Cutting ties with toxic family members

Its Okay to Cut Ties with Toxic Family Members

Would your life be happier, healthier, and more peaceful without certain people in it?

Its never easy to cut someone out of your life. And when it comes to family, its especially hard to accept that a family member is creating so much stress, anxiety, and pain that you cant continue to have a relationship with them.

This post is for all of you who are struggling to decide whether to continue a relationship with a difficult or toxic family member. Youre repeatedly hurt by this person, have tried tirelessly to repair the relationship, feel frustrated that nothing seems to change (at least for very long), you dont want to give up, but you dont know how to move forward in a way that respects and nurtures yourself.

This is a tough question and I dont have a one-size-fits-all answer. Consider the list of toxic behaviors below and how often you experience these issues with the family member in question.

Toxic people disrupt your life and other relationships with behaviors such as these:

Lying
Blaming
Criticizing
Manipulating
Overreacting
Invalidating or ignoring your feelings
Undermining your relationship with your spouse, kids, or other relatives
Creating drama or crises
Passive-aggressive behavior (such as the silent treatment, deliberate procrastination, or criticism disguised as a compliment)
Gaslighting (a powerful form of manipulation that makes you doubt your perception of whats going on)
Refusing to compromise
Yelling, cursing, or calling you names
Belittling your values, beliefs, choices
Gossiping or speaking ill of you behind your back
Making unreasonable demands
Expecting you to help them, but they arent available to help you
Threatening suicide or self-harm in order to get their way
Ruining holidays and special occasions
Playing the victim
Not taking responsibility for their own behavior
Refusing to apologize and if they do, its shallow, coerced, or fake
Lacking genuine concern or interest in you and your life
Volatile or unpredictable moods and behaviors
Creating so much stress, anxiety, and pain that your health, ability to work, or general wellbeing are negatively impacted
Interacting with them makes you feel worse
They are always right (and you are always wrong)

People can change, but toxic people rarely do. They lack self-awareness and dont take responsibility for their actions. And since they dont see how their behavior hurts you, they refuse to change. Instead, they blame you and expect you to cater to their demands.

I think we can all agree that no one deserves to be abused. So, why do we give our family members a free pass? Why do we think we should tolerate such hurtful behavior from them?

We dont see their behavior as abusive. Certainly, we know its painful, but we minimize it and make excuses. We hesitate to call it emotional abuse even though it clearly meets the criteria.
Guilt. Family relationships are full of expectations were supposed to take care of our aging parents, get along with our siblings, spend the holidays together, respect our elders, keep the peace, sacrifice ourselves to make others happy, and so forth. So, if you break from any of these expectations (cutting off contact with your family being the biggest wrongdoing in their book), youre likely to feel guilty or like youre doing something wrong. Its essential that you realize that these expectations only make sense if you have a healthy family. Theyre unfair, unrealistic, and harmful if you have toxic family members. It is not wrong, mean, or selfish to protect your wellbeing and sometimes the only way to do this is by distancing yourself from toxic people.
Family loyalty. You were probably primed to feel guilty by being taught that family loyalty is a virtue that you should be unequivocally committed to your family no matter what. Healthy closeness includes mutual respect and care; it respects individuality and your right to think and feel differently than your family. But loyalty is often used to try to control family members who are exerting their independence and speaking out against abuse.
Fear. Its understandable that fear keeps many of us in dysfunctional relationships. Ending a relationship is a big change and no one knows exactly how it will play out. Its always easier to keep doing what youve always done, even if its not good for you. But that doesnt mean you cant overcome your fears and solve any challenges that crop up. Give yourself time, compassion, and build a support system
Love. Perhaps the biggest obstacle of all is that you genuinely love your family, despite all the pain and problems theyve caused. Perhaps you want to help or take care of them or perhaps you shared good times and happy memories in the past. But, as we all know, love isnt enough to make a relationship work whether its a romantic relationship, friendship or parent-child relationship. Cutting ties may feel unloving to your family, but it doesnt mean you have stopped loving them. Sometimes we love people, but cant have a relationship with them.

It sucks to have to choose between yourself and your family members. It really does. But this is the reality. Remaining in a relationship with a toxic person is potentially harmful to your emotional and physical health and relationships (and may negatively affect your spouse and children, too).

The bottom line is that for many people, the only way to heal is to remove yourself from the abusive relationship. How can you heal if you continue to be abused?

