Family Problems

[heatherly]

This is actually my problem, not theirs. I tend to forgive too easily because I have been in religions that have told me to forgive and let go, but then I am always in a bad place because I keep getting dumped on.

The latest is that my oldest sister and her daughter come to visit me twice a year, and when they come they fight in public or in my home, and even my husband has to listen to it. The last time they visited we went to a craft fair, and my niece brought her boyfriend. She proceeded for the first time to scold me, telling me to get away from the food booth. This is her screaming at me so everyone can hear. Then she decided that my sister and I were too slow so she had her boyfriend did the fair alone. Next we are coming home, and she is driving. Her boyfriend is in the front seat. She is playing with her GPS, her boyfriend is teasing her, taking photos, and they are playing with his laptop. She almost missed a curve and a truck was coming. Her mother told her to watch the road, and she told her to close her eyes. I sat there saying nothing. Then they got into a cussing fight, and I kept telling them to stop talking. Then at the restaurant she is trying to give the waitress the bill, but the waitress doesn't see her, so I said, hand it to me, I will give it to her, so she tells me that I am impatient, again, others can hear. I stood up for myself, telling her there was no call for it.

So they get home after their visit, and she emails me that she won't be coming much anymore, and that her mom treats her like a child. I used that an an in to tell her that she does the same, and we go back and forth with my telling her that I was afraid of her driving, and she should not be multitasking. Soon she is telling me that she can quit talking to me like she did my older brother, but it was the other way around. Then she puts down my husband big time, and so I finally said, You are not welcome here ever again, and I am blocking your emails. Before I could get them blocked she told me that she was glad that there was karma because what goes around comes around.

So now I have two sisters that think I should let it go. Her mother said, Love it never have to say you are sorry. Well, I never loved my niece because she is abusive, not that her mother isn't. My other sister had to remind me that my mother quit talking to our father's sister because his sister put him down to her. This implies to me that I am now like my mother, and we don't want to be like she was.

Okay, so they are able to get me to feel guilty for not speaking to my niece. One of my friends said that my sisters always get me to cave in. I rather think that it is my religious views that do this. I have a long history of being told to forgive. It is worse if a friend says that they are sorry and so I feel sorry for them and forgive them just to be dumped on again. But even before I became religious I was like this, because I always felt sorry for my dad because Mom left him, and yet he was abusive, beat her up and cheated on her. So it could be a stupid soft heart that I have.

Also, because I was shunned by the Jehovah's Witnesses for doing wrong, and because it was so painful, I promised myself I would never shun anyone ever again. Another friend of mine said that this was not the same thing, but I didn't understand why not?

My brother's wife is trying to help me. They will not speak to my niece saying she is very toxic.

A Christian friend of mine said that she believes in forgiving her and allowing her to visit. I am not a Christian, left that long ago. I tried Buddhism, and their view was to not let what they say bother me. I am no longer Buddhist either. This belief of not complaining that someone has hurt you doesn't set right with me. It smacks of allowing people to abuse you.

I need to find a way to stop my own behavior of forgiving and letting a person back into my life. I really don't want to ever see my niece again, and at least she is not the type to ever say she is sorry, hopefully. Her mom and she fight and neither ever say they are sorry.

Is there a book I can read? Or something that someone can say to help?

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

You can forgive someone and love them and still not allow them back into your life. If they are toxic and make your life hell, I agree, that NOBODY needs to keep allowing this abuse. You aren't doing anything wrong. Your are protecting yourself and your family (for example, you wouldn't have your sister driving again, because what if she gotten into an accident and everyone was killed, just because of her selfish behaviour?)...

If you are getting pressure from everyone to forgive, tell them you have, but you can't forget, and you have to stop being around these people. How is it against God if you are protecting yourself and your family from hurtful things? Usually people in a dysfunctional family think dysfunction is normal and that "Normal" is dysfunctional. If you are trying to create some normalcy in a dysfunctional situation, you will naturally feel some backlash.

The other thing you can do, is if you DO decide to try again with these people (personally I would not), then you must lay down some boundaries before you meet.

