More dirt from under the rug surfaces
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 350
More dirt from under the rug surfaces
I'm chatting with my niece the other day and discovered some "meanwhile" stuff that I felt appalled by and yet not surprised as well. And a confirmation of my choices. Apparently with 1 sibling, my niece was not invited to their wedding cruise, and the sibling's wife blocked and unfriended her on facebook - and she still doesn't know why. She doesn't know what she did. It felt like looking in a mirror. I told her that she's not alone and my wife and I have experienced the exact same behavior from that sibling and his wife (no invite, fb blocking, etc - no discussion). Apparently with a 2nd sibling (the 1st one I estranged myself from), my niece tried to text him to engage in a relationship (happy b-day to cousin, congrats to cousin, etc). He didn't respond at all.
So, while I'm pulling away and declaring that the "under the rug" approach doesn't work for me. That mistreating me and my wife over some slight I haven't been informed of was not OK with me. That I just let them be and work on my own life. During that time they're behaving in a similar way to another family member (and possibly lots of ppl in their lives for all I know). It confirms the concept that there's stuff under the rug that they don't want to acknowledge. I'll leave 'em to it and just keep on keepin' on, as they say.
My marriage isn't perfect and my wife and I work on our relationship daily. We have good days and bad. The big thing is NOTHING is under the rug. We talk to each other about how we're feeling. Honesty is at the core.
I'm probably still getting over the shock of realizing that many of my FOO relationships aren't healthy for me. That I've tried the olive branch, I've tried to offer to sit down and talk, and have been rebuked. An Al-anon friend said that I'm probably experiencing grief over the loss of a loving sibling relationship. That the relationship causes more harm than good.
Please share your experience. Did you find out after the fact how deep the secrets truly were? How justified you were in your choices and didn't know it? That you went with your gut, and it turned out, leaving the relationship behind was a good thing, despite all the nagging guilt and second-guessing?
So, while I'm pulling away and declaring that the "under the rug" approach doesn't work for me. That mistreating me and my wife over some slight I haven't been informed of was not OK with me. That I just let them be and work on my own life. During that time they're behaving in a similar way to another family member (and possibly lots of ppl in their lives for all I know). It confirms the concept that there's stuff under the rug that they don't want to acknowledge. I'll leave 'em to it and just keep on keepin' on, as they say.
My marriage isn't perfect and my wife and I work on our relationship daily. We have good days and bad. The big thing is NOTHING is under the rug. We talk to each other about how we're feeling. Honesty is at the core.
I'm probably still getting over the shock of realizing that many of my FOO relationships aren't healthy for me. That I've tried the olive branch, I've tried to offer to sit down and talk, and have been rebuked. An Al-anon friend said that I'm probably experiencing grief over the loss of a loving sibling relationship. That the relationship causes more harm than good.
Please share your experience. Did you find out after the fact how deep the secrets truly were? How justified you were in your choices and didn't know it? That you went with your gut, and it turned out, leaving the relationship behind was a good thing, despite all the nagging guilt and second-guessing?
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Mmmmmm
Posts: 3,178
Hello Thotful,
When I was in counseling, I figured out my dysfunctional parents were raised by dysfunctional parents. All I could change was my reaction. I cannot drag them or my siblings into recovery.
As for the level of secrets, who knows. They just keep layering them. I have had to turn in my Sherlock cape and monocle as part of my recovery. Intuiting their motivations or some of the manipulation really didn't help me. It kept me in their world.
Personally I think letting go is a process that may circle back in your life, particularly as your own life changes - like becoming parents.
I hope the baby's room is ready and your gardens are thriving!
When I was in counseling, I figured out my dysfunctional parents were raised by dysfunctional parents. All I could change was my reaction. I cannot drag them or my siblings into recovery.
As for the level of secrets, who knows. They just keep layering them. I have had to turn in my Sherlock cape and monocle as part of my recovery. Intuiting their motivations or some of the manipulation really didn't help me. It kept me in their world.
Personally I think letting go is a process that may circle back in your life, particularly as your own life changes - like becoming parents.
I hope the baby's room is ready and your gardens are thriving!
pray for strength
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: New England
Posts: 2,414
Hi thotful,
I have to read more of your posts to get a sense for your current life and concerns but will share my experience for some food for thought and perspective with what my husband and I experience with our FOOs along with our 2 kids.
My husband and I have been friends since teens, therefore have witnessed each others lives, families and developed ourselves and the family we wish to create based upon our experiences with FOO. Meanwhile FOOs are living and making decisions as well.
