How to deal with a toxic family

How to deal with a Toxic Family by Lou Lavery.

Toxic Family? Here’s how to deal!

Maybe it’s because of some childhood trauma that hasn’t been reconciled. Maybe their beliefs are in opposition to yours and it always leads to a confrontation. Maybe, just maybe, they’re massive jerks.

For whatever reason – many of us have toxic family members whose presence can run the gamut from frustrating to frightening. If you’ve had to make the choice to intentionally remove someone poisonous from your life you’ll relate to the feelings of hopelessness, anger and guilt that come with it.

Our relationships with our extended family members form a lot of who we are and how we interact with conflict. Keeping in mind that your children are learning from you in the exact same way, it’s important to assess the good and the bad influences on your family.

Why would you remove a toxic family member?

It’s important to keep the immediate family unit (you, your partner if you have one and your kids) safe and healthy. When we say ‘toxic family member’ we don’t mean someone who is generally annoying and chews with their mouth open. We mean the kind of people who intentionally cause harm, create rifts between family members and whose influence on your children you’re beginning to become very concerned about.

How do you deal with it?

There has been a lot of research into the signs of a toxic relationship. If there’s any kind of abuse, if every interaction is negative and stressful and if you constantly feel like you’re being attacked from every angle then you’re probably seeing that filter into your home as well.

You might be losing sleep, be increasingly anxious or you may even find you’re taking out your anguish on your own children.

It’s often not as cut-and-dry as simply never seeing someone again. After all, families are complex beasts and there are many varied social consequences to a cut off.

If you’re going to have to see this toxic family member you need to accept that you cannot control or change them in any way. You can, however, control yourself and you can control the interactions that they have with your family.

What elements can you control?

You can control:

• How much time you spend in this person’s company
• The nature of your relationship – Do you have to act as the peace maker and the bearer of everyone else’s problem?)
• Boundaries around interactions – Where will you see this person? Often only meeting in public is less problematic than interactions in the home.

What’s important?

Your children are watching and absorbing everything. It’s confusing to them when they hear messages from you about loving and respecting each other and then they see you suffer abuse at the hands of a toxic family member.

Ask yourself – are you teaching your children to complicity accept poor treatment? Or can you teach them a different lesson? Will they learn from you about setting healthy boundaries, enforcing respectful communication and about how to protect yourself from people who are hurting you?

Which lessons are the most important in your home? And which lessons do you want your children to remember? How to be abused or how to deal with it?

Let us know how you have dealt with a toxic family member.