- you will not yell at me or anyone in my family in public OR in private. It's my home and my family, and if you can't find it in yourself to respect us, you are not welcome with us. You will be told to leave, or we will leave if we are not at our home.

- if you are driving, and you can't keep your attention on the road where it should be, and you are endangering myself and my family, we will not have rides with you anymore. We will drive in separate vehicles.

Hope this helps... I have been raised in some dysfunction and my heart goes out to you. I no longer speak to my parents or one of my brothers, and for the most part my conscience is completely clear. I don't let anyone try to sway me with guilt because that means I am letting them manipulate me. It sounds to me like your family knows exactly what buttons to push to get you to comply with what they think is the correct course of action, but their course of action is to continue being dysfunctional. In my opinion. That's what it was like in our family. "You have to forgive and forget because that's what families do." Hell, no, I say! lol

 

[heatherly]

Thank you very much jollygreenbean. I am going to print your answer out and keep it.

How it is against God? I always remember the scripture to "forgive 70 times 70." I believe I have been brainwashed by religion. And yet I don't believe in the God of the Bible. Go figure. What I actually do believe in is not hurting others, but sometimes you have to put your foot down and walk away; it isn't easy.

You are correct, my family doesn't see that their behavior is abnormal but instead, they see it as ery normal. They would not change even if I gave them those ultimatums; instead they would say, then we are not coming if that is the way you feel about us.

There was a time, and I may have posted it here, that I went to my mother's funeral, and both of my sisters and that niece dumped on me, accusing me of stealing $40 of Mom's money, and I have always felt stealing from a parent was the worse you can do; maybe it isn't. I was upset, and one of my sisters became upset, and my other sister asked me to apologize to her because she was upset. Wow! I apologized and said, I didn't take the money though, and my sister snickered at me saying, we love you anyway. that is the short version. I went to a Buddhist nun to talk about it, and she told me how important family is and that I should forgive them. Bad advice but I took it, and all it did was make them think that I took the money or I wouldn't have apologized. And this was a funeral that I didn't wish to attend because my mother was abusive, but again a religious leader said I should go. When she died I felt relieved that I would not have to call her and take her abuse weekly, and then my sisters stepped in her place very conveniently. I have now sworn off funerals.

Yes, they know the right buttons to push. I can't allow it anymore.

Thanks again.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Yeah, but you are forgiving them (when you feel the time is right), you are just protecting yourself from letting them do things to you over and over.

Protecting yourself and your family by putting down healthy boundaries and if those boundaries are crossed then there are circumstances...

It would be like if you were attacked by someone and they were put in jail. You can forgive them, but you wouldn't go and pay their bond/bail and let them mug you again. People in the world do things and their are consequences for their actions (or should be). If it wasn't family would you hang around with these people? Ever? Contrary to popular belief, you can choose who you want to hang out with. And it doesn't have to include family.

If someone in the family did something to your child or husband, would you forgive them and let them keep doing the same abuse over and over? To these people, it seems to me, "forgiveness" is an excuse to not have to deal with consequences for their actions. I feel real forgiveness is supposed to allow the person who transgressed against you to come back to you, but they have to do something on their side, not just keep doing the same thing to you over and over. Relationships are a two-way street. Why do YOU have to make all the compromises and do everything to make these people welcome in your lives, but all they do is abuse you and your family? To be forgiven implies that the person asking for forgiveness has apologized and endeavors to try to better themselves and avoid doing what they did to need to receive forgiveness in the first place.

Like I said, they seem to think that forgiveness removes any need to change their behaviour or to show their love to you by trying to treat you fairly... If you don't mind I will send you some links to your private messages mailbox... Just got to find them first...

 

[heatherly]

I have always said that if they were not my family, they would not be my friend or even in my life.

I wouldn't allow them to abuse my child or husband, and yet allowing them to argue in our home is allowing them to abuse my husband and myself. And yes, they do not wish to have any consequences. That makes more sense to forgive only if they have changed. Of course, I doubt if I can forgive my niece for putting down my husband. I should feel the same way about myself.

