Scapegoats, family ties, etc

[Gordon_Sims]

At least a few times I’ve mentioned some of the problems we’ve had with my family and how that led to us having no choice but to cut ties with one side. As far as having those people out of our lives, except for their occasional harassment, it’s been wonderful not having to deal with them. Unfortunately, others in the family have either made us the scapegoats for the problem or have repeatedly tried to force us into situations with the abusive ones. In the meantime, there’s a small group we’ve tried to maintain, if not open relations with (we’re quite certain there’d be reprisals against them if we did that), then occasional contact and various means of showing them concern and support.

For a Reader’s Digest background, we always got along with my family overall despite horrible treatment from a sizable group of them. Several years ago, when we were dealing with a personal tragedy, they took the opportunity to go from awful, despicable people, to cartoonishly insane levels of abuse. We did our best to forgive and avoid the bad treatment, but it grew worse, a couple others joined in and we finally decided that for the sake of us and our kids (mostly for our kids), we couldn’t continue putting ourselves in abusive situations. We were always extremely supportive of them, even the problematic ones, and never did anything to upset them other than living our lives as caring, faithful Catholics.

We’ve had relatively few issues with them over the last few months. However, one family member hit upon extremely difficult times. As soon as we heard about it we reached out to this person several times to show our support in a couple different ways. We were honestly hurt when they didn’t respond to us for a couple months, but they finally sent us a brief and–we mistakenly thought–sincere thank you note. Until last night we hadn’t heard a thing from this person since, despite my efforts to follow up with them. Last night another family member informed us that they’d received a nasty note from this person asking them to essentially tell my wife and I to go to hell, that we would no longer be hearing from this person and a couple of the others who had kept in touch with us occasionally, and that we should have expected as much since we brought this all on ourselves.

The message bothered me, although I’m not sure if it’s because we’re being blamed by these people when we’ve done nothing wrong, or if it’s because the person who passed on the message clearly sided with these others (at least to some degree) and has never come to our defense or countered any of the lies that have been told about us. To be clear, the whole family knows how horrible, dishonest and disloyal the problematic ones are; the bulk of them have even had their share of being on the receiving end of the mistreatment. However, they excuse and condone it by saying, “That’s just how they are; they’ll never change.” That’s somehow supposed to make it alright. At the same time, they know that I’m an honest, caring person and that I have a long history of going far out of my way to support the rest of the family. Even with all that was going on with certain family members, we still reached out to certain ones who were facing difficulties. Yet, no matter what personal crises we were facing, we didn’t hear a word from them (although I’m pretty sure they were telling my immediate family a different story).

I’m doing my best to let this slide, although I have a strong urge to have a more vocal response. I know that spelling out to certain people exactly why we don’t associate with the family anymore could be gratifying and cathartic, but I feel it would take us down toward their level and I have no desire to act like them in any fashion. However, I’ve heard some of the lies that have been told about us over the years and I don’t want to have any of that spread to our kids, or us put in a position of having to explain to them why this or that family member would still associate with someone so despicable.

 

[underacloud]

It’s interesting that you have decided to cut ties with certain family members and now seem upset that other family members have decided to cut ties with you.

I’m not sure what advice can be offered here since we will only hear one side of the story - your side - and thus have no idea whether you’re being reasonable, whether these other family members are entirely in the wrong, and what ought to be done about it. But since your decision was to cut ties in order to avoid these sorts of situations, perhaps you should just stick with that decision and respect when others do the same.

 

[ClearWater]

:hug1:

Dang! That’s awful! I’m so sorry to hear it’s been that way for you.

So…we have …triangulation, exclusion, scapegoating, verbally abusive, and who knows what else…

That is a lot of dysfunction, and you seem to be catching the brunt of it right now.

Now, I have lived with a lot of dysfunction myself, been scapegoated, excluded, triangulated, invalidated, and more.

As painful as all this must seem right now, I think it’s probably the best thing that could have happened. Your family members are most likely correct in at least one thing, that these people in question will not change. That I would agree with.

