'm ok. 

"mom I need to go to therapy. I feel like killing myself." 

"you can't go to therapy! What would the people at the country club say?!" 

lol. Ok then. 

kmbay84

I am sorry you had to experience the craziness of your sister @novella1186! What your dad said was also terrible. I am glad that you had a great time at your shower though!  You deserve it!  I agree with others that cutting toxic people out is so much easier said than done.  Especially family, which has to be so hard.  I am also glad that you got all that wonderful attention at your fitting.  That must have felt so good! I commend you for still having a great time at the fitting and shower even though your sister was there!  I don't know for sure, but I feel like you have come far.

Keep it up!  Your wedding will be wonderful!  

novella1186

kmbay84 said:

I am sorry you had to experience the craziness of your sister @novella1186! What your dad said was also terrible. I am glad that you had a great time at your shower though!  You deserve it!  I agree with others that cutting toxic people out is so much easier said than done.  Especially family, which has to be so hard.  I am also glad that you got all that wonderful attention at your fitting.  That must have felt so good! I commend you for still having a great time at the fitting and shower even though your sister was there!  I don't know for sure, but I feel like you have come far.

Keep it up!  Your wedding will be wonderful!  

Thank you so much! That is really sweet of you to say  

flantastic

If my family treated me like this, I would neither talk to nor visit them.

If I tried to spend time with other family members privately, or invited them to an event I was hosting or organizing, and they insisted on telling the people with whom I was not speaking enough information that they could and would show up, I would not visit them either.

It is okay if all of your aunts and cousins and family know that you do not speak to or see _____ and you will also not be seeing anyone who tries to force a reconciliation or have you spend time together. They don't have to know the reason, but they can know that much.

That is the only way this shit stops happening. It's okay if you'd rather see your family and don't care if it stops happening, but it won't stop if you continue to see them. At this point, if I was going to put myself in a position where it is possible that someone told someone else enough that they might be present where I am, and therefore I had to deal with their known quantity of shittiness, I would stop even letting them know that I notice their behavior and definitely stop complaining about being put in a situation to see them.

I am glad the shower was fun