I really like what you said here: Relationships are a two-way street. Why do YOU have to make all the compromises and do everything to make these people welcome in your lives, but all they do is abuse you and your family? To be forgiven implies that the person asking for forgiveness has apologized and endeavors to try to better themselves and avoid doing what they did to need to receive forgiveness in the first place.

Yes, please send me some links, if not here in my private message box.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Only reason I don't want to post them is they might be interpreted as "diagnosing" which I am not trying to do. I have found several links of different sources and sent them to you... Some of my favourite quotes:

"Yet, there is a difference between forgiveness and excusing; forgiveness is not excusing someone for hurting you. Forgiveness is not choosing to ignore a mistake that someone made or deciding to reconcile an offense that pained us. Forgiveness is not giving up or accepting ones behavior toward us when it was clearly wrong or immoral. Forgiveness does not give the permission to continue the action that hurts us. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean that there must be complete reconciliation in every situation."
Posted 21st September, 2011 by Tim Thurman



Forgive or Excuse? -- for reprints of this tract, contact the Order of St. Luke at Order of St. Luke; P O Box 13701; San Antonio, Texas 78213
"A lot of the people I have met believe that to forgive someone means to excuse what they have done, and to continue to relate to them in some sentimental sort of love. "Forgive and forget" is the phrase that is often used. The problem is that when we forget, we will have to forgive again until we take seriously the fact that the one we forgive is capable of the behavior that made us angry in the first place.

I recall hearing the Lord say one day, "Forgiveness is the elasticity of my love. It is what enables you to stretch to love a person who has broken the image in which you had held them." It is not simply to excuse someone who made a mistake. It is the decision to love someone the way they have shown themselves to be, rather than the way you thought they were.
To excuse someone implies that they could have done better if they had tried harder. The truth is that anyone will choose to do what they believe will best fulfill their lives at any given moment. That applies as well to the murderer as to the saint. We may change our belief system tomorrow; but we will use the one we hold at the moment of decision.
To forgive means to recognize that reality and accept the person as is. It may well mean that you report a person to the legal authorities when you forgive them. It does not mean that you exonerate them. It means that you forgive them and follow forgiveness with love."



"When you give away your forgiveness without the perpetrator going through all four stages (confession, contrition, restitution and repentance) you show that your forgiveness is a false form of it and not something to be desired. Say you approach someone whom you know has injured you, and they deny they ever did it. They adamantly refuse to acknowledge their debt to you. Now lets say you go ahead and tell them that you forgive them anyway. Here is what you have accomplished. You've clearly indicated that you think so little of yourself that you don't really expect that you deserve any restitution when someone takes from you. What you call forgiveness is a cheap imitation. Now you've insured that the perpetrator is actually rewarded for taking from you. He came out ahead!" Monday, July 16, 2007 - Anna Valerious

 

[heatherly]

I can do the diagnosis myself with what I have found and put in bold how my family is. Teehee.

Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality

Symptoms of this disorder include, but are not limited to:

• Reacts to criticism with anger, shame, or humiliation
• May take advantage of others to reach his or her own goal
• Tends to exaggerate their own importance, achievements, and talents
• Imagines unrealistic fantasies of success, beauty, power, intelligence, or romance
• Requires constant attention and positive reinforcement from others
• Easily becomes jealous
• Lacks empathy and disregards the feelings of others
• Obsessed with oneself
• Mainly pursues selfish goals
• Trouble keeping healthy relationships
  
• Is easily hurt and rejected
• Sets unreal goals
• Wants "the best" of everything
• Appears as tough-minded or unemotional ^[3]

The symptoms of Narcissistic personality disorder can be similar to the traits of individuals with strong self-esteem and confidence, differentiation occurs when the underlying psychological structures of these traits are considered pathological. Narcissists have such an elevated sense of self-worth that they value themselves as inherently better than others. Yet, they have a fragile self-esteem and cannot handle criticism, and will often try to compensate for this inner fragility by belittling or disparaging others in an attempt to validate their own self-worth. It is this sadistic tendency that is characteristic of narcissism as opposed to other psychological conditions affecting level of self-worth.

Other than what I have put in bold I can't really say.

I have printed out all the articles that you gave to me to read.