A few weeks ago we (husband, kids) flew to my family gathering where all my siblings gathered along with spouses and kids. My parents are divorced so it was my mother's side of the family as well and all her FOO. For a few weeks we had a blast, catching up, living life every day, eating, swimming, laughing, taking pics and generally being happy we could all make it and be present. My husband has known everyone forever, so he is accepted wholly as part and truly "feels the love" and fills the extended family tank.
During the time my sibs and fams have not all been together, everyone else is busy living their lives. Love is always there and is not dependent upon whether they send cards, gifts, make phone-calls, no judgement, pettiness, guilt, shame, confusion or anything else really. This works for all my sibs and I. If they wanted or expect something more than we give, I would be open to hearing. I seriously love them all very much, they feel the same. We all know it to the best of our ability. That is "us" per my perspective as a sib.
My husband also has a divorce, remarriage, blended and half siblings in his FOO. The behavior of *one stepparent* has been emotionally abusive and manipulative towards only my husband and his bio sister since she entered their lives. His sibs witnessed, had their own experiences, and responded through life in various ways.
The amount of pain and time spent learning to live well with the experience cannot be adequately described. It has taken a significant amount of brain space. I have witnessed my husband's experience since we have been friends and witnessing his experience and fallout alone has been excruciating and painful...for me, holy cow I cannot imagine everyone else. Plus it has affected me. And I do not like it.
The hardest part of the whole situation for me is that no one in his blended FOO talks about or addresses the experience together although everyone has been and continues to be affected in some way. When they interact it is almost as if the past does not exist or hold bearing on the present. Which is weird and hard for me to understand.
I have supported my husband and his experience the best way I know how but cannot support emotional manipulation, blackmail, delusional interactions, more issues, more dysfunction. The elephants in the room have always just multiplied and been fed to grow to ginormous size.
My instinct has always been to want to just shout, "Come on! Let's call it like it is for each of us, accept each other's experience, try to heal and move on. Not recognizing it is wasting everyone's emotional energy, life, and is confusing for our kids to understand. Let's stop this right now. OK. We are the grown-ups now." But that is just my wish, not others' and for me to do that is a bit self-serving. If we were to try to be more present in their active lives though, there would have to be a smack down (versus what exists).
Instead, snipes, hurt feelings, walls, jealousies, competition, confusion, chaos, silence prevail. After a primary parent death, the experience escalated to epic dysfunction. Ultimately we had to go no contact with the stepparent who targets to manipulate and destroy. Seriously, her behavior is like an emotional parasite who wants to keep everyone "just" alive so she has a large audience to play with. It has been that destructive.
Since she also employed "splitting" tactics and manipulation, every sib is involved, has their own experience, and was inevitable pitted against each other. For dramas sake? Boredom? There is serious undiagnosed personality disorder which she did not acknowledge when repeatedly called upon, or does not seem able to recognize in herself. She loves to create chaos and still does it to this day with everyone in her life. If it was just funny, that would be one thing but it hurts and is destructive.
The best I can do is not invite or allow more pain. Our kids will inevitably ask hard questions which we will answer honestly as age appropriate. My kids are 100,000% off limits to the targeted emotional destruction. They will likely feel pain from the no contact in the form of feeling left out of the loop. Not being included. What's wrong with me? But passive experience is a better alternative to them being actively targeted and included.
And I will give my kids an honest answer to any of their questions from my perspective and experience. My husband had to ask himself all of these questions and more as a kid and there were no answers except to endure until he was out of the house and not accept or allow it to continue as an adult. There is nothing 'wrong' with him. It is a big sheese-storm not of his creation. But he is still a participant - his best option was to say "no" I no longer accept this junk.
He is doing the best he can to be healthy himself as an adult - for me and for our kids. We make decisions as a family - our young kids are tagging along right now. When my kids can fight for themselves and deal with consequences of others' behavior they are more than welcome to dive right in wherever they want. Right now, we say an emphatic "no". And that is it. Because we have to be healthy as a family.
The sum total is that his FOO sibs love each other and are all 'split' with individual experiences and very little understanding. But this is the way it works right now. He has zero control over how each of his sibs, grown-ups, choose to respond but, by removing himself from the active choas equation, it is no longer as painful.
Your decisions sound really healthy. That is the best you can do and keep doing for you, your wife (and baby on the way? Congrats!!). It sounds like you can support others in your family the best way you know how without engaging in or accepting ongoing dysfunction. This is great.
It is possible to be a functional family in a dysfunctional FOO. Keep making the choices that feel right and good. Then learn to live with it the best way you know how. If your sib needs something or "comes around" s/he can always call and talk.
Hopefully this stream of consciousness, lengthy post somehow helps to feel better in the good decisions you have made for yourself. Try not to second guess, because you have the right to 'tweak' as you go. Live the best life you can!
