Feeling Trapped by Family

LegacyUser

Some background here -

I'm a 30 year old male, married and living close to the family home.

I've been speaking with my wife and friends over the past 3 or 4 years about what my family were really like and my resentment for, and hatred of them has been growing exponentially with each passing month.

The family situation is that I have 1 brother, 1 sister and both parents all living at home less than 10 minutes drive from our house.

My father was at heart a good man with a terrible temper. He would lose his cool and at best emotionally abuse us with the most bile filled tirades taking anything he knew would hit you hard and throwing it at you. And at worst, he would lash out physically which he has done to every member of the family except for my sister. Over the years he has become less and less of a good and increasingly unpleasant, hostile and misanthropic. His world view is the polar opposite to mine. He is also less and less likely to check himself in public and will make scenes as and when he pleases.

The mother is in complete denial. She has a whole bag of issues that she won't even begin to attempt to deal with. She is a helicopter parent to my younger siblings. She tried to be with me. She is extremely pushy and manipulative. She sees the world only through her own perspective and has no ability to empathize. She is like this with her own siblings too, not just the family. She is very easily offended and holds grudges for life. She has ended friendships over the most trivial of things and will. She also has an unyielding need to be sympathized all the time. She always answers the rhetorical question of "how are you?" with "bad" and will proceed to go off about her latest headache / muscle pain or perceived grievance. Any health issues in the family are blown up to make her the poor victim in the center of a terrible storm. She will try to magnify little issues in her childrens lives as awful too, mainly to garner sympathy for herself. As such, almost every situation in my life is looked at through negative lenses which I find exhausting as I generally find myself seeking the positives in things.

Brother and sister are mostly fine. Any issues with them are what i would expect any family to have. Both are a bit stubborn and opinionated. Nothing out of the ordinary. However. Both still live at home. Sister is 27, brother 24. As such, my reluctance to visit means I don't see them a whole lot and I can feel us growing apart. They agree that these issues exist but they flip flop depending on their mood on the day. However, any time I do come home my dad goes off on one of his rants about gay people or immigrants or whatever other nonsense he is irritated by on that day and my mum will agree with him and then annoy with her usual negative comments. Within 5 minutes of arriving home I find myself detached, counting down to leaving again.

It's an eternal struggle. I feel the need to maintain the family relationship, because they are my family. However, I feel the need to get them (my parents) out of my life because they bring nothing but negativity and stress into my life.

I have often dreamt of moving abroad to have a bigger distance from them but my wife is a home bird so that isn't a solution. We have a baby on the way in the summer and I have been thinking eve more lately about what kind of world I will be creating for my child by exposing him or her to my parents. It's not just that I wish to pass on none of these traits myself. But I feel the need to protect the child from them and their incessant negativity and misanthropy. I'm already the bad guy because I don't visit enough.


Has anyone else had to deal with this paradox of family bond and loyalty vs rational feelings?

Emme

trappedbyfam wrote: »

Some background here -

I'm a 30 year old male, married and living close to the family home.

I've been speaking with my wife and friends over the past 3 or 4 years about what my family were really like and my resentment for, and hatred of them has been growing exponentially with each passing month.

The family situation is that I have 1 brother, 1 sister and both parents all living at home less than 10 minutes drive from our house.

My father was at heart a good man with a terrible temper. He would lose his cool and at best emotionally abuse us with the most bile filled tirades taking anything he knew would hit you hard and throwing it at you. And at worst, he would lash out physically which he has done to every member of the family except for my sister. Over the years he has become less and less of a good and increasingly unpleasant, hostile and misanthropic. His world view is the polar opposite to mine. He is also less and less likely to check himself in public and will make scenes as and when he pleases.

The mother is in complete denial. She has a whole bag of issues that she won't even begin to attempt to deal with. She is a helicopter parent to my younger siblings. She tried to be with me. She is extremely pushy and manipulative. She sees the world only through her own perspective and has no ability to empathize. She is like this with her own siblings too, not just the family. She is very easily offended and holds grudges for life. She has ended friendships over the most trivial of things and will. She also has an unyielding need to be sympathized all the time. She always answers the rhetorical question of "how are you?" with "bad" and will proceed to go off about her latest headache / muscle pain or perceived grievance. Any health issues in the family are blown up to make her the poor victim in the center of a terrible storm. She will try to magnify little issues in her childrens lives as awful too, mainly to garner sympathy for herself. As such, almost every situation in my life is looked at through negative lenses which I find exhausting as I generally find myself seeking the positives in things.