I can't believe how helpful you have been and am so grateful, especially to get this from a Christian view as well. You and these articles are so reasonable.

I always believed that forgive is to forget, and then I forget and they do it over and over. The worse case of that was when I was a Jehovah's Witness and had a friend who I was always upset with because she would back stab me and people would tell me. I would quit talking to her, she would call, I would forgive. I went to the minister and he said, she has emotional problems and has no friends. Please forgive her." I never forgot that nor the fact that a year or more later she slept with my husband, now ex. Had she not moved, I would probably have forgiven her again.

"When you give away your forgiveness without the perpetrator going through all four stages (confession, contrition, restitution and repentance) you show that your forgiveness is a false form of it and not something to be desired. Say you approach someone whom you know has injured you, and they deny they ever did it. They adamantly refuse to acknowledge their debt to you. Now lets say you go ahead and tell them that you forgive them anyway. Here is what you have accomplished. You've clearly indicated that you think so little of yourself that you don't really expect that you deserve any restitution when someone takes from you. What you call forgiveness is a cheap imitation. Now you've insured that the perpetrator is actually rewarded for taking from you. He came out ahead!" Monday, July 16, 2007 - Anna Valerious

This is what happened in my family at the funeral when I forgave. I went to a psychologist and talked with her, but I didn't find her effective. She said, They will never admit it and since you want them in your life you have to let it go. I have never let it go, and all I get out of them is I didn't think you took the money, but I am sorry it happened. I can't undo it type of answer.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Well, you are always welcome to speak to another therapist. I would always recommend (and several qualified people in this Forum would also) that you never attempt to self-diagnose either... Maybe on your search you could specifically request from them that you are looking for someone who specializes in family dynamics, personality disorders, etc...

Yes, I think it is basically people interpret "Forgiveness" as something other than what it really is. That is why I found those articles... They clarified the meaning and it certainly changes perspective a lot.

 

[heatherly]

I live in a very small community, and the only other therapist here is a psychiatrist, and I have not tried him. But I think what you have given me has been all the help I will need. I will read it over and over until it is clearly in my mind, and I am reprogrammed, so to speak. The articles you sent really do clarify the meaning of forgiveness.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

I went to the minister and he said, she has emotional problems and has no friends. Please forgive her." I never forgot that nor the fact that a year or more later she slept with my husband, now ex. Had she not moved, I would probably have forgiven her again.

Wow, I am really sorry to hear that happened! 8( That blows!

Next time someone tells you to forgive a chronically back-stabbing, home-wrecking, emotional vampire, now you know you can forgive them (let go of all your negative feelings) - because you'll never speak or come into contact with them ever again and you'll keep them out of your life to be safe and healthy!!

 

[heatherly]

You are so right, I know better now.

The therapist here that I went to see, because I was upset with a friend who dumped me because I had told her that she had said things that hurt me, wasn't that great of a therapist. It was she who also said that my family would never say that they were sorry, so if I wanted to have them in my life, I had to let their accusations of my stealing money at the funeral go. And when I told her about my niece and my guilt over telling her she was no longer welcome in my home, she said to say I am sorry so I won't feel the guilt. I will never go back to her as her advice was really rotten and not thought out. She has no skills. And even the minister and the Buddhist nun years ago gave bad advice. But I don't feel that I need therapy, as I am basically a happy person who just needed the right tools, and gratefully, you gave them to me. Again, thanks.

I have noticed that my sister whose daughter I rejected is having a hard time talking to me now. I can tell she is upset, but I don't care. She is just like her daughter. The other sister who was at the funeral was the one who first accused me of stealing, and at least she is in therapy and well, is a peacemaker. Perhaps she isn't getting the right help either. She has never admitted to accusing me but has spent time apologizing for hurting me. I give her credit for that, and I sent her the article, Forgiveness from Narcissists Suck. She doesn't seem to wish to deal with it yet. Whenever I have talked with her in the past about having problems with certain people, I could tell that she felt I had the problem, not them. She has always forgiven people and keeps getting dumped on as well. But I have a lot of friends in my life who have never given me problems in all the years I have known them, and those I cherish.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Ugh, I definitely would take the time to get yourself another therapist of some kind. Maybe the one you had can refer you to someone who has experience with family/relationship counseling or knows something about personality disorders, or dysfunctional dynamics in families...

