Monthly Archives: August 2012

This seems to be a strong topic!  Here is some more input that people had:

I am against it, putting your emotions in the hands of the wrong people is always wrong regardless whether they are family or not. I also had this black hole family syndrome, were id be getting sucked up in the drama of the family of my fathers side, stuff started as kids, my mother got denied by my grandmother, she even held separate santa party’s for one side of the family and us.

We just stopped going there, and when my grandmother died i didn’t even attend her funeral, why the heck should i ? I don’t consider them as family, albeit your situation is worse because your mother is the crazy one in this, but the principle is the same.

You shouldn’t consider them as family anymore, screw them and their problems. The thing is you feel ‘ involved ‘ because you are her son, and feel a ‘natural’ responsibility to take care blah blah blah. But to hell with it, she chased you out of your life , and now you are gone forever, you shouldn’t even debate about it, just don’t consider her as family anymore, don’t answer her or your family calls, goodbye and good riddance.

This because these people only added misery to your life, and you need to choose to add only good things in your life. You are an adult and you don’t need her anymore in your life, and she’s supposed to be old enough to understand the consequences of her own actions, you stay out of it, just consider her and the others as strangers and not as family anymore, detach and start living your own life.

You need to know where to draw the lines in your life, think about it ‘you aren’t the one who made her mad, she herself caused this mess to begin with, and not everything is your responsibility in your life, but because its family you ‘feel its got something to do with you’, which leads to you being sucked into a sickening psychological black hole, thru a game that your mother is playing with your heart, well guess what , you aint buying it, you have to protect yourself against the wrong people in this life, even if they are family,even if it is your mother, it doesn’t automatically mean that these people have the ‘best’ of interest in their children, does the alcoholic father who beats up his children do that because he loves them? , no because he’s a sick psycho who belongs in jail and get psychiatric treatment as well as a treatment to get rid of his alcohol addiction, you think a child should stay with such a person? Now that you are an adult you’d say ‘NO WAY IN HELL’, but for you its the same principle, except its a more subtle form of emotional abuse.

“you were a kid, no one including yourself will or should hold it against you for not being able to understand this and no one could expect a kid to ‘deal’ with this’ , therefore you should leave that in peace, and be at peace with the thought that you finally made the right decision in your life when you had the opportunity, which was to throw this sicko out of your life. You aren’t the appointed person to ‘fix’ the parent, its not a childs job to mentally correct their parents, its the psychiatrists job to do that. So distanceyourself, and just let the doctors do the work instead, and don’t worry about it anymore.

You draw a line because you also have your limits as a human being, and you just happily live your own life forever, case closed end of it.

Well you have to become like steel to it.

It does not seem appropriate to avoid the funeral. You have to be a gentleman, to respect your grandmother and show her your respects and so forth.

However to open yourself up over and over again to someone who hurts you is torturous and pointless. The reason this is so difficult is because it is your mother and in that sense you will never be able to totally become like steel towards her.

You have to kind of strengthen against her defects and negativity though. She seems to be a record player, so you know what to expect. Go to the funeral hoping the best, do not be surprised when she behaves the way she does. Anyone who knows your family will know what she is like so you need not feel embarrassed. Anyone who doesn’t will get to know your family a little better.

I mean you should be able to do that without getting personally involved. If your mother feels that she needs to go over her psychological song every time she sees you, let her enjoy her misery. It serves as a good test for you, to see if you’ve truly moved on or if you’re just saying you are. How you behave at this point is critical. “Don’t be like that mom”. Just be sweet and patient with her, thus by doing so you become a good son.

Regardless, you have to meet your duties as a man. Which is, attending funerals, social functions where your presence is expected, etc… a bad relationship with an individual, no matter whom it may be, does not excuse the gentleman from such functions, unfortunately.

A response from the original author:

I think I would be able to say my goodbyes and be cordial with everyone, aside from my mother. But I still truly feel people will try to get me to talk to her, or be very awkward toward me. In which this is the case, I am forced to leave.

My mother has told that entire side of the family complete lies about me to pamper her feelings of resentment toward me. So I know looking at all of them, none of them know the true story of what happened to my brother and I and why we have distanced ourselves the way we have. I want to write a full page editorial in the newspaper in their town to expose everyone to the truth.

I’m of the opinion I am there (the funeral) to support everyone there who is grieving and accept the loss that has happened. To remember her life in the most positive way I can. Then move on with life after I say goodbye. But why would I be supporting people who have not been supportive of me or care about me? My grandma was really never there for me either.

As of now, she is not dead, but I know this day will come soon, and ultimately the day my mother dies. When that happens, I will be very torn on what to do. Even though I find myself owing nothing to her because of how much she has taken from me, the majority of people think I and my brother, are responsible. I keep telling myself i’ll let my aunt handle it. Who knows though.

