Because this family is, in a word, unhealthy.
Because they aren’t going to change.
Because I’ve learned there are other ways for people who love each other to treat each other, and I like the healthy, nice, ways better.
If someone loves you, it should feel like they love you.
Because I’ve tried explaining, over and over, and they just won’t listen. They won’t even try to listen. My sister refuses to “get involved”. Joe and Susan are simply right about everything. My oldest brother refuses to talk about it with me any more, and my youngest brother thinks yelling at me is the way to fix things.
And you, as the codependent, try to reason with him, change his mind, or challenge every verbal assault point-by-point in hopes that he snaps out of his irrational behavior.
Maybe this time he will understand, you think.
If I explain it to him this way, he will get it. He can’t be THAT close-minded, I’m going to tell him once more.
But the more you explain, the colder and more manipulative he becomes. He may talk to you like a child, as if you’re stupid. And you can’t even believe how a person can lack such empathy, so you explain more, trying harder and harder to make him “get it” — and the more you do that, the more it supplies his narcissistic fantasies that he is better and smarter than anyone.
I really don’t know if they CAN’T, or if they WON’T, but either way I don’t much care any more.
All the advice out there is basically summed up as this: You can’t do anything about it, so don’t try. Just get away, for your own sake.
…If the abuser is a family member, your options are similar: approach others to see if you can get support, and stop seeing abusive/unsupportive members. Unfortunately, the great majority of families in which there is an abuser are not at all supportive of members who demand that the abuse stop, and members of these families often turn against the abused member. Dysfunctional families are irrational and incapable of meeting requests for healthy boundaries, and no contact with some or all of the family may be your only option. If… the abuse is not seen through, not looked into, or you’re not taken seriously, then the problem, like with abusive families, is a deeper and more systemic one, and leaving will be your best option, no matter how much you may have wanted… otherwise.
I’ve gone no-contact with most of my family of origin now.
Ironically, me taking the healthiest option left to me is also being criticized by my family, and I am now at fault for “being distant”. Well fuck me. They don’t like it when their scapegoat leaves. Don’t worry, from what I’ve learned, you can still blame me for all the problems, even if I’m not there. Hell, Mom was able to continue to blame Dad for shit she pulled 20 years later, so what’s the big deal?