thotful

Since I've set boundaries and have gone no contact with 2 of my siblings and their wives, I no longer attend my mother's "family" functions. I have 6 brothers and a sister and LOADS of nephews/nieces (almost 20 of them ranging from newborn to 22 yrs. old). I haven't spoken with the 2 siblings for almost 2 years now (offered counseling or working with them to reconcile with my wife and I and they refused).

I miss my other loved ones, but literally feel nauseous at the idea of being around the "no contact" people. My mother has never tried a family function where they were asked to hang back to respect my wishes to not be emotionally abused anymore. I feel disgusted, angry, frustrated at their behavior but love them nonetheless. (one brother argued I should divorce my wife/ made a mistake in marrying her, and the other called her several names - I put my foot down with that garbage - I seriously suspect alcohol abuse with each of them - my father's an alcoholic as well - I'm an alcoholic too with almost 2 years of sobriety)

Who has experience with this and how do you juggle the family stuff? Do you let each family member know exactly why you're no contact with the estranged family member - what do you share? is it very little? is it enough to be direct and honest? Do you stick to a plan to refuse any get-togethers that have the estranged people there (my mother and family just don't make that many offers without the no contact ppl - they just want the issues thrown under the rug I think)? I feel ridiculously uncomfortable at the thought of pretending and being "nice" to my no contact people that have never apologized to my wife for how they treated her and have not been nice or respectful themselves.

Do you just leave everyone be to figure their own stuff out and just focus on you because that's all you can do? It seems like so many people and even the very few that talk to me about things get squeamish when the topic comes up.

Sometimes I get agitated about it, but turn back to working my own recovery and sobriety. But I still want to hear other people's stories. I recognize these things aren't always black and white.

DesertEyes

Very carefuly. I put in practice the al-anon concept that other adults are _adults_ and perfectly capable of hearing what I had to say. However, that does not mean they are capable of _acting_ like adults.

Whith hostile, negative people I share only the bare minimum. With some peeps I did offer a little more detail, with the objective of _not_ venting my anger with them. I did say "we agreed to separate, I just could not handle all the boyfriends any more"... which is not _totally_ without venom but it was the best I could do.

Other people I just calmly accepted invitations and then did not bother to show.

That is what I did. The people who cared took the time to ask and _listen_ to me. The rest of them either did not care, or did not have the "life experience" to be able to be supportive of me.

Once I started the process it went very fast. It became immediately clear to me, in less than a minute, if I was sharing too much with somebody, so I just ended the convo even if I had thought that person would be more supportive. I also discovered some new friends that I would never have expected.

I think that what made it simple for me was to focus on just my own boundaries. The purpose to my sharing was to protect _me_ from future misunderstandings. Keeping that as my only goal made it easy to decide how much to share and with whom, and it also helped me from saying hurtful things that would be nothing but my own anger coming thru.

Mike

pcm54

I reallu appreciate the info from Desert Eyes. Thanks! And these are some very good questions. I am struggling with this right now and am learning to just be silent and let everyone sort things out for themselves. Anything I say just adds fuel to the fire.