Brother and sister are mostly fine. Any issues with them are what i would expect any family to have. Both are a bit stubborn and opinionated. Nothing out of the ordinary. However. Both still live at home. Sister is 27, brother 24. As such, my reluctance to visit means I don't see them a whole lot and I can feel us growing apart. They agree that these issues exist but they flip flop depending on their mood on the day. However, any time I do come home my dad goes off on one of his rants about gay people or immigrants or whatever other nonsense he is irritated by on that day and my mum will agree with him and then annoy with her usual negative comments. Within 5 minutes of arriving home I find myself detached, counting down to leaving again.

It's an eternal struggle. I feel the need to maintain the family relationship, because they are my family. However, I feel the need to get them (my parents) out of my life because they bring nothing but negativity and stress into my life.

I have often dreamt of moving abroad to have a bigger distance from them but my wife is a home bird so that isn't a solution. We have a baby on the way in the summer and I have been thinking eve more lately about what kind of world I will be creating for my child by exposing him or her to my parents. It's not just that I wish to pass on none of these traits myself. But I feel the need to protect the child from them and their incessant negativity and misanthropy. I'm already the bad guy because I don't visit enough.


Has anyone else had to deal with this paradox of family bond and loyalty vs rational feelings?

OP is your wife from the area? Does she know how you feel about your family? If you stick around your child will inevitably get absorbed into the extended family. Would you feel comfortable about your parents minding your child or spending extended periods of time with it?

LegacyUser

Emme wrote: »

OP is your wife from the area? Does she know how you feel about your family? If you stick around your child will inevitably get absorbed into the extended family. Would you feel comfortable about your parents minding your child or spending extended periods of time with it?

Yes, she is from close by as are her family. So it's not really much of an option to move. Yes she knows how my family are. She has to manage a lot of the strange behaviors of my mother as she finds herself being the auxiliary "second daughter".

I'm not sure how comfortable I would be with the child being with them for long periods of time. My parents have a strange dynamic where they will have these huge blow out arguments where they scream and shout at each other, but then a hour later they can be back to completely normal again. It's just weird.

Emme

trappedbyfam wrote: »

Yes, she is from close by as are her family. So it's not really much of an option to move. Yes she knows how my family are. She has to manage a lot of the strange behaviors of my mother as she finds herself being the auxiliary "second daughter".

I'm not sure how comfortable I would be with the child being with them for long periods of time. My parents have a strange dynamic where they will have these huge blow out arguments where they scream and shout at each other, but then a hour later they can be back to completely normal again. It's just weird.

It's not healthy for a child to be in that sort of environment. You have a child on the way now so you seriously need to think of what kind of future you want for that child. Sit down and discuss this with your wife. Could you move a relatively short distance away, say 50kms?

Check out family narcissism - you might find it applies to your situation.

silverharp

At the end of the day you will be building your own family life with you own kids no doubt in the future so you will have other things to focus on. Just because they are 10 minutes away doesnt mean you have to be in each other's pockets but I wouldn't try to cut contact or anything so extreme but instead have a relationship more on your terms. If you only want to see your parents once a month then do that, if they ask why you don't see them more tell the truth that there is only so much of their behaviour you can tolerate before it brings you down.

Snookercues

Hi OP,

Yes, I could have written the majority of your post myself...... well certainly the part relating to your mother. My own mother sounds very similar - extreme helicopter parenting (finally glad i have actually met someone else who has used that phrase!) even though I am almost 40 and my sister is 31.... Negative to the point that she loves (and I mean LOVES) local bad news.... takes the upper ground with everyone and falls out with ANYONE who disagrees with her etc etc. My dad is an enabler - he does anything for a quiet life, including basically emotionally neglecting myself and my sibling for our growing up years and letting her get away with anything.

Anyway, that's the summary of them - but back to your problem.

I come from a small family that also lives "up the road" and therefore I feel COMPELLED to go visit / drop in etc etc and yet within 5 minutes of coming in the door, I am literally on tenterhooks..... to the point that I am imagining excuses just to get away... I often thought (like you) that if I have kids someday that they would not have much involvement with them, as 1. they are too negative 2. they would exert their opinions on my parenting skills 3. they would go in to helicopter overload with me / kids.

So I grapple continuously with the whole "but they are my parents / family loyalty" and "they are mentally damaging me" all of the time.....

I had a long extended period of no communication with them a few years ago (thank you Mother dearest for the silent treatment ha!), and I did a lot of soul searching and reading about them online and I finally came to the realisation that I am AN ADULT and therefore I am entitled to make decisions as to how much involvement they have in my life on my terms! I have very little emotional interaction with them and keep visits to once a week with texting during the week.

