I decided to let them back in I guess i was feeling forgiving, despite them never saying sorry etc.
But I on and off find myself regretting it. I just feel more at peace without them.
They are the type to gossip me, only do ncie things so they can brag about it, overall it just isn’t normal people behaviour a lot of the time
. I have to be so cautious with what I share knowing they will probably just gossip me.
I keep a distance, but sometimes I just want to cut them off. Infact I might, but I am making this post for if I DON’T.
How do you keep your peace knowing they are probably being toxic rn and gossiping you often again, just being fake basically.
How do you just not let it affect you and move on in your life while only keeping little contact?
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I hesitate to label my parents as toxic, but they are definitely nuts in several ways. I LOVE them, but if I’m being totally honest I don’t really like them and the feeling is pretty mutual.
For me, I just accept them as they are and keep my boundaries drawn regardless. I try to see them only as much as my mental health/sanity will allow; I’m very guarded about any more “vulnerable” information about my life; I try to keep our conversations to extremely light-hearted, uncontroversial topics.
I don’t really see my parents as “fake”, though – they’re not that kind of toxic. They’ve just kind of got their own demons and I honestly feel pretty sorry for them, so I guess I have more emotional bandwidth for them on that end.
If your parents are affecting you as badly as they are, though, then I would withdraw even further until you’ve found a tolerable balance.
Two options. One, slowly pull back out until your presence thins out of their lives. Or two, deal with it. It’s incredibly difficult to stick around people who couldn’t care less about how their actions affect you. But if you’re determined to keep them in your life you must understand they won’t change. Trust me ik it sucks, I have a narc parent. It will always come down to choosing yourself or them. In the end is it truly worth your mental sanity?
Physical distance worked really well for me. When I moved 2,000 miles away, my relationship with my parents got better and better. I had to temporarily move back to where they live, and seeing them in person a lot, and being their house makes things worse.
Like u/hauteburrrito I just keep my difficult family members at a comfortable distance.
In practice that means I don’t tell them anything about my life that I think they’ll be annoying about, I never stay overnight under the same roof, and — most importantly — if they start acting like jerks, I end the interaction immediately, even if that means literally hanging up on them or bailing in the middle of dinner.
I will admit though that gossip is not a major concern for me. My approach to gossip can best be summed up by Megan Thee Stallion: “I don’t give a fuck who talk behind my back, cause a bitch knew better than to let me hear.” I make it clear to the people in my life who like to play gossip snitch that I do not assume they have good intentions if they’re constantly coming to me to report what someone said about me. If it upsets you, stand up for me in the moment and leave me out of it.
Expectation management is key. In my experience, family relationships are at their most painful when you can’t let go of your idea of what family SHOULD be and are perpetually trying to force some kind of healing so that you can have a “normal” relationship with your difficult relatives. Once I embraced that my family members were who they were and would never change, I was free to decide what kind of relationship I wanted to have with them, free of the pressure of trying to make it feel like a “normal” family relationship.
My sister has some sort of personality disorder, she’s turned on me more times than I can count. At this point I just accept she’s going to go through life being 2 different people so I just embrace the good times when they happen and don’t get too attached