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Why is it So Hard to Divorce Your Toxic Biological Family?
July 8, 2023

“Toxic relationships bring out the worst in you.” — Anonymous

Families fighting one another happens every day, in every corner of the world … celebrities, royal families, billionaires, people like you and me — no one is immune. In my experience as a family therapist, it’s one of the most common emotional and mental health topics I hear about.

The vast majority of people I talk to are independent, adult children, and they still go back to the family gatherings trough to endure toxic , sibling relationships, parental favoritism, criticism, and a family dynamic chock full of personality traits that would be a perfect fit for a horror film. In my practice I have seen grown siblings and their aging parents be so nasty and hateful to one another that I recoiled at the lack of human decency. I can tell people that behaving in that way is unacceptable on any level, but do you think that changes anything? Of course not, because each side is so immersed in how right they are in their victimization that neither has the humility to drop the sword and say, “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

So why won’t more people fully end their familial relationships?

But they’re my parents.

Getting along with people is difficult anyway, but families are different. We will endure far more from our biological family than anyone else. The reasons why are complicated, but most of us have an inexplicable bond with our nuclear families because for better or worse, we’ve shared a lot together, and we also may have been programmed to believe that you can’t dump your family. For many, a well-known edict in the Christian religion plays a heavy part; “Thou shalt honor they father and thy mother.”

But what does that even mean, to honor they father and mother?

I’ve heard stories of parents punching children in the face, sexually molesting them, berating them mercilessly, telling them they will never amount to anything, neglecting them, blatantly favoring one sibling over the others, shameless entitlement, putting heavy expectations on them now that they’re adults, all forms of family trauma … are we required to honor these parents when we grow up?

Although I have had many a client say they feel guilty cutting their parent off, I tell them once we’re adults, we have free will to design the best life for us, whatever that means. If any human being isn’t safe to be around, has a history of injuring us verbally, physically, or peppering us with emotional abuse, we have the right to set whatever boundary we choose that is healthiest for us. You might think of it as relational sobriety. Breaking free from those who don’t restrain themselves, and living a sober life around those who have our best interest at heart.

What is guilt anyway? It is going against some belief or value you currently have. If you believe you must keep being around your family no matter how badly you’ve been treated, then you will feel guilt when you don’t go. But many of us still live by old beliefs and values that no longer serve us well. The best thing may mean reviewing and updating those beliefs and values to suit who you are today … I work with clients to consider changing their beliefs or values that keep them running back into the burning house, to play around with new beliefs that fit them better all these years later. Try out something like, “I have free choice to be around those who I choose and are healthy for me, and to not go around those who don’t restrain their words and behaviors, no matter who it is.” At the end of the day, it’s your decision to decide what’s the best policy for you moving forward.

Siblings.

When I see sibling relationships that are loving and caring, I envy it. How nourishing they must be. In my own family of five children spread out over 17 years, we were raised to compete against one another, to cruelly tease one another for laughs, to gang up against one or two to control them, to idolize our father and older siblings, and to never hold our tongues when it came to commenting on one another’s appearance, friends, academic performance, or anything else. For a youngest child like me, I never stood a chance. For me it was a war zone, and the message was, you’ll never measure up. Although being a black sheep then was the kiss of death, today I see it as having refused to go along with the dysfunction, and a badge of honor. It wasn’t until my late 20s and early 30s that I stopped go along with the pack, and to them, not living my life as they saw fit and not joining in their ugliness meant family estrangement for years at a time, but it was a first step toward becoming healthy.

Who is to blame for the sibling’s toxic behavior toward one another, and does it really matter? A parent should be on top of sibling relationships and do all they can to protect the underdogs from the pack and to prevent abuse, but in our case, our parents took part in these transactions, so there was no hope to escape it until reaching independence. This leaves a child, now grown, with a very important decision to make, to stay in contact with family members and endure narcissistic abuse or go sober and create your own family with people who would never cause you harm. If you have narcissistic parents, there will likely be a golden child and most likely, a neglected child or scapegoat. Narcissists won’t change, so hoping for a better relationship, perhaps after going to family therapy, will likely frustrate you even more. Narcissists are simply incapable of accepting responsibility or seeing their part in any negative actions. Setting boundaries with them often results in a scorched earth response leading to more estrangement episodes. When do you take an honest look at your family system and say, “I don’t need this anymore?”