These are just the thoughts roaming my brain at the moment. I know I am man enough to approach it and be at the wake. The burial, I don’t feel I am a part of that family anymore and I am not welcome.

Here is an inspirational story about overcoming an emotionally dysfunctional family.

Brief overview.

I grew up with a toxic, emotionally abusive, selfishly dependent mother who is in AA/NA and turned to Jesus in the last 10 years. Never encouraged me through HS, College, or my work life. Never once made an effort to get to know my wife. Everything was always about her or what I never did for her. Always my fault.

Fast forward through years of BS and guilt for my deciding to live my life and not coddle her anymore.

After my wedding last June where I made the choice to dance with my stepmother first (because she was the one who raised me and kicked my butt into shape along with my dad) I then secondly danced with my mother, it was the last straw for me when my mother once again RAN OFF crying, leaving me up there alone and embarrassed as the DJ called her to dance, at my wedding. Eventually she came back after 5 awkward minutes of crying in the corner (as I stare into the eyes of my mortified friends and family). She complained to me the entire time during the dance about how much I hurt her. I then find out later on she tells my brother he is “her favorite son.” So again, all about her. Way to make my brother feel pretty upset, too. Even he wants nothing to do with her.

I called things off with her shortly after the wedding and told her I never wanted to see her again. I had been fed up with the years of abuse and guilt from that woman. She still does not understand why I don’t want to have anything to do with her. She thinks it’s was the comment she made about my brother being her favorite son. Does not understand everything else and the thousands of horrible memories I have of her hurting me.

I have had my aunt intervene trying to get me to talk to her, but I refuse. It’s been about 10 months now and I feel very good most days and proud of the steps I have taken with my life without her stepping in with her BS to screw it up. Things are good. I can concentrate on my life with my wife and my work. Closing on a new home. Ready for a great summer. But just as things are great…

Grandma is in the hospital and I’m guessing is not going to make it very long.

I now feel as if I must look at my mother and the rest of her side of the family that does not really support what I do with my life (even though I accept who they are). My immediate cousins are cool, but really nobody else gives a care about me and they don’t talk to me.

I’m very torn on what to do, how to think about this situation with the impending funeral and what I should even do. I’ve made tremendous progress in my personal life. I know either way, if I go people will look at me like “What the F  is he doing here?” and if I don’t go people will say “Why the F did he not show up?”

Potentially, my being at the funeral may even start a scene with my mother (not by my hand, but out of her insane insecurities with me). My aunt basically asked me to not show up to thanksgiving so there would not be a scene if that tells you anything. It’s just pure awkwardness.

I’m not being paranoid. It’s how things are. I’ve been the black sheep of the family because I actually have goals, am successful and don’t want to be a part of that small town narrow minded mentality and buried in Jesus scripture with no real world view. The last funeral I went to for this side of the family, I found out that grandmother gave EVERY KID (2nd, 3rd nephews, cousins, even my direct cousins who in relation to her, were the same as my brother and I) college tuition. Lots of it too. Even to those who did not go to college. They all got tuition and were so thankful for it in the eulogy. My brother and I looked at one another like, “Who the F are we?” because we never got a freaking dime. Not that we expected it, but that’s what we meant to this side.

I know what I’m going to do in this situation.  What would you do?

The following messages were sent in support of the last post about cutting out bad friends.

This makes me happy 🙂

She sounds selfish and the relationship was one sided. I think life is too short to waste time and effort on people who don’t care. It sucks and it hurts, but I think from what you have said it’s better to cut her out of your life, or at least remove ‘friend’ status from her.

Selfish friends aren’t friends. I want to just give you a hug because it hurts.

Everyone is different and some people require more effort and some people put in more effort. If you and a friend have a lop sided relationship, but it works and both people are happy then it’s not a problem.

If you’re feeling used and like you’re putting in all the effort, then regardless of how much they do or don’t do, it’s unhealthy and it either needs to be cut out or changed.

I have a friend who withdraws a lot. I feel like I am the one who always checks in with her and asks her to do things. But when we see each other it’s like nothing happened and I’m okay with that because I accept she’s not as full on as me and we all have our own issues. I don’t feel used by her and I know, if I was to ring her at 3am in the morning she would be there for me and that’s what matters.

One of my friends from from middle school just accepted a job offer in Australia!  Of course, I found out through Facebook (isn’t that how most people keep in touch now, anyway?), but that’s still awesome.  We go way back.  I remember in middle school (this was in the mid 90s) we were both into the band Nirvana, and I was learning to play guitar and he was in choir, and so sometimes we’d get together and I’d play some Nirvana songs and he would sing.  It was awesome!  We were all like “we should start a band!”  Of course, in the 90s it wasn’t like now where everyone plays an instrument.  Outside of school band, there were only a few people who played instruments.  A couple times we joined up with a bass player and had some jam sessions, but nothing ever really became of it.