That period gave me time to clear my head and see things clearly. I realised that they are never going to change, but its how i approach the relationship that has to change.... Its awful and I hate when i see the great relationship my husband has with his family, but hey thats life!

Check this website out for high level ideas. http://www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/characteristics-of-narcissistic-mothers/

I am just after reading back on this and I dont know if it will be any help but I completely know what you are going through!!!!!

LegacyUser

Snookercues wrote: »

Hi OP,

Yes, I could have written the majority of your post myself...... well certainly the part relating to your mother. My own mother sounds very similar - extreme helicopter parenting (finally glad i have actually met someone else who has used that phrase!) even though I am almost 40 and my sister is 31.... Negative to the point that she loves (and I mean LOVES) local bad news.... takes the upper ground with everyone and falls out with ANYONE who disagrees with her etc etc. My dad is an enabler - he does anything for a quiet life, including basically emotionally neglecting myself and my sibling for our growing up years and letting her get away with anything.

Anyway, that's the summary of them - but back to your problem.

I come from a small family that also lives "up the road" and therefore I feel COMPELLED to go visit / drop in etc etc and yet within 5 minutes of coming in the door, I am literally on tenterhooks..... to the point that I am imagining excuses just to get away... I often thought (like you) that if I have kids someday that they would not have much involvement with them, as 1. they are too negative 2. they would exert their opinions on my parenting skills 3. they would go in to helicopter overload with me / kids.

So I grapple continuously with the whole "but they are my parents / family loyalty" and "they are mentally damaging me" all of the time.....

I had a long extended period of no communication with them a few years ago (thank you Mother dearest for the silent treatment ha!), and I did a lot of soul searching and reading about them online and I finally came to the realisation that I am AN ADULT and therefore I am entitled to make decisions as to how much involvement they have in my life on my terms! I have very little emotional interaction with them and keep visits to once a week with texting during the week.

That period gave me time to clear my head and see things clearly. I realised that they are never going to change, but its how i approach the relationship that has to change.... Its awful and I hate when i see the great relationship my husband has with his family, but hey thats life!

Check this website out for high level ideas. http://www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/characteristics-of-narcissistic-mothers/

I am just after reading back on this and I dont know if it will be any help but I completely know what you are going through!!!!!

Thank you for this, very insightful.

Wow, this is like reading a diary of an invisible man who grew up in my house. It's rather terrifying how accurate it is.

I'm already down to once per week with limited texting - I STILL feel like it is too much but she really is in overdrive with the guilting and silent treatment. It's painful.

whitey1

When I went away to college and made new friends I realized that what happened in our house was not the norm. I would say "moving away" is possible......another 10-15 miles in the opposite direction could actually make a huge difference to the dynamics.

My brother is the only sibling living in Ireland....the rest of us are abroad.....and my parents rarely, if ever, see his two kids.....and they live in the same town.

His wife is a no BS type of person and rightfully called my parents out on a number of issues and they didnt like it.

No family is perfect, but some are more dysfunctional than others.....my mother has a set against people who didnt attend her mothers funeral 30 years ago....and all belonging to them too

LegacyUser

I have some idea how you feel. My own mother would be like your mother somewhat. For years she tired to control me, what I was doing and who I was freinds with. I am the eldest of a big family and over the years I helped her and my sibblings out with money and did various other favours. I was made promises that never happened.
Over the past few years I found out a few things that made me realise just what type of person she is.

I have one very close friend who I told about the whole situation with my mother as I wanted to see was I over reacting to her behaviour over a long number of years. My friend agreed with me and told me to stop spending as much time with my mother.
I decided then to spend less time with my mother and not to always answer the phone calls. I am far happier since I did this.

I know a man who was in a similar postion to you. His mother is woman who was bitter about how people were doing and what they had. She was always complaining and tell lies about her children, relatives and friends. A few things happend and he told her not to ring him or call to his house. I know he is glad he did this as she has gone on to cause more trouble with people. He knows now that if he was in her life she would expect him to sort out her mess.

I know it is not easy to put some distance between you and your family but from what you have told us about your mother and father I can see why don't want much to do with them.
Would moving be an option for you - even living 10 or 15 miles away could make things easier in the fact you not so near them.

If moving is not an option I would spend as little time as possible with them. If either of them say something you don't like ie your mother pains and aches - say why don't you go to the doctor with all that wrong with you I am supprised you still alive.
In regards to your father tell him - Dad I don't want to hear you complaining anymore.
I would tell both of them that unless there behaviour changes you won't be calling over.
As a an adult you entitled to be treated with some respect and not putting up with either of there issues.