If you have a toxic relationship with your siblings today that is nasty and divisive, ask yourself how did your parents encourage it, either passively or actively? Since my parents tended to rank us and criticize us behind our backs to one another, I can see where they set us up to never get along and to have intense, sibling rivalries. No one in our family was ever happy for one another’s successes. They bitterly resented you if you did well, unless you included them in it, and would tear down and disrespect whatever degree you got, whatever house you owned, or car you drove. When I lost a lot of weight in my 30s in the 1980s my family accused me of using drugs or having AIDS. To them, I never could have achieved that with hard work and exercise. When I realized that they reveled in my failures and disappointments and were skeptical of my successes, I began to wake up. To stay in their lives, I had to accept being pigeon-holed as the town idiot they viewed me as, and that was’t the sort of relationship I was willing to have anymore.

The people I once looked up to, fell off their pedestals, one by one. I noticed that I had literally been in love with my family at one time. I had been in love with people that continually caused me emotional pain, told me I was a horrible person, either directly or through insinuation, and over time destroyed my sibling bonds. As I got healthier, through counseling and my education while becoming a family therapist, my vision became crystal clear, and I realized that I could walk away without the heart tugs or longing so many of my clients talk about. It takes time to take the rose colored glasses off and stop idealizing people who don’t deserve to be admired, it takes time to finally see them as they truly are, but we will never reach true healing until we do.

Why? Because most children are full of toxic shame and see themselves as not good enough. If our families, who we often put on a pedestal in our childhood, treat us that way, too, then we quickly conclude that indeed we are defective and less than others, and low self-esteem flourishes. When we grow up and are able to process information more intelligently and accurately, we start to see that our family mistreated us through rigidity, criticism, neglect, harshness, abuse, or whatever, not because we weren’t good enough, but because there was something wrong with them. It is then that we can shed toxic shame, and get our mental and emotional health where it needs to be, which is to realize we were always valuable and enough for whatever our purpose is.

Knowing that our parents were ground zero for what our sibling relationships became, I’ve learned that my anger toward my siblings dim view of me has been somewhat misplaced, and would be more accurately be partially directed at our parents, who set us up for lifetime of contempt toward one another.

This does not excuse siblings from their share of the blame in how they treat us, but it does lighten the load of intense feelings previously directed at them. We were all victims in our own way of how we were parented. To me, half the battle of life is figuring out who is safe to be yourself with. In my case, my siblings and I will never be able to find common ground, they will never learn proper boundaries and restraint, even though they’re all quite old now, and so it is best to continue in my sobriety with those who enhance my life.

Other things to consider.

We can’t control others, we can only control ourselves, and it’s not out job to fix our family. With that in mind, some of my clients still go around their toxic family members because of family events and gatherings for holidays. One of my clients explained why she walked back into the familial burning house at least twice a year, “If I want to see the ones I like, I have to see the ones I don’t,” she said.

Another told me that they go because they have younger siblings they would never get to see if they cut off their parents. I get it, and suggested they find a way to protect themselves on these visits so that nothing about it drags them down or ruins a moment of their day. Make the visit short, keep physical distance, don’t tell them much about you or your life, view the family as a scene in a movie with a nutty cast of characters and remind yourself that what they say and do shows you who they are, and is not about you. And of course, check your breath. The average person breaths 10–12 times per minute, and my clients will report that their breaths increased to as much as 30 while at family events. Make yourself slow your breathing down. Shoot for 4 second inhales, hold for a second, then release for 4. This will help you stay calm where your best and healthiest self can be accessed.

When you should not end a family relationship.