This isn't always 100% accurate (we've had at least one specialist that got trashed and actually he was very very nice) but you could check with this tool for how the patients and clients of various doctors rate.... Find a Doctor or Dentist | RateMDs.com Maybe you could find someone in your area.

 

[heatherly]

hi, i am not suffering anymore over this and so see no reason to find a doctor, but we only have one other in town, a male psychiatrist. going out of town is not something i can do. if i were suffering i would probably try the other one. but thanks so much. i just needed to get over guilt and learn everything you taught me.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

OK, well that is good to know. I certainly hope you can move on and can weather the future storms on your own.

Fair enough, what I suggested could just be something to keep in mind. Sort of like keeping handy an extra set of keys or a packet of gum in your pocket. Or a towel (reference to Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy).

Only sayin' so because I thought I was done a few years ago, and after a stressful 2010/2011 I decided I better come and see him again. I wanted so badly for me to be "normal" and was so determined to try to move on all by myself that I kind of put off going back when I probably should have gone back 6 months before I finally actually did. (d'oh)

My therapist said it's because some of these problems are kind of like dirty pots. You think you've cleaned them out thoroughly but once they've dried out a bit, you notice they still need a bit more cleaning done. I'd go for the onion analogy, but I'd probably get sued by Shrek.

 

[heatherly]

I understand what you are saying. My life is very simple when my sisters are not involved in it. I am 69 years old and the one with the daugher is 77. I only began having problems with them when they visited twice a year, and that will not be occuring anymore. I had problems with one woman whom I met here when we first moved to Oklahoma, and she is no longer in my life, but because she was my best friend it was difficult to understand why we had a falling out. Since then my newest friend, who was once her friend, first told me of the problems they had, and it was the same as I had with her. The validation really helped.

It is hard to even think of asking my insurance company to pay for therapy when I am not depressed, when my life is happy, and when my husband and I get along perfectly. If something ever happened to him, I would go to the only psychiatrist in town for a brief time if needed.

Being that my family is far from me, I have been able to distance myself. I will not make visits to them, not even for funerals. If my oldest sister wants to visit she will have to fly in, but if we have problems, that is the last time I will see her. I keep our phone conversations superficial. (She was not the one driving, her daugher was. We both have blindness in one eye and find it hard to dirve except close to home.)

I majored in psychology in college (forgot a lot), and was in therapy for severe depression but used positive thinking to cure myself after 13 years of misery. I have not been depressed since, but I have been upset with family and that ex friend. And at least I have a lot of women friends, all the way back from grammar school, to college, to recent times whom I have never faught with because there was no need. We all still talk via phone since distance makes it impossible. Although one I knew at the age of 8 came to visit me this summer.


If I were to be in therapy it would have to be via phone and my medicare/champ va would have to pay for it. I doubt if it would.
But I will not return to the psychologist here because I know what a good female psychologist is like. I had one tell me many years ago that I didn't have problems, it was the people in my life causing them. At that time it was not my sisters, but a psychiatrist that I worked for, being his office manager, and a phychiatrist that I was seeing. I really don't have a high opinion of psychiatrists having had seen so many different ones when I lived in Berkeley. But the woman psychologist was every intelligent.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

lol Awesome!

I'm 41, and I don't have a psychology degree although I took a class in high school and also took some at university. I have a teaching degree! But I don't teach anymore, I work at a call centre as support for internet and cell phones (used to work in landline phone support and tv support, too)...

I was always interested in psychology. When I was younger, I would read my mom's Carl Jung books when she took some psychology courses so she could be a psych nurse. She was also an registered nurse, so I had some fun looking at all the stuff in her medical encyclopedias, too. Then when I was older, I bought some of my own. I took an exam for university from the computer (not a real one), and without studying much got about 50%. But I only took it one time, so it might have been lucky. If I had done three tests, I probably would have failed 2... Who knows... Anyways, I probably don't know enough about statistics and numbers and brain chemistry, but I know vaguely about them. lol

Naturally, I have been reading up on and surfing the net regarding Narcissistic Personality Disorder, that's for sure... Not to mention a few other issues that run in our family... I'm more of a self-taught kind of person... I find people and mental illness and social behaviours etc fascinating. I have weird hobbies! lol

i just needed to get over guilt and learn everything you taught me.