This is not to in anyway condone or excuse this, just to tell it like it is. Even they recognize that fact!

That being the case, do you really want to spend the next…x number of years with these kinds of dynamics where you have to walk on egg shells about everything you say or do, that any little thing you do with one will cause a huge blowout with another?

That would be enough to drive even some of the most patient, saintly people up a tree.

I think you’d actually be better off staying away from them, given these horrible dynamics. If not, you would probably need to get yourself counseling anytime you visited them. Do you really want to live like that? Is it worth it?

I’d say to do whatever you need to in order to preserve your mental health.

My suggestion would be, family or no, to avoid them. Nobody there is happy in this relationship…not you, not them. So, as they say in Spanish “cortar por lo sano” (cut for the health…sort of like cutting off a leg that has gangrene so that it won’t kill the person), and do NOT feel guilty about it.

Don’t be tempted to yo-yo back and forth, go back between extremes of abuse and cutoff…abuse…cutoff,…abuse…cutoff. Ya’ all have cut off with good reason, and it’s a good decision. Allow yourself some time to heal from that, if you can.

If you need to get counseling to deal with your natural feelings of loss and hurt over all this, that’s one option you have, so that you at least don’t have to go through all this alone.

My personal position with cutoff is that there are cases where it is **ABSOLUTELY **necessary.

 

[ClearWater]

It’s interesting that you have decided to cut ties with certain family members and** now seem upset that other family members have decided to cut ties with you.**

I’m not sure what advice can be offered here since we will only hear one side of the story - your side - and thus have no idea whether you’re being reasonable, whether these other family members are entirely in the wrong, and what ought to be done about it. But since your decision was to cut ties in order to avoid these sorts of situations, perhaps you should just stick with that decision and respect when others do the same.

…that and being more or less told to go to hell, I guess.

 

[Evania]

They may not ever change, but knows what the future may hold? At the very least pray for them, in particular the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. God hates discord in families, and with prayer and fasting, can soften the hearts of everyone involved. Nothing is impossible with Him.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

It’s interesting that you have decided to cut ties with certain family members and now seem upset that other family members have decided to cut ties with you.

I’m not sure what advice can be offered here since we will only hear one side of the story - your side - and thus have no idea whether you’re being reasonable, whether these other family members are entirely in the wrong, and what ought to be done about it. But since your decision was to cut ties in order to avoid these sorts of situations, perhaps you should just stick with that decision and respect when others do the same.

This person cutting ties isn’t so much what bothered me. I expected it to happen eventually. They are viewed as the kindest, most compassionate person from that generation on that side of the family but I’ve seen how cold-hearted and vindictive they can be in other situations. It does upset me a bit that it came after the effort I put in for them over the last few months but it wasn’t unexpected.

I’m more upset about the immediate family member who has, for all intents and purposes, colluded with these others by not once saying a word to contradict the lies that were being told about us and by passing on very private, personal, sensitive information about things we were going through. Certain family members choose to deal with this situation with a wall of denial and refuse to believe that these others will use information like that to hurt us, no matter how many times they’ve done it in the past.