We still kept in touch during high school but then went away to different colleges.  A few years after we graduated when Facebook got all popular we reconnected again, found that we were living in the same city, and hung out a few times (no jam sessions, though).  It’s always really interesting to catch up with old friends.  He was working for a small startup company here that kind of wasn’t really going anywhere, and in the meantime he got an offer to go work in Australia, so he took it.  He’s super excited.  He said once he’s all settled in he’s going to throw a party and invite all his friends from back in the states.  The thing is, I live in an area where it’s very cold this time of year (it’s single digits today!), and Australia is really hot, right?  So I’ll probably have to find some cheap online clothing stores in Australia to get some appropriate clothing.  Australians love going to the beach, don’t they?  I don’t even think I own a pair of shorts.  So that may be an issue.

I’m kinda hoping he can get me a job there, too.  I have a job right now but I’m not really enjoying it that much and I don’t really see much room for growth.  And it’s not like people are just giving away jobs right now.  I mean, I’m very happy I have a job, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not what I see myself doing 2 or 3 years from now.  So eventually I’ll start looking for something else, anyway, and moving somewhere else sounds exciting!  I’d also love to move to England, although that could just be because I watch a lot of BBC and am assuming that’s how everything is over there.

I try very hard to maintain solid friendships with people. I have a lot of friends, but a very small number of good friends (something I’m sure most of us sympathize with).

Someone I considered family to me, in the long run of our friendship, has just turned out to be a negative, unsupportive and unsympathetic friend.

Outside of friendships, with my dealings with random people I’m pretty brash and to the point. I’m always friendly, but honest to a fault. With my friends, I’m much more sensitive and cater to each of their personalities and listen the best I can. Some friends I have talk a lot, and it’s better for me to listen. Some need me to talk to help their brain sort through things. Whatever the situation I do the best I can to help my friends.

However with this person, I felt constantly put down. At one point in our friendship I was so frustrated and had reached my BS limit, I calmly explained to her how I felt. I was always greeted with the “I’m stressed out, I’m having this health issue, I’m having that kind of work issue”. Always an excuse for their poor behavior.

I went through a pretty substantial health issue in January and really needed the support of my close friends. I was struggling. I felt terrible. She had just started a relationship with one of my guy friends I had set her up with, and she told him my health situation. He, in turn, also being a terrible friend, told multiple people. She knew he gossiped my personal information and failed to tell me about it. She told other friends, without my knowledge, which I just recently found out as well.

Shortly after she had told multiple people my business (in late January, I think), she called me out of the blue and started taking jabs at me about how she felt she couldn’t trust me, how she felt I was a terrible friend and how she felt I needed to put more effort into the friendship. I was shocked, needless to say. She had started dating her boyfriend in ~November and completely fell off the face of the planet. I rarely saw her. Rarely heard from her. I’d make attempts to see her and plans fell through. I was blindsided by her phone call.

I put more effort into contacting her and asking how life was going. I was the one in and out of the hospital but making a point to stop and call her between doctors appointments. Every time I’d try and ask questions she’d stop me with “I don’t feel comfortable talking to you about personal things”. Well, what the f?

Flash forward to her birthday – She told me the day before her birthday that I needed to call her and sing to her, that I needed to make posts on her social network pages, I needed to text her, etc. I was confused by this, I had planned on calling her. We’d been friends for years, of course I would call.

A few weeks later on my birthday, she never called. No text, no phone call, nothing. She knew when my birthday was. Her excuse? She was hungover. I was hurt. She had dictated to me how I needed to celebrate her birthday for her and I didn’t even get a text message.

Recently I moved across the country and she moved up to New York. Her relationship ended (poorly, I might add) and she needed emotional support. I had spoken with her maybe a handful of times after my birthday (she rarely responded to my attempts at communication) and she called me and cried to me about the relationship ending. I felt terrible. I was in the process of booking a ticket a couple of weeks before my cross-country move when she informed me that she had kept some substantial secrets from me.

I didn’t respond to her after that. It took me a few days to calmly collect my thoughts and send her a message regarding her poor friendship “skills”. I’m still angry about things. I no longer communicate with her… and to be quite honest I’m disgusted. She accused me of being a terrible friend, a liar, etc. After reflecting on it I realized maybe she was projecting what she saw in herself onto me? I’m not sure.

I feel like I spent more time consoling her emotionally and invested so much effort into saving a friendship only to have her… in essence (at least to me) betray my trust. That’s hard.

Did I make the best decision in cutting her out of my life? Does she deserve yet ANOTHER shot at forgiveness? I feel like I’ve handed her so many “get out of jail free” cards and overlooked some really petty, poor behaviors to try to see the positives. At this point I feel the friendship is more toxic and can no longer provide relief from personal stressors.

And that’s what I’ve decided to do — cut her out of my life.  She’s shady and our “friendship” was obviously one-sided.  I was obviously being used but she wasn’t giving me anything in return.  I don’t need that kind of added stress in my life.