I don't like to take that much credit!!
I just felt a bit uncomfortable and surprised that you thought I cured you or gave you all the answers or something, but now I see you are likely able to take care of yourself just fine, especially with your experience and a whole psychology major! Hence the reason I kept suggesting you get a second and more informed opinion (don't worry I won't suggest it anymore)!! 8)

 

[heatherly]

I don't mean to imply that you cured me, but what you gave to me opened my eyes and allowed me to rid myself of guilt. i am grateful for that. my younger sister and i are talking about these things, and she feels bad that i am still hurt over the funeral and doesn't know what i need to solve it even with my other sister. i said, i would like her to tell me that she did believe that i took the money instead of denying it and to then apologize. in her immediate family they are always saying, get over it. i don't see her as being able to do that. and this sister i talked to only feels bad about the whole thing. i am sure my other sister does as well, but she doesn't understand why it still bothers me after all these years, 7 years i believe.

you may not be a psychologist or psychiatrist, but you do know how to present the material that you have found, and it helped me a lot. after several courses in psychology i became bored and change majors, and then i became bored with the next major and changed again. 12 years of college with no degree, and what i have learned i have not remembered much of.

i see what you mean about a second opinion, which is to see if my family really is narcissistic. for me it doesn't matter that much, what matters is that i understand some of their behavior and that i realize what forgiveness means. i had been doing it all wrong. the article on "forgiveness" on narcisstic's suck was the best of the bunch, and getting a christian view point really helped. why, i don't know, since i am no longer a christian.

Well, you must have been a good teacher because you teach well. you know how to obtain good information and present it. keep up the good work.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

you may not be a psychologist or psychiatrist, but you do know how to present the material that you have found, and it helped me a lot. after several courses in psychology i became bored and change majors, and then i became bored with the next major and changed again. 12 years of college with no degree, and what i have learned i have not remembered much of.

lol Thanks very much, heatherly! 8D

I think that's why I like helping customers with their phones and internet: I teach them how to use those devices and how to troubleshoot them. The trick is imagining what they are looking at (although it helps that I either have a phone to play with or I can look at a help document with screenshots of what they are looking at)... And it also helps to kind of have a bit of intuition... The only thing I lack is a computer certificate or technical degree... Starting to think about trying to get another job in the same company... I would shoot for psychologist or counselor, but they have the head psychology dude, and then they have 2 ladies in another city who also help... And they also refer out to other psychologists/psychiatrists...

I've been through a lot in the last year and a half, so I'm just starting to feel like myself again. I think I was a bit depressed because I just wanted to hide from the world for a while. Long story! Short version: I seem to be coming out of my emotional stupor.

Hopefully soon I'll have as much pep and vigor as you do and I'll be ready to maybe take some courses...

 

[heatherly]

May I ask what is happening in your family and how you have been handling it?

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Hey there,

Sure... I've posted a lot in the Narcissistic section, and here's a bit of a hint of what went on this year in May: http://forum.psychlinks.ca/narcissi...der/26374-happy-narcissistic-mothers-day.html

And also down where my signature is, you can see a link to a webpage. I was learning a lot and dealing with a lot back in the spring/summer of 2010 because my mom and her real estate and me being on title with her and my dad on a property. They were moving three provinces away and I REALLY didn't want to have my name left on the title of that house. I had to "go behind their backs" and talk to a real estate lawyer, because either my mom was completely off her rocker, or just outright lying to me. I am fairly certain she was lying. She claimed she was told the information by some real estate accountant or broker or something... Mind you one of the people who worked for her quit because my mom was always trying to justify and manipulate the system so she could avoid reporting income (which is why she was audited twice by Revenue Canada)...

But if you check out those links you'll see what I'm talking about! lol