I have to read more of your posts to get a sense for your current life and concerns but will share my experience for some food for thought and perspective with what my husband and I experience with our FOOs along with our 2 kids.
My husband and I have been friends since teens, therefore have witnessed each others lives, families and developed ourselves and the family we wish to create based upon our experiences with FOO. Meanwhile FOOs are living and making decisions as well.
A few weeks ago we (husband, kids) flew to my family gathering where all my siblings gathered along with spouses and kids. My parents are divorced so it was my mother's side of the family as well and all her FOO. For a few weeks we had a blast, catching up, living life every day, eating, swimming, laughing, taking pics and generally being happy we could all make it and be present. My husband has known everyone forever, so he is accepted wholly as part and truly "feels the love" and fills the extended family tank.
During the time my sibs and fams have not all been together, everyone else is busy living their lives. Love is always there and is not dependent upon whether they send cards, gifts, make phone-calls, no judgement, pettiness, guilt, shame, confusion or anything else really. This works for all my sibs and I. If they wanted or expect something more than we give, I would be open to hearing. I seriously love them all very much, they feel the same. We all know it to the best of our ability. That is "us" per my perspective as a sib.
My husband also has a divorce, remarriage, blended and half siblings in his FOO. The behavior of *one stepparent* has been emotionally abusive and manipulative towards only my husband and his bio sister since she entered their lives. His sibs witnessed, had their own experiences, and responded through life in various ways.
The amount of pain and time spent learning to live well with the experience cannot be adequately described. It has taken a significant amount of brain space. I have witnessed my husband's experience since we have been friends and witnessing his experience and fallout alone has been excruciating and painful...for me, holy cow I cannot imagine everyone else. Plus it has affected me. And I do not like it.
The hardest part of the whole situation for me is that no one in his blended FOO talks about or addresses the experience together although everyone has been and continues to be affected in some way. When they interact it is almost as if the past does not exist or hold bearing on the present. Which is weird and hard for me to understand.
I have supported my husband and his experience the best way I know how but cannot support emotional manipulation, blackmail, delusional interactions, more issues, more dysfunction. The elephants in the room have always just multiplied and been fed to grow to ginormous size.
My instinct has always been to want to just shout, "Come on! Let's call it like it is for each of us, accept each other's experience, try to heal and move on. Not recognizing it is wasting everyone's emotional energy, life, and is confusing for our kids to understand. Let's stop this right now. OK. We are the grown-ups now." But that is just my wish, not others' and for me to do that is a bit self-serving. If we were to try to be more present in their active lives though, there would have to be a smack down (versus what exists).
Instead, snipes, hurt feelings, walls, jealousies, competition, confusion, chaos, silence prevail. After a primary parent death, the experience escalated to epic dysfunction. Ultimately we had to go no contact with the stepparent who targets to manipulate and destroy. Seriously, her behavior is like an emotional parasite who wants to keep everyone "just" alive so she has a large audience to play with. It has been that destructive.
Since she also employed "splitting" tactics and manipulation, every sib is involved, has their own experience, and was inevitable pitted against each other. For dramas sake? Boredom? There is serious undiagnosed personality disorder which she did not acknowledge when repeatedly called upon, or does not seem able to recognize in herself. She loves to create chaos and still does it to this day with everyone in her life. If it was just funny, that would be one thing but it hurts and is destructive.
The best I can do is not invite or allow more pain. Our kids will inevitably ask hard questions which we will answer honestly as age appropriate. My kids are 100,000% off limits to the targeted emotional destruction. They will likely feel pain from the no contact in the form of feeling left out of the loop. Not being included. What's wrong with me? But passive experience is a better alternative to them being actively targeted and included.
And I will give my kids an honest answer to any of their questions from my perspective and experience. My husband had to ask himself all of these questions and more as a kid and there were no answers except to endure until he was out of the house and not accept or allow it to continue as an adult. There is nothing 'wrong' with him. It is a big sheese-storm not of his creation. But he is still a participant - his best option was to say "no" I no longer accept this junk.
He is doing the best he can to be healthy himself as an adult - for me and for our kids. We make decisions as a family - our young kids are tagging along right now. When my kids can fight for themselves and deal with consequences of others' behavior they are more than welcome to dive right in wherever they want. Right now, we say an emphatic "no". And that is it. Because we have to be healthy as a family.
The sum total is that his FOO sibs love each other and are all 'split' with individual experiences and very little understanding. But this is the way it works right now. He has zero control over how each of his sibs, grown-ups, choose to respond but, by removing himself from the active choas equation, it is no longer as painful.