​There is one category within a family that I believe must stand by (almost) regardless, and that is when it comes to parents and children. I do not believe a parent should ever become estranged from their child, unless the child has egregiously abused or violated them in some way. For example, within the royal family, I believe King Charles should keep the door open to reconciliation with his son Prince Harry, as I believe the parent should be an example of mature relationship behavior and show a willingness to find common ground and mutual understanding. The elders need to be the hero and take the high road with their children in most cases. Children will rebel, they will do things that make us angry or crazy, but that is what kids do. I don’t agree that a parent should make a harsh stand, such as, “My way or the highway.” Parents of adults need to let their children become who they are.

One of my clients, a woman who is grown and fully independent, loves her super-religious family, and her father and mother are pastors. She tells me if they find out she is an atheist they will never speak to her again, so on her visits she pretends in order to avoid family estrangement. She should not have to do this. Prince Harry should not have to follow his family’s stringent rules in order to be accepted in the family. Both of these adult children deserve and need to be understood and accepted for how they want to live their lives.

In my opinion, Prince Harry was told, “Go along or get out.” This is the perfect plan to create family estrangement, it’s as predictable as the sun coming out each morning. That dynamic is often what leads to lethal family issues, someone else trying to control another, and the other’s resistance. The only right thing a resistor can do is to find distance and practice sobriety with those who accept them as they are, and have their best interest at heart.

Family therapy can be helpful if all parties are open-minded and reasonable. Humility is a wonderful healer when it comes to families, but it’s difficult to attain. Imagine hearing your own family member say to you, “I realize now that I treated you terribly, and I want you to know how much I regret it. I hope you can forgive me and will give me another chance to show you how much I care about you.” If a person says something like this and really means it, and follows through with a change in their perspective and behavior, then healing miracles are possible. Unfortunately, though, it’s rare.

Free will.

​Once we’re grown and independent, we have the right to do whatever we want, so long as it doesn’t hurt us or anyone else. Of course, there will be consequences if we squander our personal freedom and do destructive things, as there should be. But once we’re grown, we do not have to do anything we do not want to do. You may feel obligated to your biological family, but you are not. You may be told that you owe them, but you do not. You have the choice to see and visit who you want, and to cut off whomever you choose. You don’t have to explain yourself, but you can if you want. It also means you can keep seeing whomever you want, even though it may not be healthy for you. You are the captain of your life, you get to design it.

I said at the beginning that I envied those who had close sibling relationships. At the same time, I envy only children. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without my toxic sibling connections that affected me through the life span on so many levels. At least I went for professional help a long time ago and was able to gain a clear perspective.

If you struggle with toxic family relationships, I urge to start your journey. Know that children are innocent, and deserve to be loved, cherished and treated as the valuable and special human beings they are. If your family didn’t do that for you, that is probably the root cause of most personal mental or emotional issues or any problems with romantic relationships you might have. There is great hope for healing whether your family is in on it or not, and learning to set appropriate boundaries with everyone, especially your family, is key.

Becky Whetstone, Ph.D. is a Marriage & Family Therapist and journalist who writes about childhood developmental trauma, family relationships, and marriage crisis. She practices as a therapist in Arkansas and Texas, and as a life coach throughout the USA. Dubbed “America’s Marriage Crisis Manager,” you can follow her on You Tube, Twitter, Threads, Facebook, and Linked In. Her web sites are www.DoctorBecky.com and www.MarriageCrisisManager.com

Sibling Estrangement
Toxic Family
Family Relationships
Relationships
Parents

The author’s children about 30 years ago. Things got better between them, but if things haven’t for you, read on.

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What my Four Marriages Have Taught Me — by a Marriage Therapist.
July 26, 2020

Link to the article on Medium: How on earth could a Marriage Therapist be married four times? Here’s how, and the lessons learned. Please share. https://lnkd.in/eFtmHgF #mentalhealth #relationships #marriage

Becky with her 4th husband, John.

I learned the hard way to have the relationship I desired all along.

One might think that a marriage therapist who has four marriages under her belt would hide her head in shame, but the most important lesson I’ve learned is to not do that. Instead, I look back on each relationship, three of which ended in divorce, to see how they helped me come to know myself. I’ve learned a lot from those experiences and more from my education and working with the thousands of people seen as a Marriage and Family Therapist. Maybe I’m trying to atone for bad decision-making, but whatever it is, I’ve gained a lot of wisdom that may help others.

