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Family Difficulties

LucyLandRover

Hello,

I have quite a difficult situation at the moment. I do not have contact with my Parents due to being verbaly abused and other issues. My problem is my brother wants to meet up but last time he did this he brought presents from my Mother even though he knew full well I did not want any contact. I have asked him for two years now not to keep doing this but he ignores me.  He emailed me today to ask about bringing presents but I feel he will bring presents from my Mother again which I find distressing. What can I do?  

Parents

  • Well my take on this is it is sad when families break up and wonderful when they try to rebuild relationships. Both your parents and your brother are trying to do this as they know how much anguish it is causing all of you, but you alone are not allowing anything to improve.

    You will always have your family and rebuilding relationships is always possible if you just allow something to happen, but constant rejection like this will make it worse for all of you.

    In my autistic analytical way, I would look to develop a plan eg,

    1.allowing some very brief communication eg a Christmas card

    2. looking to build on this maybe meeting with a third party neutral person

    3. surely you can develop an improvement

    but NOT "I will never speak or receive anything from them ever again"

Reply

  • Well my take on this is it is sad when families break up and wonderful when they try to rebuild relationships. Both your parents and your brother are trying to do this as they know how much anguish it is causing all of you, but you alone are not allowing anything to improve.

    You will always have your family and rebuilding relationships is always possible if you just allow something to happen, but constant rejection like this will make it worse for all of you.

    In my autistic analytical way, I would look to develop a plan eg,

    1.allowing some very brief communication eg a Christmas card

    2. looking to build on this maybe meeting with a third party neutral person

    3. surely you can develop an improvement

    but NOT "I will never speak or receive anything from them ever again"

Children
  • in reply to DaveAsperg

    Hmm, families can be more complicated. My mother is abusive to all 4 kids. I did 10 years of therapy, and my therapist said it was one of the worst cases of emotional abuse she'd encountered in 30 years. But my mother does lots of repair gestures like cards, presents, etc, only to then abuse at the first opportunity. It is sad when families don't work, I'd love to have a mother I could relate to, but I'd be deluding myself and the best thing is to keep my guard and boundaries.

    I get that for others cutting off might be the best even safest thing to do.