Hey mooney, good to see ya. Sorry you're dealing with family shit. Been there, done that. Here's what I learned:
1) Prioritize. It sucks, but you have to decide whether your current level of relationship with your family is worth a) Your heightened frustration and stress level, and b) your relationship with your nephew.
2) Develop boundaries. Clear lines past which you won't engage. Let everyone know about them give a couple of warnings, and then STICK TO THEM. These are if-thens that you develop. Make them fair. Compromise--you gotta give something up. Own that some of the fractured relationship is likely on your reactions to things and 'playing old tapes.' Some examples:
- I will no longer raise my voice in conversations/arguments. If you raise your voice at me, then the conversation is over.
- If you threaten to take family away, then the conversation is over.
- If you continue to make family outings awkward and about you, then you will no longer be invited.
I would also have a conversation with your mother and tell her how you feel, then ask her what she expects of you. Don't respond to what she expects of you, but ask if you can think about things and get back to her. She might say something that is 100% out of bounds or something like "I just want you to get along." Think about it, mull it over when you are less emotionally close to the conversation. Then you can come up with boundaries to express to your mother.
- I am no longer going to sacrifice my emotional wellbeing in order to "keep the peace."
- I will leave any situation I feel jeopardizes this.
Last, my advice is to try as hard as you can to not own other people's shit. You are not your mother's guardian. I know you feel protective of her, and watching her being talked to a certain way is excruciating, but you cannot be her shield from her own family's shit. She needs to learn to do that. At some point the boundaries she has failed to set for herself leave you in the lurch trying to keep people from stepping on those boundaries. See---whether you say something to your sister or not, your mother heard those words and chose to react whatever way she did. I would suggest that you also have a boundary with your mom that you won't watch her be berated and not stick up for herself. That will be a hard one to keep, but if you leave everytime sister says some shit and your mom does nothing, maybe she'll learn to do something.
I sincerely hope shit gets better, Mooney.
1) Prioritize. It sucks, but you have to decide whether your current level of relationship with your family is worth a) Your heightened frustration and stress level, and b) your relationship with your nephew.
2) Develop boundaries. Clear lines past which you won't engage. Let everyone know about them give a couple of warnings, and then STICK TO THEM. These are if-thens that you develop. Make them fair. Compromise--you gotta give something up. Own that some of the fractured relationship is likely on your reactions to things and 'playing old tapes.' Some examples:
- I will no longer raise my voice in conversations/arguments. If you raise your voice at me, then the conversation is over.
- If you threaten to take family away, then the conversation is over.
- If you continue to make family outings awkward and about you, then you will no longer be invited.
I would also have a conversation with your mother and tell her how you feel, then ask her what she expects of you. Don't respond to what she expects of you, but ask if you can think about things and get back to her. She might say something that is 100% out of bounds or something like "I just want you to get along." Think about it, mull it over when you are less emotionally close to the conversation. Then you can come up with boundaries to express to your mother.
- I am no longer going to sacrifice my emotional wellbeing in order to "keep the peace."
- I will leave any situation I feel jeopardizes this.
Last, my advice is to try as hard as you can to not own other people's shit. You are not your mother's guardian. I know you feel protective of her, and watching her being talked to a certain way is excruciating, but you cannot be her shield from her own family's shit. She needs to learn to do that. At some point the boundaries she has failed to set for herself leave you in the lurch trying to keep people from stepping on those boundaries. See---whether you say something to your sister or not, your mother heard those words and chose to react whatever way she did. I would suggest that you also have a boundary with your mom that you won't watch her be berated and not stick up for herself. That will be a hard one to keep, but if you leave everytime sister says some shit and your mom does nothing, maybe she'll learn to do something.
I sincerely hope shit gets better, Mooney.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join! --->There's an app and everything!<---