Your decisions sound really healthy. That is the best you can do and keep doing for you, your wife (and baby on the way? Congrats!!). It sounds like you can support others in your family the best way you know how without engaging in or accepting ongoing dysfunction. This is great.
It is possible to be a functional family in a dysfunctional FOO. Keep making the choices that feel right and good. Then learn to live with it the best way you know how. If your sib needs something or "comes around" s/he can always call and talk.
Hopefully this stream of consciousness, lengthy post somehow helps to feel better in the good decisions you have made for yourself. Try not to second guess, because you have the right to 'tweak' as you go. Live the best life you can!
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 350
Thanks!
Yes, the baby is on the way - She is due in October! I was feeling her moving around in her mommies tummy.
I too feel a fire in the belly when it comes to protecting my child, and she's not even born yet. I don't know what it feels like to be a parent. I imagine that when I do, my FOOT will COME DOWN!
Any hesitation or second-guessing will be replaced with "oh, H*** no." My child will have people in her life that bring joy, love, acceptance, and support. I easily see myself feeling zero guilt with protecting my child from the underhanded, covert, under-the-rug, etc, emotional abuse. I'll try to create an environment for her that I did not have myself growing up. It will be hard to do - breaking the cycle always is, because I have to re-parent myself. My counselor stated this week that I'm significantly more prepared today for a child than I was 2 years ago (just barely started recovery, barely started using boundaries, etc).
These trials and tribulations can be viewed as simple preparation for being a dad. Such will be a truly honored task for me and as a part of my healing with my childhood, I will be the father today and tomorrow that I wanted for me yesterday. I can't change the past. But I can change me.
I am nervous, but also excited about the opportunity to Break the Cycle! What a journey it will be.
Yes, the baby is on the way - She is due in October! I was feeling her moving around in her mommies tummy.
I too feel a fire in the belly when it comes to protecting my child, and she's not even born yet. I don't know what it feels like to be a parent. I imagine that when I do, my FOOT will COME DOWN!
Any hesitation or second-guessing will be replaced with "oh, H*** no." My child will have people in her life that bring joy, love, acceptance, and support. I easily see myself feeling zero guilt with protecting my child from the underhanded, covert, under-the-rug, etc, emotional abuse. I'll try to create an environment for her that I did not have myself growing up. It will be hard to do - breaking the cycle always is, because I have to re-parent myself. My counselor stated this week that I'm significantly more prepared today for a child than I was 2 years ago (just barely started recovery, barely started using boundaries, etc).
These trials and tribulations can be viewed as simple preparation for being a dad. Such will be a truly honored task for me and as a part of my healing with my childhood, I will be the father today and tomorrow that I wanted for me yesterday. I can't change the past. But I can change me.
I am nervous, but also excited about the opportunity to Break the Cycle! What a journey it will be.
Member
Join Date: May 2013
Location: east coast
Posts: 1,332
I can tell you my husband's family is so dysfunctional they make the fight between the Hatfields an McCoys seem rational. I gave up on the lot of them years ago. My own family isn't much better.
It sounds as if your niece is the rejected child. In talking about FOOs we often discuss the golden child and the scapegoat. The one that isn't mentioned but I have personally observed more than once is the rejected child. For absolutely no reason I have been able to figure out in some families there is a person who is just rejected. No rhyme, no reason just rejected. I hope you can and want to be there for her. She could use your love and acceptance.
It sounds as if your niece is the rejected child. In talking about FOOs we often discuss the golden child and the scapegoat. The one that isn't mentioned but I have personally observed more than once is the rejected child. For absolutely no reason I have been able to figure out in some families there is a person who is just rejected. No rhyme, no reason just rejected. I hope you can and want to be there for her. She could use your love and acceptance.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Mmmmmm
Posts: 3,178
Verte, what an amazing post. You describe a lot of what I survived so well! And HappyBeing Me, I like the term 'rejected child.'
My RAH was a favorite in a large Catholic family, he is so confused about my family rejecting me! He said to me just this week, 'I don't know how you survived it.' I might have to have him read your post!
Thotful, focus on your recovery, your marriage and your child. You struggle so much with your family and you can't do a darn thing to bring them into recovery.
Peace!
My RAH was a favorite in a large Catholic family, he is so confused about my family rejecting me! He said to me just this week, 'I don't know how you survived it.' I might have to have him read your post!
Thotful, focus on your recovery, your marriage and your child. You struggle so much with your family and you can't do a darn thing to bring them into recovery.
Peace!
Member
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Sydney NSW
Posts: 13
Thanks for sharing thotful. Reading what you have to say about preparing to be a parent is so inspiring. I have a good feeling about it for your sake. And no matter what happens on the journey there are some special people here to support you. God speed!
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