Marriage One. “This is the best I can do.” Lesson: Don’t settle.

Raised by depression-era parents from the south, at 24 I felt pressure to not become an “old maid,” which is someone who can’t attract a husband and spends her life ashamed and alone. Ridiculous? Yes, but that was the culture I was brought up in. In addition, my dad told me that men were meal tickets, just “Look good, be smart and college educated, and you’ll attract the top of the heap,” he said, so that was my plan, though I shudder thinking of it now. Even though I got a college degree, I never even thought seriously of a career or of supporting myself. My family conditioned us well: They would applaud when the four daughters brought home men who were prominent with great financial potential, and condemned anyone who wasn’t, so I understood what the mission was.

From the moment I married Husband Number One, I knew I was a future divorced woman. I had pleaded with a family member the night before the wedding to help me cancel the wedding, but she said it was too embarrassing, so I should just go through with it and divorce him later — that was terrible advice!

I had loved him at one time. He introduced me to a new world … he was the only grown up I had dated — wining and dining versus going Dutch at Roy Rogers restaurants. I loved the change and being with someone who had a nice car, who had finished his education and was well into his career. His personality was a little weird, he made wise cracks constantly that didn’t sit well with me and he was obsessed with my weight, but I was already under his spell and overlooked it. Then he began to cheat, usually running back to his former girlfriend. We’d break up, and he’d find me and beg to make up. For two years there was drama, tears, and turmoil, and by the last time we broke up I had lost all feelings for him. He must have sensed he was losing me for good, because to get me back one last time he stalked me at my health club, waited to catch me in my apartment parking lot, begged me to meet him for dinner, and when I did, he proposed, and I accepted. Why? Insert self-defeating thinking: I figured I was not good enough to attract a better mate than this, that I could get my feelings back for him if I tried, and that he would never hurt me again. I was wrong on all accounts. We divorced after 16 months of marriage, when he ran off with the receptionist from his job and moved out-of-state.

Take away: Don’t ignore red flags or sell yourself short or shoot too low in the type of mate you can attract — ones who cheat repeatedly will likely always cheat, despite what they say, and the same goes for those who flake out of relationships, then beg to come back later. Don’t choose a mate to please your family, and when a person shows you who they are, believe them the first time. And, if your self-esteem is on the floor you may be willing to accept the dregs of human behavior, a form of self-sabotage.

Marriage Two: Make sure you know who you’re marrying. Lesson: Spend time getting to know someone, at least three years, as people can and will hide their dysfunctional behavior during the dating process.

Oh, how attracted and in love I was — ahh butterflies. I couldn’t imagine my heart could ever change toward Number Two, but it did, and looking back I feel he did everything he could do to change my heart. He was seductive in the beginning, very loving, enthusiastic and affectionate, and then one day about two months into our marriage and nine months into our relationship, I cozied up to him and he turned me away, beginning a trend of rejection that went on for eight years — in an instant he went from my dream man to an icy, mean, shut-down man. He was a surgeon with an ego and had to be the boss. He looked down on anyone who didn’t work as hard as he did, and began to criticize me, my choices, told me my life was a waste, and did everything he could to avoid emotional and physical connection. He was a workaholic beyond anything I have ever seen, always adding more to his plate. We had two children, who truly were miracle babies, and I did all I could to hang on. I begged and pleaded with him to get help, to find out what was wrong. He said he would, but never did, and so I became a single mom at age 35. Needless to say, after the divorce he was an angry co-parent who was exceedingly difficult to deal with.

Take away: Date someone for at least three years so you can see the patterns of their personality. Anyone can show only their best self for a year or so. Our romance was brief, and it was long distance. He was finishing his medical residency at the time and was extremely busy, so we had not spent nearly enough time together to make a marriage decision. The truth of who a person really is will show up, so give it time, marriage is a huge decision, and divorce is so awful and painful, it’s worth it to take the time to set yourself up for success.

Marriage Three. The Most Painful Lesson. Lesson: Kill your ego or die.