I realize there’s no way to adequately present both sides of the story but I’ll give one example to give a slight hint of what we’ve dealt with. My one cousin came to the family several years ago and asked that we help him surprise his wife for her birthday. She was turning 39 and was having a very hard time dealing with the fact that her 30’s were coming to a close. Just before they got married there was a large fire at her apartment complex. She had collected various things as a kid and was intending on giving them to her future children. Her husband, who is one of the worst of the bunch, asked that everyone give her one item from one of her collections. Most of the items could be had fairly cheaply. Without going into a lot of detail, I figured out a way to replace a major portion of one of her collections. I told my cousin I’d do it, then after committing to it I found out that it would be a lot more work than I had planned (about 200 man-hours). I went ahead and did it anyway. After I finished, my cousin (who was fully aware of how much work this had been), changed the date of the party to a night he knew we couldn’t attend. I went ahead and mailed the gift to his wife but never heard back. When I asked about it a month or so later, they insisted they had never received it, regardless of what the tracking number said. He then told the rest of the family what scum I was for promising something and not following through. Reproducing my work was going to take far less effort than the initial item, so I went ahead and did it again, then had another family member give it to them at a family party a few weeks later (my wife was in the hospital so we couldn’t attend). A couple weeks after that, at yet another family function, I approached my cousin and his wife and asked if they’d gotten my gift (I knew they had because the person who delivered it reported back from the party). They both stared at me for a minute then finally said, “Yes.” No thank you, no sign of appreciation of any sort, and they didn’t speak another word to us at that party. However, they did call our son aside toward the end of the party (he went home with another family member after we left) and told him that us leaving him was just another incident in our long-running abuse of him, that we didn’t love him, didn’t want him at home and that we’d blown his college money spoiling his younger sisters. That, by the way, was such a minor incident, relatively speaking, that I’ve never listed it when telling my immediate family the reasons we cut ties.

 

[underacloud]

Sounds like cutting ties is the way to go then. Which is, understandably, upsetting.

 

[ClearWater]

This person cutting ties isn’t so much what bothered me. I expected it to happen eventually. They are viewed as the kindest, most compassionate person from that generation on that side of the family but I’ve seen how cold-hearted and vindictive they can be in other situations. It does upset me a bit that it came after the effort I put in for them over the last few months but it wasn’t unexpected.

I’m more upset about the immediate family member who has, for all intents and purposes, colluded with these others by not once saying a word to contradict the lies that were being told about us and by passing on very private, personal, sensitive information about things we were going through. Certain family members choose to deal with this situation with a wall of denial and refuse to believe that these others will use information like that to hurt us, no matter how many times they’ve done it in the past.

I realize there’s no way to adequately present both sides of the story but I’ll give one example to give a slight hint of what we’ve dealt with. My one cousin came to the family several years ago and asked that we help him surprise his wife for her birthday. She was turning 39 and was having a very hard time dealing with the fact that her 30’s were coming to a close. Just before they got married there was a large fire at her apartment complex. She had collected various things as a kid and was intending on giving them to her future children. Her husband, who is one of the worst of the bunch, asked that everyone give her one item from one of her collections. Most of the items could be had fairly cheaply. Without going into a lot of detail, I figured out a way to replace a major portion of one of her collections. I told my cousin I’d do it, then after committing to it I found out that it would be a lot more work than I had planned (about 200 man-hours). I went ahead and did it anyway. After I finished, my cousin (who was fully aware of how much work this had been), changed the date of the party to a night he knew we couldn’t attend. I went ahead and mailed the gift to his wife but never heard back. When I asked about it a month or so later, they insisted they had never received it, regardless of what the tracking number said. He then told the rest of the family what scum I was for promising something and not following through. Reproducing my work was going to take far less effort than the initial item, so I went ahead and did it again, then had another family member give it to them at a family party a few weeks later (my wife was in the hospital so we couldn’t attend). A couple weeks after that, at yet another family function, I approached my cousin and his wife and asked if they’d gotten my gift (I knew they had because the person who delivered it reported back from the party). They both stared at me for a minute then finally said, “Yes.” No thank you, no sign of appreciation of any sort, and they didn’t speak another word to us at that party. However, they did call our son aside toward the end of the party (he went home with another family member after we left) and told him that us leaving him was just another incident in our long-running abuse of him, that we didn’t love him, didn’t want him at home and that we’d blown his college money spoiling his younger sisters. That, by the way, was such a minor incident, relatively speaking, that I’ve never listed it when telling my immediate family the reasons we cut ties.

My goodness!

There is some kind of dynamic at work, not sure what, but whatever is going on, I think you are better off without any contact with the family.

Now, granted, I have known many people who think it’s a crime/sin not to stay in contact with family. HOWEVER, I have known of families who are VERY dysfunctional, and if you were to try to get involved, it would be a lose-lose situation for all concerned.

