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Toxic Family: How
to Draw Boundaries
People who have left the Churches
of Christ find their families very upset and upsetting: Mothers who insist on
having their children with them at church on Mother's Day, surprise
interventions with family, preacher and elders present, threats of hellfire,
threats of health failing, threats of taking away college money, inheritance,
telling grandchildren they aren't saved, withdrawal, etc.
How to draw boundaries
1. Realize that many people of many different religions have
experienced this. Your family is not the first to go through disagreements about
church and religion.
2. Focus on the description of the father in Jesus' story
about the Prodigal Son. He did not chase the son. He did not guilt the son. He
let the son go. That is how parents should act if their children walk away from
the truth.
Luke
15
3. Tell your family clearly what is acceptable and
unacceptable behavior to you. Communicate in writing if in person is too
volatile.
4. When your family threatens you, say: "You do what you have
to do, and I'll do what I have to do."
5. Threats to withdraw love or money: Let them know that you
suspected something was wrong with the relationship all along and now it is
becoming clearer.
6. Keep children away from nasty arguments.
7. Keep children away from family members that make toxic
pronouncements of hellfire.
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How to limit the pain
1. Understand that family members who are the most upset were
not permitted to grow up, become independent and think for themselves.
2. They are probably re-enacting onto you what was done to
them.
3. They are stuck at a young age--perhaps 12 years old. Would
you get upset at a 12-year-old for guilting you?
4. There are other people out there that will be supportive
of you, if your family cannot be.
When to draw the line
1. If you spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about
how to make your relationship with a particular family member work, it might be
time to cut that family member loose.
2. When you tell your friends what your family member says or
does, and they react with horror, it might be time to draw the line.
3. When you do not feel safe leaving your kids alone with a
family member for fear of what they might say to them about salvation, it might
be time to cut off the relationship.
4. When you never know whether a family member is going to be
in a good mood or not, and you feel yourself walking on eggshells, it is time to
severely limit the relationship.
5. When it takes you a long time to recover after a family
visit, it is time to stop family visits.
Why we hang on
1. Guilt. How awful it would be to let our parents down. How
could I hurt them?
2. What will people say?
3. Fear: If you were raised to fear one or both parents, then
to disappoint them now may bring up irrational fear. They trigger your fear in
ways that you cannot yet control.
3. Fantasy: One day they will see that I am right and they
will finally give me the respect they have been withholding.
Why you should draw the line
1.  They
are hurting themselves by making it impossible to be around them. They are the
ones who refuse to take responsibility for their disrespectful behavior.
2. It hurts when people tell us we don't know what we are
doing when we cut family members off. But they are not the ones who have to live
with your family. You are.
3. Chances are that if you are having major difficulties
dealing with your family now, they have not been the best and easiest family all
along. The worse the family, the harder it is to let go of them. Good families
provide what you need to declare independence, and are proud of their children's
independence.
4. Your children need protection.
5. Your children need to be raised by independent adults, not
children in adult bodies waiting for unpleasable parents to approve of them.
6. Your children need to be raised by non-depressed parents.
Parents walking on eggshells around their own parents are depressed parents.
Chances are that if you cannot declare independence from your parents you may be
a negative person, complaining about all sorts of things.
7. You need to draw good boundaries with all of the people
you encounter from day to day. This is very difficult if you cannot draw
appropriate boundaries with your primary family.
8. You don't want to repeat this guilt scenario with your own
children later on a different topic.
Support
Visit the
support board for more help and discussion.
Next Page |
Character Disorders:
Narcissistic Personality: Loses temper, insists on
having own way, brags
Obsessive Personality: The rules are far more important
than relationship, critical, complaining, stingy
Histrionic Personality: Sexy, dramatic, demanding,
needs constant affirmation.
Borderline Personality: Impulsive, suicidal, demanding,
manipulative, hot and cold
Avoidant: A loner
Sociopath: Enjoys hurting others, has no
conscience, can be a leader
The Rick A. Ross Institute lists
symptoms of abusive groups.
Here is a
support board
for people who live with, or have lived with a narcissist.
For a website on the Victim-Rescuer-Persecuter
Triangle
click here.
Here is a
support board for people
who were raised by borderlines.
For a website on the Victim-Rescuer-Persecuter
Triangle
click here.
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