This was a crash course in all I still hadn’t learned in the other two relationships. When I met this man, he was a district judge. He was hilarious and beloved in the community, poised and appropriate, but it was all a public persona. My initial concern was that he seemed to pine for old girlfriends and lost relationship opportunities, somewhat like a teenage girl. I’d never heard a man talk about relationships so much, so feeling weirded out, we started off as friends. He admitted to cheating on every woman he had ever been with, and as my feelings began to turn romantic, I told myself “Our love will be different, he will be faithful to me.” Although my self-esteem was still truly horrible, my ego was pretty healthy, and it told me the lie that I was quite exceptional and a man would behave differently in a relationship with me than he had any other time.

While dating I began to experience his tumultuous moods. Everything I did reflected on him. I wrote a column in the local newspaper and if I wrote something he didn’t like, or that his many friends commented to him about, he would throw a tantrum and tell me I couldn’t do that. This was unnerving.

The judge’s father had been a US Congressman in the San Antonio area for 38 years. He was a legend and an icon; his own man. I never would have married the moody judge, but when he told me that his father was going to retire and he was going to run for his seat, my ego had to jump on the train to Washington. It was egomania catnip for me and my family, marriage to a United States Congressman. Number Three had been single for years and had always dated women 20+ years younger. I was more age appropriate and had two young children — a ready-made family to cure his reputation as a playboy, a great political move, “Surely he wouldn’t want to blow it” I said to myself.

I calculated that once he was elected Congressman he would have to behave. We married, and when we did, his attitude toward me and my kids worsened. Everything we did was a direct reflection on him, so we had to be controlled. He pitted me against the children, one of the three of us was always in his doghouse and he would refuse to be around whomever that was. If I dared to side with one my children, there would be hell to pay.

Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he could go from charming and romantic to Satan himself, all in a nanosecond, always behind closed doors, and what triggered him could not be predicted. He would yell at me, accuse me of ridiculous things that never happened, have expectations of me that had never been communicated, like how I had not drawn a hot bath for him when he came home from Washington, though he never told me he wanted one. When angry he would not speak to me for a week or two at a time, sometimes moving in with his female cousin. And then there were other types of abuse, a time or two he shoved me on the floor as I approached to try and calm him down. One memorable evening he was hugging me when suddenly his mood turned dark and he dug his nails in my back so hard I had marks for weeks. The fact that he was now a US Congressman had not made him a better man; he was worse than he ever had been.

My children later told me they would hear him yelling at me in our bedroom and me crying. They were so scared of him and his protests when interrupted that they when we he and I were in the bedroom they would speak to us through the air conditioning vent. This breaks my heart; I should never have exposed them to such ugliness. But I literally sold my soul to the devil to have the Washington D.C. political experience, one of my greatest regrets.

From the time we married he began to talk about the fact that divorce was inevitable, and he would say this in front of friends when we were out to dinner. I didn’t want a third divorce, but I knew it was inevitable. He told all of his friends that my children and I were crazy, he hated our dogs and cats, and once beat my Chihuahua, Belle, after assuming she had defecated in his briefcase. It had been the cat. I told him it was Karma and he lunged for me, I dived into the bed and hid within the covers, holding poor Belle under me so he couldn’t hurt her again. Emotionally worn down, I searched for the courage to leave, but in the end, didn’t need it.

He left me for another woman after just over two years. After we separated, almost every dear friend I had turned their back on me and chose to remain friends with the powerful Congressman. All the prominence and rubbing elbows with the powerful, all the things my ego had worked for, was gone. My health plummeted, but things eventually improved as I started graduate school to become a Marriage and Family Therapist. Knowing I could not survive another devastating relationship, I promised myself that I would spend time in a counselor’s office and the university library figuring out the me that had allowed all of this to happen. As I began to learn about mental health, personalities, and studied what healthy relationships consist of, I came to understand that my own misguided ego had been my guide in major life decisions, keeping me from a peaceful and loving life. This brutally honest recognition of what I had done brought to the conscious level all my ego had been driven to achieve. Recognizing it and taking ownership of it killed it’s influence on me once and for all.

Take away. My shallow misery-seeking ego had to die. My ego was dedicated to upping her station by marrying high profile, successful men, all to impress herself and her egomaniac family. I had loved the men I married, but none of them were capable of a healthy adult relationships. I got into each mess by ignoring the red flags that had waved all around me when during our initial romance, being wholly ignorant of how healthy people behave. If I was to love again, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, it had to be with someone who was commitment-oriented and emotionally mature. I was ready to accept a simple life, out of the public eye; to just learn, grow, work and support myself and my children, to be still and let life unfold.

Epilogue.

In the years after Number Three, I learned to be happy alone. This was an important and necessary step. I learned about trauma and emotional maturity and consciously grew myself up. I lived the simple life, became a licensed counselor, and after about five years started to date again. This time I didn’t miss or ignore the red flags that waved in my face when a man showed me who he was, and there were a lot of red flags, probably in 98 percent of the men I met. I never had a boyfriend or significant other for almost 10 years, instead I concentrated on schooling and getting licensed, and being as emotionally healthy as I could.

Then I met someone. He had all the things I knew had to be there — he was kind, solid and consistent. He had been married for 25 years, and his wife had opted out of the marriage. There was no temper, flakiness, workaholism, and he had nothing to prove as far as his ego was concerned. He was solid in every way, and he adored and accepted me exactly as I was.

Marriage Four. True, mature love is gentle, comfortable, consistent.

Now I was able to apply all of my growth and relationship knowledge and skills I’d learned to have the type of loving relationship I had always wanted. When we fell in love it was calm and comfortable, like a foot slipping into the most comfortable shoe. My other relationships had been like fireworks shows that quickly burned out. Could this calm and certain feeling be real love? I came to understand that it is, that mature love is not intoxicating, but a solid attachment and connection that lasts the long term. It’s a feeling of being there for one another, two independent individuals with lives of their own, coming together to make each other’s life better together. Having been through Relationship Hell, I will never take him for granted.

I spend my days working with people who are making the many mistakes I used to make. If I can save one individual or family from relational misery or divorce, and guide them from dysfunctional to functional behavior, my many mistakes and lessons will have been worthwhile. It’s my fondest desire that no one else has to learn the hard way.

Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., LMFT, LPC is a Marriage & Family Therapist and Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice in Little Rock, Arkansas, and an LMFT in Texas.* She is a marriage crisis and relationship specialist. Visit her web site at www.doctorbecky.com. Contact her at becky@doctorbecky.com.

*To search for her license, look for her legal name, Becky Whetstone Cheairs.

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Your family is nuts and you still visit during the holidays?
December 8, 2019

Here’s how to manage, obnoxious, unkind, unfair and disrespectful kin.

by Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., LMFT, LPC

As the season for family get togethers approaches, numerous clients reach out to their therapists for an inoculation of protection, meant to shield them from the verbal and emotional land mines they will encounter when stepping into their extended family zones. A therapist can assure a client that if it isn’t safe, for whatever reason, it is perfectly OK not to go at all, but few back away and insist on running into the burning house anyway.

“I will never hear the end of it if I don’t go,” they insist. “And I can’t see the relatives I do like without seeing the ones I don’t.

Excellent boundaries will take care of all of it, but only a small percentage of clients practice them. Instead, justifications for electing to endure holiday family torture are many. People go, and what happens inside will most likely be as it usually is, a bombardment of unwanted questions, comments, actions and judgments that send the visitor’s autonomic nervous system on high alert. Here’s a few of the most common scenarios, and what to do about them:

1. Problem: Parents of adult children deem that everything their child does is their business and theirs to comment on, critique, control and correct. All advice is binding and if it isn’t taken, they will punish said child with a negative outcome such as the silent treatment, open disapproval, threat of disinheritance or criticism.

Healthy reality: Parents of adult children should stay out of a grown child’s business unless requested to enter into it. The only healthy stance for parents of adults is to love, accept, support, cheerlead and stand by as a wise consultant if asked. Here is how the math works when it goes the other way — the more the elder parents meddle, the more their adult child will dread seeing them, and the more the concept of estrangement becomes likely.