Some families also have mental health issues on top of everything else.

There are some families where cutting off is actually the kindest, wisest thing one can possibly do! This sounds like one of those cases.

Again, do whatever you need to in order to keep your sanity.

Why not let someone else be the scapegoat for a while?

 

[ClearWater]

Oh, and GREAT Homer Simpson quote!

 

[tawny]

Praying for you.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

My goodness!

There is some kind of dynamic at work, not sure what, but whatever is going on, I think you are better off without any contact with the family.

Now, granted, I have known many people who think it’s a crime/sin not to stay in contact with family. HOWEVER, I have known of families who are VERY dysfunctional, and if you were to try to get involved, it would be a lose-lose situation for all concerned.

Some families also have mental health issues on top of everything else.

There are some families where cutting off is actually the kindest, wisest thing one can possibly do! This sounds like one of those cases.

Again, do whatever you need to in order to keep your sanity.

Why not let someone else be the scapegoat for a while?

I’d say we’re content to let others take the heat but it does bother me to see loved ones who insist on sticking around being treated so terribly. I have one cousin who has panic attacks before going around the family then cries for 1-3 days afterward. Others family members have developed health conditions or had them worsened by being around these people. It’s maddening to watch this go on then have them turn around and get angry with us for not putting ourselves through the same.

Oh, and none of this has been kept secret from the family members who defend these people. They know about the health issues, the panic attacks, the depression and everything else. They sit there and watch the ridicule, the abuse, the screaming, the shouting matches, the people fleeing their own houses in tears, all that fun stuff. The only ones who are ever condemned for this stuff are the ones who stick up for themselves or refuse to come back.

I had one family member spend about a year playing the sin card on me. They’d tell me how Jesus told us to forgive, that it’s a sin to not forgive these people and that I of all people should know better. I had to keep telling them that Jesus never said to forgive and forget, just forgive. I just kept repeating that me forgiving them didn’t mean I had to put my family in jeopardy again. Another family member keeps telling me how much I’ll regret cutting ties with them eventually. I can’t see how I’ll regret pulling my wife and kids out of an abusive situation.

 

[Hobbes42]

I’d say we’re content to let others take the heat but it does bother me to see loved ones who insist on sticking around being treated so terribly. I have one cousin who has panic attacks before going around the family then cries for 1-3 days afterward. Others family members have developed health conditions or had them worsened by being around these people. It’s maddening to watch this go on then have them turn around and get angry with us for not putting ourselves through the same.

Oh, and none of this has been kept secret from the family members who defend these people. They know about the health issues, the panic attacks, the depression and everything else. They sit there and watch the ridicule, the abuse, the screaming, the shouting matches, the people fleeing their own houses in tears, all that fun stuff. The only ones who are ever condemned for this stuff are the ones who stick up for themselves or refuse to come back.

I had one family member spend about a year playing the sin card on me. They’d tell me how Jesus told us to forgive, that it’s a sin to not forgive these people and that I of all people should know better. I had to keep telling them that Jesus never said to forgive and forget, just forgive. I just kept repeating that me forgiving them didn’t mean I had to put my family in jeopardy again. Another family member keeps telling me how much I’ll regret cutting ties with them eventually. I can’t see how I’ll regret pulling my wife and kids out of an abusive situation.

From what you’re saying, these people are incredibly hazardous to your and your families health and well being. Family doesn’t translate to punching bag in any tongue I’m aware of…

You did good pulling out. Those who are trying to manipulate you into taking this kind of abuse are colluding in it by their actions.

Also-nothing gets my goat quite as much as people using Faith as a bludgeon to use whenever they feel like it. You are extremely patient, I’d have snapped a while back.

Hang in there!

 

[DeniseNY]

Too much drama for you and your family. Although it’s a hard thing to do, I think the decision to cut ties with them is a wise one. Pray for those who, for whatever the reasons, choose to continue to subject themselves to the abuse.

 

[ClearWater]

.

Glad you see the wisdom of getting out of “Dodge”.

If you benefit by a relationship, continue. However, if you see a relationship is pulling you down, I think you have a right to steer clear, family or no.

Some people will say to me, “…but he’s your FATHER!” or, “…but she’s your SISTER!” I want to say…"…and?" Does being a relative somehow make abuse okay?

If the rest of the family can’t understand your need to avoid abusive situations, then they you will need to steer clear of them as well.

Now, don’t be tempted to yo-yo back and forth. Once you make this decision, stick to it. Don’t be tempted to later go back to these abusive family dynamics, because generally, it’s highly improbable any of this will change.

If later on, even if one apologized, don’t be tempted to go back to that.

I have had a lot of dysfunction in my family to a point my arthritis used to go into a flare anytime I was around them. Sometimes, I’d be a basketcase even over e-mail.

The only way I have found some degree of peace is to steer clear, and a lot of people are hard on me. They think I’m a terrible person, “cold”, and more, for not being in close contact with my family.

However, I have some family members who are abusive in the extreme, making everyone around them absolutely miserable.

I remember going into panics when I felt I had to visit. I once had a time where I wanted to move up a surgery to coincide with a family reunion so I’d have a pretext not to go.

I got guilt trips, etc., saying I needed to do the “right thing” and go.

However, I’d pay quite a bit of money to go to these events, at times, and I don’t have much to start with, lots of expenses.

If I went, it would sometimes mean I’d miss something else I actually wanted to do.

So, as terrible as this sounds, I have simply not gone to all kinds of events. My father passed away. He basically wouldn’t speak to me, and some thought I was cruel to not attend his funeral.

However, as I say, he wouldn’t even speak to me. So, who are we trying to kid, here?
Times he did, it might have been actually better if he hadn’t.

So, in my older years, I’ve learned life is too short to spend it in relationships that are hurtful, painful, dysfunctional.

The first line of defense is avoidance. If people can’t understand, that’s unfortunate. Do WHATEVER you need to in order to preserve peace, tranquility, order, and your sanity and that of your family.

Again, when there is such dysfunction as scapegoating, if you are not there to scapegoat, they will just probably scapegoat someone else! If someone else wants that role, let THEM do it! Time to set limits. It is NOT okay to treat you this way.

If they won’t stop, then you need to end this, simple as that, and do NOT feel guilty about it. They brought this upon themselves.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

If they won’t stop, then you need to end this, simple as that, and do NOT feel guilty about it. They brought this upon themselves.

One of the things I’ve tried to get others to see is that we weren’t the cause of any of this. We’re receiving the blame for it from most of the family, although I believe that if they took the time to honestly examine the situation they’d have a different opinion. One thing I was reminded of today was one of the last times we went to a family function. Our second-youngest was only about 3 months old at the time. I used to be an extremely heavy drinker but had cut back to almost nothing. The primary reason was that I could no longer drink without feeling sick. The whole family knew that I seldom drank and other than ridiculing me for it (sometimes severely), it generally didn’t cause any issues. I had quit drinking completely a few months earlier but hadn’t told anyone other than my wife. One thing the family certainly knew was that under no circumstances would I ever drink or drive. While this also made me the odd man out, it had been a hard, fast stance of mine for nearly 20 years at that point. That evening, my wife wasn’t feeling well, certainly not well enough to drive. At the start of the night someone offered me a beer. I said no thanks and that I couldn’t because she was sick and I was driving. It wasn’t mentioned the rest of the time we were there. Our older kids were staying the night with my parents so they stayed later than we did. When they got home the next day our son was upset. I asked him what was wrong and he said that as soon as we left, the main table at the party turned into a gossip/complaint-fest about me. The main complaint was that I was a pompous, self-righteous [expletive of your choice, because they used a whole lot of choice expletives, all in front of my kids]. They said that I’d spent my whole time there acting holier than thou, throwing my non-drinking in their faces and badmouthing them to the rest of the family for their drinking. Aside from that brief, 5-second exchange, I hadn’t discussed drinking with anyone. I’d actually spent most of my short time there taking care of my wife and/or the baby. Other than that, I had enough time to show the baby around, eat a sandwich and put the kids’ overnight bags in my parents’ car before leaving. Our son in particular got to listen to them complaining about us for nearly three hours, which was longer than my wife and I were at the party. I told my parents that because of what happened, we wouldn’t allow our kids to be at family parties without us after that, which led to an email from an aunt (who wasn’t involved in the badmouthing but heard it going on) blasting us for causing problems and saying that if we were going to have that sort of an attitude we should just stay home. It was just one of many experiences that made it clear to us that, once we did cut ties, there was no value in going back.

