Can I cut them off?

[Lonely_guy]

Hi Lonely guy
I am so sorry your family has been like this.It sounds like you have done something very positive and love them from a distance.
Good for you forgiving them.That is certainly very hard to do.
I completely agree with you that you shoudl protect yourself and that is my intention to the OP that she can resolve things then keep her distance for her own protection.
Sadly sometimes it is the best way .
I am sorry that you suffered.I pray that you and the OP will feel comfort from God and His love for you.

God bless you

Thank you for your kind words and happy new year.

 

[horselvr]

Personally, I can understand you not wanting to make yourself available, so don’t. Just QUIETLY be too busy at this time to engage with them. Your Mom is the one that I’m worried about. SHE is really stuck between a hard spot and a rock. Her heart must be broken with all this bickering and arguing going on. It seems that all she wants is peace. Not a whole lot to ask for once we get up in age.

You have already made your feeligs on this whole thing known to all. So, no drama, no more arguing the point, no more discussion about the turmoil.

Just quietly go about your business and be too busy to engage them. Stay close to your Mom and see her often.

The rest of them—eh!

Lonely Guy and all: The best to you this New Year. Better things are right around the corner.

 

[SurlyMermaid]

Sounds like borderline personality disorer. Good luck with that!!!

 

[Mrs_Sally]

When he hit his teen years, he went back and forth between being terribly rude to us and being really sweet and socialable. That may have been the drugs, though he’s also been known to butter people up to try to get things out of them. So yes he was like this before. When they started dating, he started going to daily Mass, apparently got off the drugs and started being real friendly to the family. That lasted a month.

My parents? He says you don’t accept me, they get filled with guilt and try to compromise with him to proove their love to him. During his teen years, their form of discipline was sitting down and having a talk with him. If he nodded and seemed enlightened, there would be no consequences for his actions. My sister always said that he was deceiving them and was constantly upset about it, but they insisted he wasn’t. I know my Mom just about burst into tears when it came to my brother’s graduation party. My parents’ had always rented a tent that we put in the yard for the party and the year my brother graduated they couldn’t afford it. Mom was so afraid that my brother would think that she didn’t love him as well as the rest of us. My brother didn’t even seem to care. He seemed more annoyed that he had to sit through the “boring” graduation party his parents’ arranged for him.

Since he’s gotten engaged, they’ve in many ways compromised their moral principals to attempt to stay connected to him. They’ve allowed his fiance’ to move in with them, pretty much abuse them. They then got angry when my parents’ gave them stipulations for contributing financially for a wedding. They then moved out without moving their stuff out and moved back in without even asking my parents. My parents never confronted them on this, but when my brother and his fiance demanded they be reimbursed rent money for the weeks they weren’t sleeping their, my parents wrote them a check.

As for the rest of my family, we all do not want anything to do with my brothers’ fiance’ and primarily live under constant pressure from my mom. Its this pressure of “Please don’t be a part of the cause that takes my son away from me.”

Granted, I think my brother’s fiance’ and my brother finally made too public of a mistake. I did just get an apology from my parents for the fact that they did not nip this in the bud when they should have. My mom finally seems to be realizing that she’s playing into a game and that she finally needs to let go of her son and let him make his own mistakes.

My husband just isn’t sure this is going to last. Usually the fiance’ comes back after a few months and tries to proove to my parents’ that she’s changed and wants to reconcile. If my Mom goes for that, that means I’m under pressure to appease them. So the thing is, can I just tell Mom “no! Enough. I don’t want contact with them. I don’t want to open myself up to being hurt more and more and I don’t want to continue to live with the constant pressure to attend a wedding that I think has a million and one reasons that make it invalid!”

This is just so sad. It obviously is not something that started with this girl although she is playing into it. I’ll be praying for you, it won’t be a situation that resolves quickly.

I do like the advice of finding different ways to stay close to your parents without having your brother involved. Your husband sounds like a wise man. Hopefully your sister is not living at home with the drama.

 

[Tampa_Rays]

My wife and I decided to quit going to family gatherings for one side of my family. We’ve endured various degrees of abuse from them for nearly 20 years, but things have gotten much worse over the last 2-3 years. It finally reached a boiling point, and instead of returning the same sort of behavior, I decided that it wasn’t healthy having my wife & kids around them. This was the first Christmas that we did not attend and it was great! We had a wonderful day together as a family. There was no stress; nobody made rude comments about my wife’s pregnancy or our sex lives; nobody told our kids that we were bad parents; nobody made fun of or shunned our daughters because they refuse to engage in the same vulgar activities that the others were engaging in, and we didn’t have to expose our kids to a bunch of 30 to 40-somethings drinking themselves into oblivion. (Curiously enough, without us there, the abuse that had been directed at us these last few years was redirected at another family member who had gotten a bit of a pass for a while, and she ended up leaving the party in tears.)

Your Christmas gathering sounds like the Thanksgiving gathering with my moms hick family (thank God I was born in Florida instead of Alabama where all the crazies are )

We don’t go anymore either:thumbsup: