How can I step away from immediate family without physically leaving?

October 12, 2018 2:26 PM

I've turned the other cheek for years now with my sister and mother, but I can't keep doing this anymore. Help me get out. More details inside.

I don’t really have anyone good to get an outside perspective on this, so I’m hoping Ask MeFi can come through for me. There's a lot of context to try to summarize, so appreciate it if you end up reading this whole thing.

I’ve always had a pretty strained relationship with my sister and mother, who are both very similar people and both very close to one another. My family went through a really nasty divorce over 10 years ago and the side I’m closest to has definitely moved on past this and doesn’t dwell on it, but my mom has never been able to fully recover from it. I am closer to my dad’s side of the family and she’s convinced they have poisoned me against her, when in reality there’s a whole bunch of reasons I can’t connect with her properly.

My mom has had significant financial struggles since the divorce and also keeps getting into emotionally abusive relationships and has done so since I’ve been in high school. As a consequence of that, I’ve really struggled to connect with her on anything, I was exposed to a lot of shit I just wish I hadn’t had to go through, and she was largely an absent parent when I needed her. While we can connect on a few grounds (a love for nature and animals), I honestly feel like her foil a lot of the time - non-religious, not concerned with how I look, not constantly focusing on men, leftist, independent, etc. I can rarely think of things to talk with her about. My mom and her experiences are basically the reason I’m a feminist…and not for the usual reasons people say this.

I try to be a good daughter and help her through all her problems…but honestly, it’s been over ten years of “having a bad year” for her and pouring myself into her issues feels like shoveling in a bottomless hole. It is not a reciprocal relationship at all. Honestly, when I describe my relationship with my mom to others, it’s like describing having to parent HER. I do things like give her basic life advice about men all the time and she usually ends up doing the exact opposite, causing more pain and drama to deal with. For the sake of brevity in explaining all this, I’ll just say I have effectively compartmentalized everything to do with her into a neat box because emotionally investing in it too much would basically make me go insane. I care about her, but it's just really, really difficult.

My sister is very close to her. They operate a lot like a unit, most of the time. My sister and I can connect on some grounds of mutual interests and can hang out and visit with one another, but there’s also a long history of her being physically and mentally abusive towards me. There is a constant underlying animosity and jealousy towards me and she is always seems to want to put me down. I have literally never heard her apologize for anything she’s done to me, ever. For as long as I can remember, she’s been able to get away with things by being such a pain in the ass that people give in to what she wants because it’s just easier. This all seems to have been worse lately, particularly because she just got married. A mix of me being busy, super depressed, financially struggling, and medicated to the point of not really feeling things deeply anymore (in addition to just being a really different person than her) basically made it so I apparently wasn’t as excited about her wedding as she wanted me to be, yet she’s never checked in on me and instantly goes into attack mode if I don’t live up to her expectations. In the past six months she’s basically only contacted me to shame me over things, specifically related to helping my mom, who is going through an abnormally shitty time right now. My sister has also repeatedly insulted me on a deeply personal level and completely diverted when I tried to hold her accountable for that. She does not self-reflect, nothing I ever do makes her happy, and she always seems to assume the worst of me. I am exhausted.

I have turned the other cheek and tolerated all this for years now just to keep the peace. But I just don’t know how to step away, particularly because it’s not currently like there’s a singular event or overt conflict to point towards for why I just can’t take this anymore. It’s not a checkers game like they seem to think, it’s like an ongoing chess game where the board has been stewing in gross sarcophagus juice for like the past 15 years. Everything's been poisoned but I'm still expected to come at things at 100% for them.

I’m 25 now and trying to deal with all this has seemingly come to a head. It was easier when I had the excuse of college busyness and several hours between us, but I moved back close to home following graduation. Recently, as I mentioned my mom has been going through some extra hard times (a divorce and my grandma/her mom being on the precipice of losing a prolonged battle with cancer) and I’ve been trying to help when I can, but I don’t really have the resources to help out like my sister can. Since graduating college I’ve been going through both major depression and consistent under/unemployment. Sometimes my mom has checked in on me over the course of the last couple years, but it’s rare and almost always glazed in immense layer of guilt. I don’t know why, but it makes it even worse to try to reach out to her now, when she especially needs it. I need help and advice, because spending any prolonged period of time with these two seriously makes me contemplate moving far away from home. I’m trying to balance familial obligations, being a good person, and my own needs and it’s consistently just hurt me or sucked me dry over and over again. I don’t know what to do anymore.

posted by giizhik to Human Relations (11 answers total)

Are you familiar with the concept of 'grey rock'?
posted by bq at 3:00 PM on October 12, 2018

Came to recommend the grey rock technique as well but bq beat me to it.

It's also OK to go low or no contact for a while if that is what you need. "Grey Rock" is a way to conserve your emotional energy while still being in contact with them. You've got your own problems worry about them first then of up if you have any energy left & still want to help you can worry about other people.

It's OK to need space from your family, it's OK to enforce that space.
posted by wwax at 3:28 PM on October 12, 2018

But I just don’t know how to step away, particularly because it’s not currently like there’s a singular event or overt conflict to point towards for why I just can’t take this anymore.

I'm sure people will come in with more concrete advice, but I just want to say that it's okay to step away from them if that will help you. It's okay to do that just because it will help you - you don't have to have some big blow-up you can point to as justification. I promise it doesn't make you a bad person.

You and your needs are enough.
posted by DingoMutt at 3:44 PM on October 12, 2018

Honestly, I’d move away again. Yes, you can grey rock your family which means you control your reaction to them, but you still have to hear the toxic things they say to you. Distance cures a lot of things and stops you steeping in the ugliness of it on a regular basis. It also means you only need to see them rarely if at all. Move. Your mental health will improve so much.
posted by Jubey at 4:35 PM on October 12, 2018

Like you, I was never able to connect with my mom for reasons I won't get into here. After college I got a job in another state and took it. It helped.

You say you're underemployed - maybe start looking for opportunities in other areas?
posted by bunderful at 6:33 PM on October 12, 2018

Forgot to finish my response - another way to step away is to become busy and engaged with other things. Career, volunteer work, running, writing a book, yoga, hiking, swing dancing, literacy, local politics, dating...
posted by bunderful at 7:31 PM on October 12, 2018

So what is keeping you connected is guilt, yes? Your mom suffers, she's your mom, you want to offer support. Your sister has life events, you are her sister, you want to be there to share them.

But it's time to ask yourself; when is guilt not enough of a reason for you to suffer? Because you are suffering, and you are suffering because of these two people.

It's a hard thing to face that someone you love, or try to love, does not really love you back, not the way they should. Your mom and sister, in other words, don't feel the same guilt you do; they don't worry about your suffering they way you worry about theirs. They just don't.

I'm wondering if maybe being unable to let go of these two toxic relationships is partly because you don't want to have to admit that your mom and your sister are not showing you love, and won't show you love, no matter how much you show to them.

You are 25. Your life is just beginning. A lot of it has already been spent trying to make these relationships work. Maybe it's been long enough and now it's time to take the energy and hope you have been throwing at these people in vain, and use it on yourself.

Doing this is hard; it feels unnatural. Loving and being given crumbs in return (or abuse) is your normal, and not doing that will feel weird and wrong for a while. It's scary. What if you don't find love or happiness? There's always a risk. But it's not as great as the risk you are running now by staying close to people who hurt you and don't care and won't ever care that they hurt you.

Find a job farther away, pull back on contact, fill your life with things that bring you happiness and purpose.

You only get this one life. Every day you spend in misery is a loss. Don't waste the time you have on hopeless attempts to make broken people love you, or trying to fix their brokenness.

But if that's too hard, if the pattern of taking care of these people is too deep to break away, think of it like this: so long as you keep rewarding them with your love and attention, they have no reason to change. If you give a child ice cream when it screams, soon it will scream all the time to get it. If your sister and mom have a potential to change inside them, they will never even try so long as they get they want by being what they are.

I'm not saying that to give you false hope; I'm saying that if you love these people, you are not helping them by letting them hurt you. Setting boundaries and removing yourself gives them the chance to have some self-reflection, if they want to.
posted by emjaybee at 9:14 PM on October 12, 2018

Some people are just too much hard work. Ceasing to do the work that such people demand of you doesn't make you a bad person, especially given the ten year credit balance of unreciprocated work you've already accumulated.

People who give you shit for failing to live up to expectations that they themselves have never lived up to for their whole tiny lives are simply not worth your time to argue with. Doesn't matter whether you're related to them or not. The next time - in fact every time - either of these people is talking to you on the phone and says something that leaves you feeling bad, you have this internet stranger's absolute blessing to hang up instantly without saying another word, then somehow fail to answer any followup calls.
posted by flabdablet at 3:11 AM on October 13, 2018

Something has changed -- your own feelings and conclusions about what you want. That's enough of a thing. You can try recognizing the transition with a ceremony or journaling or naming an unofficial holiday ("The Day I Had Enough"). A cup can slowly drain water and it will look like incremental change each day, but after a while it will simply be empty.

I can hear that you want affirmation from them you're not getting. Along with other strategies, I would work at being your own parent and giving yourself the affirmation and love you want. Seek out other people as well. Find your surrogates. No one person can give you everything, but many people can each give you a little bit of love to help you become more stable and less reliant on them to give what they can't or won't give. Grieve the loss of the parent and sister you wish you had. Let them go and find out what's there when you aren't holding on to ghosts anymore.

While you're still close to them physically, find ways to get more distance through your schedule. Book your calendar, block out times with actual activities or placeholders, and when things come up tell them you have a commitment already. Try volunteering or joining a meetup group. Hold strongly to your commitments. Be kind ("Sorry to say I can't make it") but don't let your commitments come up for debate.
posted by ramenopres at 8:19 AM on October 13, 2018

This internet stranger gives you permission for the following:
-to stop trying to help your mom, because it's actually not helping her. She's not making any of the changes you suggest so that means to me that she's not listening, just wants to complain, wants to stay the victim, doesn't want to change, so what's the point?
-to stop engaging with your sister because she's abusive. No more discussion is needed on this. She's abusive and you have the absolute right to protect yourself.
-to move wherever the fuck you want whether it be 5, 50, 500 or 5000 miles away
-to put yourself first and do whatever you need to do to get yourself healthy

There's a lot of codependence in the relationships amongst the three of you so you might want to read about that (e.g. codependent no more and beyond codependence by Melody Beattie). Particularly between your mom and sister - it sounds like they're locked into a really unhealthy relationship with each other. Your mom has one with you too by making you be the parent of her. Learning about healthy boundaries would be good for you too: captainawkward.com is really good for this.

Here's my take on your dynamics FWIW: mom is extremely unhappy. Instead of being responsible and getting help for that, she dumps it on you and your sister. Your sister, for whatever reason, takes to that "better" than you, and becomes a unit, as you say, with your mom. This is extremely fucked up and wrong, and the saddest thing is that your sis is may not be aware of it. So she lashes out at you because of the role that she has to play for mom. Meanwhile, you're trying your hardest to help, and it's doing nothing, except draining you further and further. So why bother? Save yourself. Don't keep contributing to this dynamic.
posted by foxjacket at 10:46 AM on October 14, 2018

I found Running on Empty to be a great book on growing up with various kinds of neglectful parents including narcissists. Personally I identified with several of the case studies and it was so refreshing to learn how and why I was affected by my parents growing up and that I wasn't the only one in this boat.
posted by bendy at 5:45 PM on October 14, 2018