As far as continuing relationships that we benefit from, others have made it clear that there’s really nothing we can do in that regard. Of the few we kept in touch with online, most of them cut ties with us on their own due to negative repercussions (or threats of them) against them for still being in contact with us. We’ve taken to ignoring the one or two who didn’t cut ties with us in order to spare them the hassle. Nevertheless, we’re still blamed for the whole mess, to the point where my wife was harangued the other day, being told yet again that we made our bed and have to lie in it.

 

[AussieTrish]

You know what to expect of this family, and you are allowing them to have power over you and your life and peace of mind.
You are a ‘victim’ if you keep going back to this, if you keep thinking you can change them, or change people’s ideas. Clearly you won’t, so continuing interacting and continuing worrying about it is only keeping you, your wife, your children, ‘victims’ of these people.

Your first thought should be for your children. They are being harmed by these people. These people aren’t your real family. Jesus said that His mother and his brethren are those who do the will of His father.

With the influence of these people, how can you guarantee that your impressionable children won’t take on their behavior later? They model the behavior, you agonize about it.
This is teaching them that it is a way to live. What you say to
‘heal’ the harm, won’t. Actions have more impact on children.None of that is any good for the children, or for your mental or spiritual health.

Consider if it’s time to stop complaining, stop feeling aggrieved, and trying to change unchangeable people and unchangeable situations and set minds.
It may be time to change your own situation for your sake and your family.

Unless these people become more Christian and loving, they won’t be your family in heaven, because love, active love, is what gets us through the judgement. You can’t change them. You can pray for them but not even God can change them if they are closed to love.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

You know what to expect of this family, and you are allowing them to have power over you and your life and peace of mind.
You are a ‘victim’ if you keep going back to this, if you keep thinking you can change them, or change people’s ideas. Clearly you won’t, so continuing interacting and continuing worrying about it is only keeping you, your wife, your children, ‘victims’ of these people.

Your first thought should be for your children. They are being harmed by these people. These people aren’t your real family. Jesus said that His mother and his brethren are those who do the will of His father.

With the influence of these people, how can you guarantee that your impressionable children won’t take on their behavior later? They model the behavior, you agonize about it.
This is teaching them that it is a way to live. What you say to
‘heal’ the harm, won’t. Actions have more impact on children.None of that is any good for the children, or for your mental or spiritual health.

Consider if it’s time to stop complaining, stop feeling aggrieved, and trying to change unchangeable people and unchangeable situations and set minds.
It may be time to change your own situation for your sake and your family.

Unless these people become more Christian and loving, they won’t be your family in heaven, because love, active love, is what gets us through the judgement. You can’t change them. You can pray for them but not even God can change them if they are closed to love.

We’ve pretty much insulated our kids from what’s gone on since cutting ties with the family. They’ll occasionally ask why we don’t see these people or go to the big family gatherings anymore and we explain to them that sometimes you have people in your life who make it so you can’t be around them anymore. They’re still young enough that that satisfies their curiosity. Our son is older and he’s fully aware of everything that’s gone on, but aside from one attempt by one of them to contact him, he hasn’t had to deal with it.