Acknowledge that its abusive. You need to stop minimizing and denying the harm that your family member has caused.
Give up the fantasy that they will change.
Grieve the loss of having the kind of relationship you wanted with this person. Grieve the loss of having the parent/sibling/grandparent that you needed and deserved.
Get support from a therapist, support group or 12-step group, or friend whos experienced similar issues with their family. (Unfortunately, many friends mean well, but dont get it and inadvertently add to our shame and guilt with judgmental comments or unrealistic expectations.)

Its okay to not be ready. You shouldnt be pressured into making a decision. Most people who cut ties, do so as the last resort. They come to this decision gradually over years of fits and starts. They cut off ties and then reconnect. They set boundaries and make themselves less available. Things calm down and they feel better, only to have problems escalate again. This is common!

There is no right way to deal with a toxic family member. Only you can decide how much contact is right for you. And you will know if and when you need to walk away in order to save yourself. Just know that its okay to end a toxic relationship even with a family member.

Toxic Family Members: How to Cope After Cutting Them Off

BOUNDARIES 101

You may experience grief, guilt, relief, or a combination of the three.

By Sara Radin

September 14, 2020

Getty Images

Exercising boundaries with toxic family members is no easy feat. In fact, there may come a time when your efforts to set better boundaries with a toxic family member are met with so much resistance that it can negatively affect your life in other ways, by compromising your mental health or taking your energy away from your work or other relationships. In such cases, it may be in your best interest to sever ties with the individual.

While going about the process of cutting someone off may seem overwhelming or scary, there are healthy ways to do it (and no, ghosting is not one of those ways, as it can cause miscommunication and often make it seem as if the door is still open for contact) that may even help you gain closure on the situation. It can be difficult to cut out a family member with whom you have a tough relationship with, but in the long run, it can sometimes be the best thing for you — or even for both of you.

Deciding when it’s time to sever ties

“In my clinical practice, people who cut off toxic family members often do so because the family member is not able to take responsibility for their behavior, gaslights and blames others whenever conflict arises, and is physically and/or emotionally abusive,” says Juli Fraga, a licensed psychologist based in San Francisco who focuses on women’s health and wellness.

“Cutting off a toxic family is rarely an easy, clear-cut decision,” says Carlene MacMillan, a psychiatrist and the founder and clinic director of Brooklyn Minds Psychiatry. With this in mind, if you are considering cutting off a family member, she recommends getting at least one outside perspective from someone such as a therapist, a group therapy support group, or another neutral party, such as an honest friend who is not involved in the situation.

MacMillan explains that another way to assess whether it may be time to sever ties is by paying attention to conversations with other people in your life. Try to notice if they repeatedly express disbelief that you are still interacting with the family member in question and start distancing themselves from you or change the subject when that person comes up in conversation.

Figuring out how to break the news

It’s important to recognize that the way you go about ending a relationship can be incredibly personal since every situation is different, explains Fraga. There are plenty of ways to go about cutting off communication, depending on why you feel the need, and no one way is “the right way” — though it may feel like there’s a right way for you. “Some people set a boundary and let the family member know they're severing ties and why, but with distant family members, like aunts, uncles, or those that you may only see once a year, people may not choose to be as explicit,” she explains.

MacMillan recommends being deliberate about the decision by stating your intentions and making sure you stick to them. “Don’t just mysteriously stop returning the family member's calls; express to this family member that the relationship is not serving either of you well at this time and you will be distancing yourself,” she advises. Moreover, she says you can also tell the person that you may re-evaluate in a certain period of time, or if the situation is indefinite.

“Once you have broadcast your intentions to set this boundary, if they do not respect it, do not engage with their ongoing toxic behavior and drama,” offers MacMillan. This is where doing things like blocking a number, unfollowing or muting someone on social media, and setting filters on your email so messages don’t show up in your inbox may become necessary in order to maintain one’s privacy and sanity. In extreme cases, you may even decide to pursue legal action and seek an order of protection.

You may not want to drag other family members or friends into the situation or force them to choose sides. However, MacMillan says you may want to tell some key mutual connections that you have made a decision to distance yourself and that you would appreciate it if they did not share aspects of your life with the toxic family member, or alternatively, update you about the toxic person unless you specifically request or give permission to do so.

Dealing with emotions you may feel

When you cut off a toxic family member, things may get worse before they get better, asserts MacMillan. Often, the news is received with volatility. In those cases, she says you can sometimes “expect multiple phone calls, emails, or text messages that can span from begging for forgiveness to downright hostile and frightening displays.” Anticipating this behavior and staying strong so as not to reinforce it by not engaging is crucial, since intermittently responding to someone’s attention can send mixed signals.

You may feel guilty, relieved, or both, according to Fraga. “Feelings of sadness can set in, as well as grief, as you realize that your family member will never be the kind of support person or relative that you need,” she tells Allure. You might also feel regret or doubt your decision. Realizing we can’t change the behavior of others can be jarring, especially when we expect cutting off a family member to remove the painful feelings interacting with that person brings. Experiencing a mixture of all these things combined is common.

How to break off relations with toxic relatives - Big City

The MiF publishing house published the book “Toxic Relatives. How to Stop Their Influence on Your Life and Save Yourself" by clinical psychologist Sherry Campbell. The author talks about various cases of toxicity and even cruelty - from parents in relation to children and vice versa, brothers and sisters, grandparents. Campbell also explains how to resist manipulation, fight back aggression and restore relationships in the family. But sometimes attempts to understand and establish contact do not work, and communication with relatives brings only suffering. In this case, it remains only to break contact with toxic relatives. We publish fragments on how to do it right and why you should not blame yourself for such a decision. nine0003

Breaking contact

The decision to cut contact with toxic relatives is not born out of anger, cruelty or negativity. We decide not to associate with them not because we don't like them. The only way to change our toxic relatives for the better is to force them to face the logical and natural consequences of their own behavior. If someone hurts us and goes unpunished, we seem to allow this someone to continue to behave this way. To some extent, we “help” him to become even worse. nine0003

We have every right to distance ourselves from people who seek to control us, humiliate us, or hurt us emotionally. Breaking up with them is not just love for ourselves: it is also the best manifestation of our love for them. If toxic relatives treat us horribly, it is only logical and fair that they do not deserve to be a part of our lives. Whether they want to use the opportunity given to them to learn, repent, humble, change, or apologize is none of our business. We must love ourselves and take care of ourselves - do it for our toxic relatives. I know from experience that sometimes the best way to love someone is to leave them alone. nine0003

To find out who we really are, we need to get rid of toxic relationships and discard the idea that we are unworthy of love

It is very important to understand when it is time to let go of a person. It's amazing how many of us cling to something with all our might, even though we know how much better we'd be without it. We seem to be afraid of losing what we don't even have. We convince ourselves that it is better to have something than nothing at all. In fact, sometimes having "half of something" is worse. When we have "half of something", it's as if we turn on the green and red traffic lights at the same time. We can neither move nor stand, so it just gets stuck somewhere in between. "Half of something" means the hope that if we hold on to that half long enough, we can get the whole thing. May be. Some day. nine0003

But such a "half-hearted" world is not a world of love, not a world of support, not a world in which we can feel loved or important. We will always feel that we are not good enough and unworthy. We will have to audition for the Love Me Toxic Family competition over and over again and fail over and over again. We will have to fight our own low self-esteem and a deep conviction that everyone considers us superfluous. All this, of course, prevents us from seeing the truth. To find out who we really are, we need to get rid of toxic relationships and discard the idea that we are unworthy of love. nine0003

When it comes to breaking up with our toxic relatives, there are several options. From my own experience and from working with others, I know that it is necessary to try them all. In this case, the decision to break off contacts will be easier to accept: we will see that toxic people in our lives simply leave us no choice.

The first step to limiting a toxic relationship is the option of heart contact. Under him, in dealing with toxic relatives, we follow the saying "Fake it until it really works." You have to be careful not to be too frank. Both conversations and emotions should be superficial, positive, pleasant, and mostly focused on the relatives themselves. Since they really like to think that the whole world revolves around them, you can take advantage of this and prevent unwanted developments - at least as far as possible. nine0003

Realizing that this is only a tactic, we also avoid self-flagellation - we do not scold ourselves for giving in to toxic family members, if only they would be pleased. Heart contact can work, at least in the short term. The problem is that our manipulative relatives do not like too peaceful and warm environments, so they will most likely find some way to annoy us anyway, so that we lose control of ourselves and fall into their trap again.

When we move away from toxic relatives, their behavior becomes even more demanding and outrageous

Another option is relationships with toxic relatives that involve infrequent contact. In this case, we see or talk to them only at common family gatherings or major events, and the rest of the time we try to avoid them with all our might. This option may also work for some time. However, our family members will quickly understand what is wrong and will try to do everything to forcibly enter our lives again.

I tried both of these options with my toxic relatives, and while we lived in different states, it worked. But as soon as we met, manipulations immediately began. And without having time to blink an eye, I was already starting to make excuses, and they began to behave as if I were the worst person in the whole world. nine0003

When we move away from toxic relatives, their behavior becomes even more demanding and outrageous. They will turn even small disagreements into a whole battle to make us once again think that something is wrong with us.

When our toxic family members realize that we have withdrawn or are trying to withdraw from them, they increase their manipulation, as they have no respect for our personal space. They are, to put it mildly, not interested in us being able to rationally consider our relationship with them. After all, otherwise we will bring them to clean water, and they will lose. For this reason, our toxic relatives really do not like being in the "gray zone". They have no idea how to behave in this case. They prefer to be either very close or very far away. And when they notice that this “gray zone” has arisen between us, they usually break off relations themselves. nine0003

When we realize that in relationships with toxic relatives, the only possible way out is to cut contact, we find ourselves on the verge of a very difficult, liberating, but at the same time deeply painful decision. If we've come to this, then we've endured more violence than we deserved—if we deserved at all. You need to understand that toxic relatives pushed us to break off contacts. We shouldn't feel guilty if we choose to just protect ourselves. nine0003

Don't forget, our family members don't feel any guilt. They never felt sorry for hurting us. We have every right to protect ourselves from those who manipulate us and subject us to emotional abuse. We once loved our toxic relatives and wanted more than anything to have them in our lives. But too often we have had to sacrifice our happiness in order to make them happy, to remain silent when we desperately wanted to speak out, and to do what they say, because it was easier than to endure their tantrums. We must understand that toxic relatives themselves led us to the door that we decided to close in front of them. nine0003

This decision can be considered imposed rather than voluntary. It also causes a lot of confusion for us, because we are taught to believe that breaking off relations with relatives is a very bad thing to do. But toxic family members are just people, and not always healthy people. In fact, if we were not bound by ties of kinship, we would never have accepted such people into our lives voluntarily. Believing in the ideals of the family, we spend many years sacrificing our mental and emotional health, sincerely believing that we are obliged to do so, because these people are our family. We are told that if we break off relations with them, then we are bad. And no one wants to consider themselves bad. nine0003

We have every right to protect ourselves from those who manipulate us and emotionally abuse us

But before you do that, I recommend building an ecosystem of love and support around you to make sure you don't end up alone . You must be prepared for the reactions of toxic family members. They will most likely do everything they can to isolate you, try to pull the rug out from under you and turn those who support you against you. If a smear campaign has begun, do not comment on anything and do not try to counteract. Let her pass. The more you resist slander, the bigger the rumors and lies become, and the crazier you look from the outside. Our toxic relatives vilify us for one reason only: they want to deprive us of the support we need and deserve. They will do everything to make our fall as hard as possible and no one will support our decision. nine0003

Our toxic relatives only want us to go in one direction: back to them. The intention behind this desire is very painful and even frightening: our relatives will try to take full advantage of this opportunity to inflict maximum pain on us. But it is worth remembering that they do not want their secrets to come out into the light of day, and especially they do not want to lose the power that allows them to control our lives and completely dominate it.

Their behavior seems unthinkable to us. It is incredibly cruel and manipulative. But you need to remember: only insecure, toxic people will react this way. This reaction causes us pain and fear, but for toxic people it is second nature. They simply cannot experience healthy love because they themselves are unhealthy. nine0003

If we want to stay healthy, then we must be prepared for the fact that, having broken off relations with toxic relatives, we will simultaneously break off those who connect us with them. We must treat this normally, as a collateral loss.

If we hang on long enough, the toxic family members will eventually subside and their slander and tales of how they were victims of our cruelty will gradually fade away. When everything calms down, our anxiety will decrease and we will feel peace and freedom like we have never felt before. The further we move away from toxic relatives, the less we can imagine that we will ever want to return. Time spent without them and personal space help us find a new point of view. And we also begin to thank ourselves for the fact that we still found enough strength and love for ourselves to get rid of the chaos in our lives. nine0003

Cover : MIF

Cutting ties with toxic family members

Its Okay to Cut Ties with Toxic Family Members

Would your life be happier, healthier, and more peaceful without certain people in it?

Toxic Family Members: How to Cope After Cutting Them Off

How to break off relations with toxic relatives - Big City

Breaking contact

Other articles on topics

Why this happens

Positive aspects of alienation