My family are awful - but I love them

[babaisyou]

My family are loud, chaotic and dysfunctional, and some of them have views which are truly unpleasant, racist, sexist, etc.

I live far away from them and when I visit them I feel worn down and depressed by the drama and chaos that is going on in their lives.

I am centre-left. They are much further right - some of them quite far right.

And 90% of what they talk about is politics.

But I love them, so I keep going, despite the fact that I thoroughly dislike who they are as people and find some of them deeply unpleasant (for example my brother who is a huge fan of Andrew Tate).

Anyone else feel this way? AIBU to strongly dislike them but keep going anyway? Am I a fool? How do you deal?

@Flapearedknave Thanks for your comment... I repeatedly make it clear that I disagree with their point of view. What do you mean when you say 'call them out' - how exactly would you propose this would look? I have told them that I think they are deeply unpleasant, racist and sexist. I do not see what more I can say.

Total drip feed, so annoying.

My brother briefly started down a Reddit rabbit hole. Me and my other brother made it clear where he was going, however I realise your side are probably beyond this.

I would suggest showing them opposite views. How you approach this depends on them. With my brother it was a case of laughing at the views he was looking at and showing him how diabolical it is. What you need is someone or something they admire/appreciate that has the opposite view. For us it was easy, because it was us laughing (that sounds way more horrible than it was, I promise) and he absolutely wasn't that far down the hole.

You're not in an easy position and I appreciate that, but you can't carry on as you are. It's going to be trial and error. But I think for you and your brothers ( perhaps not the others, depending how much you care about your relationship with them) it's important for your relationship.

I wish I had some real answers. I do worry that my autistic son may go down the Tate route and I hope that I will be enough to stop it. But it's a massive worry.

Ask them how they feel about you as their sister, for example. Them and your mum. People they may admire that are POC. How would they feel saying these things directly to XYZ person. How would they feel if Andre Tate had sexually trafficked you. Go to extremes. Your children etc.

"Would you like niece to be in the employ of Tate? Would you like friend to come gave to face with the EDL. Would you like to need to go to another country and be met with people who immediately hated you, without even meeting you, even though you are escaping horrific things in your home country. Etc etc.

Make it seem as absurd as possible.

I am by no means any expert on anything in this, but this is how I would attack it.

Yep - done all that and I can see why you're suggesting it.

But it makes no difference to their point of view whatsoever and simply means that the entire family visit is spent arguing.

It's not a 'drip feed' at all.

My question at the start of the thread was not 'how do I stop my autistic brothers from holding the views they hold' or 'how do I fix my family' or even 'why are my family this way'.

It was about coping within yourself when you have family members who hold deeply unpleasant views (and as I've mentioned multiple times, this is not actually limited to my siblings by any means).

I could 'drip feed' a lot of further information because I obviously haven't given you the entire story of everything about my family, because that would be the length of a novel.

The way that forums work is an OP starts a thread with a general question and then responds to posts that come up - it's a conversation.

but the fact they are autistic puts a different slant on it

as you say… they see everything in black and white

and utterly bizarre you don’t see that as extremely relevant to the situation and not a “drip feed”. when it is

the beliefs your brothers hold are vile and deeply intimadating to women and generally very disturbing

fact they are autistic is relevant insofar as explains why when you try to engage with them on these issues they don’t budge

but it sure as hell doesn’t excuse their vileness

the entire family visit is spent arguing.

I stopped the arguing with my conspiracy theorist, racist, sexist family by not arguing back.
By keeping the conversation general, light and superficial.
They still had detestable views in my opinion, but my visit was smooth if not entirely pleasant. Not an admirable position on my part - but self defence and the only thing that worked.

With respect OP. None of us can answer this.
Either you tolerate them, or you don't visit.
You won't change them either by arguing or keeping your own counsel.
If you want to keep a relationship with your mother then think of other ways to do it.
There is no magic answer. Either you suffer them........or you don't.

In my experience not visiting is best. Keep an arms length relationship via emails, whatsapp or whatever. Lead your own life and stop 'trying to make things nice'. That's not your job. It will NEVER be nice. They won't change and one day you'll be like me looking back on that quarter of a century and thinking why did I bother.

Love this response, think it sets a great example of love and boundaries. Its possible to be tolerant and allow others the space to have their views without condoning/agreeing/normalising what you don't agree with.

It's utterly bizarre how invested you are in this thread tbh and how confrontational you are being about every single thing I post.