Now that this one small group has voted to decide we no longer exist, as far as the extended family goes we’re left with two people on Facebook who might like a comment or picture here and there, or occasionally risk the backlash from a brief, disinterested or noncommittal response. I’d like to say the others ignore us completely but we were hit by another light barrage of harassment last week. It’s nothing substantial, but I believe it’s one person’s way of letting us know that they no intention of ever relenting on how they treat us should we attempt to make amends. My parents and siblings are aware of what we’ve had to deal with but choose to either take the extended family’s side or keep up appearances and continue to go around them. They generally don’t discuss any of it with us but I’m sure it will cause problems again down the road.

We decided that the best way to deal with these latest messes was to essentially roll our eyes and forget about it. Any reaction we have to them is far more than they deserve.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

I have read many of your previous threads and posts and have an idea of what you’re going through.

I believe it is simple - this is a family situation that you can’t change even with the best efforts. Whatever you do always bites you in the behind, so to speak. Now you just need to accept the reality, and let go.

Letting go is difficult, but once you admit your helplessness and ask God to deal with it, things get easier. A burden of imagined responsibility is lifted.

I had to do the same with a member of my own family, once I was cornered. Nothing I did ever worked, nothing was right, I was constantly manipulated and blamed for other people’s choices, etc. It was affecting my health. It was really difficult to step away, but eventually I did distance myself emotionally and psychologically and started to heal. I would not go back to the abusive person for the world.

I think the only thing you can do is pray and ask for God’s help in this mess. He can get you and your family through anything, but you have to stop going back for more beatings.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

I have read many of your previous threads and posts and have an idea of what you’re going through.

I believe it is simple - this is a family situation that you can’t change even with the best efforts. Whatever you do always bites you in the behind, so to speak. Now you just need to accept the reality, and let go.

Letting go is difficult, but once you admit your helplessness and ask God to deal with it, things get easier. A burden of imagined responsibility is lifted.

I had to do the same with a member of my own family, once I was cornered. Nothing I did ever worked, nothing was right, I was constantly manipulated and blamed for other people’s choices, etc. It was affecting my health. It was really difficult to step away, but eventually I did distance myself emotionally and psychologically and started to heal. I would not go back to the abusive person for the world.

I think the only thing you can do is pray and ask for God’s help in this mess. He can get you and your family through anything, but you have to stop going back for more beatings.

Short of changing our phone numbers and email addresses, and stopping home mail delivery and switching to a PO Box, we’ve done almost everything we can to sever ties completely and move on. We don’t seek out additional hassles but they still get foisted upon us. Just yesterday one of our daughters had all sorts of questions about why we don’t see these people anymore. I did my best to answer her and forget about it but the discussion and the possibility of the hassles that will spring up if she talks about it again when we’re with the family on the holidays nagged at me throughout the day. With my immediate family, this issue remains a fight waiting to happen so when it does come up it brings a disproportionate amount of stress.
Monicad:

I am sorry you are going through this. Given the family dynamic I think reaching out to this person several times was a mistake. You were extremely generous actually! Knowing that a family member fall on hard times and wanting to be generous, and appropriate approach (given the circumstances anyway) may have been to send a simple card and perhaps a gift certificate for groceries? Unfortunately when you try and reach out several times and ways to someone that you have essentially cut ties with, it can create awkward feelings and a sense of the other person not quite knowing how to handle it. Especially when you wrote about your efforts to follow up. They might have felt there were mixed messages of trying to reestablish the relationship?

I am not making excuses for their bad behavior, it’s just that when you cut ties, you really have to cut ties. That means that you can’t rush in and help when there is a crisis even though that is probably your instinct. You can still help, but from a distance like a far away friend or co-worker. Only a close family member would make several attempts at contact and follow up and you aren’t a close family member any more. I am sorry you are going through this, I have been there myself it really hurts.