Appropriate Response: Let your family know that you are grown up now and therefore it is inappropriate to offer unsolicited advice. Request that they not offer up observations or critiques unless asked. If they don’t respect that request, it’s time to minimize the time you spend with them. Then, when they complain that they don’t see you as often, tell them it is because they did not respect your boundary. When it comes to inheritance, don’t sell yourself out to get family money. Live and prepare as if you will never get anything, as many families blow their fortunes or don’t leave what you think they will. Adopt a stance of, “If I get some money or property, great, but I’m not going to lose myself to get it.” Banking on inheritance and allowing abuse because of it is terrible self-care.

2. Problem: Adult child arrives with a friend, partner, spouse or child, and certain family members engage in a cruel form of entertainment by telling shameful and embarrassing stories from the family repertoire about the adult child, who played the starring role in a wide array of foolish debacles best forgotten. The family may laugh, but the embarrassed adult feels exposed and violated, because they are.

Healthy reality: Families should never tell stories about other family members when the theme is not uplifting, loving and/or kind. Throwing such a person under the story-telling bus is verbal and emotional abuse, and a form of bullying. If you even think of doing such a thing, ask your family member’s permission to tell the story first, in private, and if they say no, don’t do it.

Response: If your family is not diplomatic and political, meaning they are not kind and don’t consider the long-term ramifications of their actions, and they choose to abuse and control you, there is only one solution, spend your holidays elsewhere. If that is too harsh, you can first tell them if they ever do something like that again you will disappear for a very long time, then if they repeat the shaming stories, do that.

3. Problem: “They like other family members better than me.” Mom forms an alliance with her grown daughter against her second daughter, etc.

Healthy reality: I hear about this one every year, always from the excluded person. Most of us favor one parent over another, or one sibling or child over another, and that is just being human. The fact is some people are more likable or have more interests in common with us than others. Healthy people don’t make their preferences obvious in the interest of family well-being and harmony. In dysfunctional families, especially ones where at least one parent is a narcissist, there will be a golden child, and a black sheep or neglected child. They make it blatantly obvious which child is which, and they will rally gangs of family members to try and negatively control the errant sheep, a concept beloved by narcissists known as Divide and Conquer.

Response: Don’t give in to the attempts to control. These people are not trainable, it is what it is, and if it happens to you find people who treat you as the precious human you are.

4. Problem: Grandparents undermine young parents with the grandchildren.

Healthy reality. Young families are the rulers of their own domain, and the beliefs and values they follow are the law in their family unit, so young families get to choose how they raise their children. Grandparents in functional families respect these values and have conversations with their children about what boundaries they should follow regarding visits, roles, indulgences, and what they share.

Response: If you haven’t set clear understandings and boundaries with your parents about what you need regarding their relationship with your children, don’t delay in doing it. Each spouse should be the one who does this with their own parents. Breaches of these values or rules moving forward should be pointed out, and requests to respect them reiterated. If Grandparents don’t respect the young family’s wishes, it should not be ignored. Instead, a harsh reprimand and warning of losing access to the grandchildren should be put on the table. If they continue to do as they choose, minimize access or cut them off. Note: It is perfectly healthy and normal to allow some Grandparent indulgence and rule-breaking, that is part of the fun of Grandparents, but you get a say in what that is. For example: No TV at your house, but the kids can watch a couple of shows when with your parents.

One thing that is vitally important is to understand how important it is to speak out when someone crosses the line, whether family, friend, or co-worker. So many people feel the emotional pain of being breached, the raising of the heart rate and rising steam, but end up absorbing the negative energy and saying nothing. This is extremely damaging. Our souls need us to say something, to have a voice. This will allow us to discharge the negative energy of the moment instead of absorbing and storing it. This does not mean being unkind, disrespectful, or going on the attack, it means a calm response, like, “Wow, I’m sorry you feel that way,” or “That really hurts when you say or do things like that,” or “I wish you would respect my wishes.” If you find it difficult to do it in the moment, your soul will be OK with a response later, but make sure you do it. This is excellent self-care.

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