Its possible to be tolerant and allow others the space to have their views without condoning/agreeing/normalising what you don't agree with.

even if the views are deeply disturbing?
racism
sexim
andrew tate

supporting tory if you’re a labour supporter is one thing
supporting private education if you’re a vehement state school supporter is one thing

racism? sexism? andrew tate? no - it’s of another level

these men are actuwlly
committing criminal offences

Any crime can be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has either:

• demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity

Or

• been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity

I think you sound unusually unaware @brocollilover . Surely you hit racism and sexism every day in the uk and beyond. These are not niche attitudes. Racism and sexism are endemic in all societies though not always outspoken or rudely displayed. OP has said that the issue isn’t her brothers differences but their attitudes being expressed that is upsetting her. Why can’t you accept that? You don’t get to choose how she feels about it.

Totally agree. Going no or low contact is commonly recommended on here, and sometimes it's necessary, but it comes at a huge cost. It also doesn't make people less racist.

So - pick your battles. Know when you've had enough, and have a strategy to give yourself some space. Find common ground, or other shared positive things. Don't try to completely change their minds - go for smaller goals - such as just making them think about one assumption.

if we were talking about different political views for example - then sure, live and let be

but we are talking about racism!! sexism!! support for Andrew Tate!!

This is frightening, disturbing, threatening. i could go on

Thought you were out @brocollilover? Your unpleasant hectoring of the OP is for me the overwhelming, outstanding thing I've taken away from this thread! But you are proving a good example of the LOOK HOW GOOD AND KIND AND ACCEPTING LIBERAL ME IS!! but actually being rather vile yourself!

Yes. It's always a shame when one person diverts an entire thread and just seems to enjoy needling people, but I have seen this poster behaving similarly on other threads so I wouldn't read much into it.

I have had some thoughtful, insightful responses too and quite a few things to think about/ reflect on. So thanks to all who contributed/ are contributing thoughtful posts.

@brocollilover yes we are talking about racism and sexism, and you seem to believe that you live a highly curated life where you have snipped all the “bad” people out so their pesky thinking doesn’t impact you. It’s ludicrously naive. I can see you might create that sort of gated community bubble on line but it’s not really achievable in RL.

@TomeTome Probably best just not to feed this poster's drivel tbh!

(Probably also what I need to do with my family 😅)

I think you need to accept your family for who they are. Their attitudes on these subjects may be abhorrent but they may be kind and compassionate in other parts. People are complicated and it’s not your job to police their thinking, though personally I’d probably just say I disagree. You aren’t tainted by spending time with them. If it’s hurting the children then obviously give them a wider berth, but sometimes it helps to have examples of arseholes to discuss.

OP, I hate to say it but I think you're looking for a solution that doesn't exist. The only options open to you are:
i) cut them off - you don't want to do this as you love them, and it would limit seeing your mum;
ii) call them out on it - you do this and it turns the visit into an argument;
iii) ignore them and quickly change the subject.

I think if you've tried ii and you're not willing to go with i then option iii is all that's left. You'll just have to steer the conversation to lighter topics, and maybe don't stay for so long, so the convos don't have time to develop in this direction. I have some more distant relatives like those you describe. We keep the conversation strictly to: holidays, work, sports, the weather. Anything else just ends up as an argument!

I'm sorry you don't have the lovely family you deserve but there's no way to change them, you can only choose your own response.

Thanks @TomeTome and@Feelinadequate23

@Feelinadequate23 When you say you stick to those lighter subjects with your family - how does that work? Do you have a prior agreement in place about it?

I love the idea but I'm really not sure my family would agree or even be able to do that for more than a few minutes. I don't think they really know how to talk about holidays and if they do, it will most likely move quickly onto why this country is going to the dogs and X country does things much better and you don't have to pay as much tax there/ whatever!

I’d just say, “do we have yo talk about the state of the country ALL the time” and then talk about something else.

@babaisyou no, we don't have a prior agreement. From your update, your family sounds more openly aggressive than mine.

The only time we've directly acknowledged our different views being a problem was when my grandmother banned talk of Brexit just after the vote as she said the arguing was "doing her head in". I think we're all just anti-confrontation really, so we all realise it's no good to discuss these topics. You can't stop my grandmother from making the occasional "country going to the dogs" comment, usually in response to reading a Daily Mail article. But I always just say "Ah, yes, it's difficult isn't it. Anyway, granny, let me show you this photo from my trip to Spain last year, doesn't the beach look great?"

I think if your brothers are always actively looking for a fight, rather than only responding to comments made by other people, then there really is no other way than taking your mum out shopping/for coffee so you can actively avoid spending too much time with them.