When I reached out to this person I had no idea that, of the few we still had any dealings with, they would end up reacting that way. That was probably a bit naive on my part since they reacted rather viciously in a somewhat similar situation to ours in the past, but in our case the only “wrong” we’ve committed was to say “you win,” and let the hateful part of the family have their way. I think this person cutting ties with us isn’t bothering me quite as much as the claim (repeated to us again earlier this week) that we brought this on ourselves. We no more brought this on ourselves than we brought on the time the neighborhood punk slashed our tires simply because we had the audacity to own a car. We figured we’d have to cut ties with the few stragglers at some point, but these recent issues have made it clear that it has to be a permanent cut with the whole family, not just the problematic family members, and that any ongoing relationship or reconciliation is out of the question.

 

[Demetra2]

At least a few times I’ve mentioned some of the problems we’ve had with my family and how that led to us having no choice but to cut ties with one side. As far as having those people out of our lives, except for their occasional harassment, it’s been wonderful not having to deal with them. Unfortunately, others in the family have either made us the scapegoats for the problem or have repeatedly tried to force us into situations with the abusive ones. In the meantime, there’s a small group we’ve tried to maintain, if not open relations with (we’re quite certain there’d be reprisals against them if we did that), then occasional contact and various means of showing them concern and support.

For a Reader’s Digest background, we always got along with my family overall despite horrible treatment from a sizable group of them. Several years ago, when we were dealing with a personal tragedy, they took the opportunity to go from awful, despicable people, to cartoonishly insane levels of abuse. We did our best to forgive and avoid the bad treatment, but it grew worse, a couple others joined in and we finally decided that for the sake of us and our kids (mostly for our kids), we couldn’t continue putting ourselves in abusive situations. We were always extremely supportive of them, even the problematic ones, and never did anything to upset them other than living our lives as caring, faithful Catholics.

We’ve had relatively few issues with them over the last few months. However, one family member hit upon extremely difficult times. As soon as we heard about it we reached out to this person several times to show our support in a couple different ways. We were honestly hurt when they didn’t respond to us for a couple months, but they finally sent us a brief and–we mistakenly thought–sincere thank you note. Until last night we hadn’t heard a thing from this person since, despite my efforts to follow up with them. Last night another family member informed us that they’d received a nasty note from this person asking them to essentially tell my wife and I to go to hell, that we would no longer be hearing from this person and a couple of the others who had kept in touch with us occasionally, and that we should have expected as much since we brought this all on ourselves.

The message bothered me, although I’m not sure if it’s because we’re being blamed by these people when we’ve done nothing wrong, or if it’s because the person who passed on the message clearly sided with these others (at least to some degree) and has never come to our defense or countered any of the lies that have been told about us. To be clear, the whole family knows how horrible, dishonest and disloyal the problematic ones are; the bulk of them have even had their share of being on the receiving end of the mistreatment. However, they excuse and condone it by saying, “That’s just how they are; they’ll never change.” That’s somehow supposed to make it alright. At the same time, they know that I’m an honest, caring person and that I have a long history of going far out of my way to support the rest of the family. Even with all that was going on with certain family members, we still reached out to certain ones who were facing difficulties. Yet, no matter what personal crises we were facing, we didn’t hear a word from them (although I’m pretty sure they were telling my immediate family a different story).

I’m doing my best to let this slide, although I have a strong urge to have a more vocal response. I know that spelling out to certain people exactly why we don’t associate with the family anymore could be gratifying and cathartic, but I feel it would take us down toward their level and I have no desire to act like them in any fashion. However, I’ve heard some of the lies that have been told about us over the years and I don’t want to have any of that spread to our kids, or us put in a position of having to explain to them why this or that family member would still associate with someone so despicable.

I understand your position since I have a similar situation with my own family of origin. it stinks and it hurts to be the scapegoat but you need a break from dysfunctional behavior. My solution is to forgive them while avoiding them. I go to adoration once a week and include my family of origin in my prayers and say a Divine Mercy Chaplet. I know that this helps me to forgive. Without God’s help I would probably feel very bitter. Please try this because I know it would help you.