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Old 09-06-2014, 05:45 AM
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FireSprite
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,780
Originally Posted by NWGRITS View Post
This is a pretty big circus with a lot of monkeys.......
I kinda chuckled when I read this, but it's SO true. My RAF's FOO is like this - a huge, meshed family which equates to a very large circus with a lot of monkeys, tigers & elephants. Even though my RAF was the only addict that I'm aware of in the family, the depths of how their enabling, codependency & enmeshment went were astonishing & once I really "saw" it, I couldn't un-see it. And I wasn't ready or able, at 19, having just lost my RAF to cancer, to wage war against an entire clan.

Nor did I feel like it was up to ME to judge their ways or educate them on how & why they should change. I opted out - went fully NC instead because I knew it was hurting *me* & I was at my fill point for grief & stress & exhaustion. My mom was a mess, my RAF had just gotten sober after a lifetime of addiction only to die suddenly after being diagnosed with cancer & my sister was a young teen just lost in the sea of ALL of it. As the oldest child of an A, my role had always been to protect, sacrifice, be responsible for my family first & foremost. I couldn't stop their hurting behaviors, but I could circle the wagons & stop allowing the hurts IN, in order to shield my mom & sister.

While his family had always been genuinely awful to my mother to begin with, it all got so much worse in the days following his death & I still, 20+ years later, cannot rationalize their behaviors. It is like a mob mentality, seriously. It's no joke that "one would lie & the other would swear to it" & they were like this with every single family member where "outsiders" were concerned. Internally? Very cliquey, back-stabbing, jealousy-driven antics. Invisible battle lines drawn everywhere but big, smiling faces for the rest of the world to see.

Years later & with less prompting (because I understood my boundaries better & had less trouble enforcing it earlier) I also went NC with many members of RAH's family, for equally toxic reasons. (Most notably my MIL) He himself volleys between NC, Limited Contact & Superficial Contact depending on the drama with each member of the family. They contribute absolutely ZERO positive support in our lives in ANY way so I refuse to allow them to dump their negativity on us.

I will never "force" my RAH to go NC with his own family despite their dysfunction {barring exceptional circumstances... if DD's safety was at stake or something.....}; but I do refuse to let it be my problem financially, emotionally or otherwise. I will not loan money, play into drama, etc. Pffft!! I listen when he talks about this or that having to do with them, but honestly after so long of listening to himself say the same things over & over & over & over.... he couldn't deny the merry-go-round of it all & got tired of it himself, so it isn't an ongoing issue between us any longer for the most part.
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