Does anyone come from a family where nothing is discussed?

[ThatFraggle]

How do you deal with it?

Basically, anything even a little bit 'heavy' is not up for discussion. Only Pollyanna, happy, happy type of talk is allowed.

Nothing serious is brought up, ever. If you bring it up, it's like you shat on the dinner table. For example, I have an uncle who (with hindsight) died of aids in the early nineties. Never spoken of. At all.

My parents divorced. My mother still pretends to people they are still together (e.g. when filling in a form she'll click married). He has a new wife and now teenage children. They are never mentioned.

I've just distanced myself from them. I find the 'make believe' very stressful.

One time I tried to address an issue directly, and I got gaslighting (that it never happened - the situation is something like mother is Greek Cypriot, but we never learnt greek. I said I wish we could have learnt greek as children and that would have helped connect to extended family. She said we did. We clearly didn't, and I can only speak it after paying for years of lessons) then 'sorry for being a terrible mother' followed by weeks of silent treatment, followed by pretending the conversation never happened.

Bump

Sort of but not quite the same. Some people just don't know how to open up. The roots to why are probably way deep and these people tend not to change.

You can only accept what kind of relationship they're willing to offer or not.

Yes, my family is like this. One can never, must never mention anything that doesn’t fit with the make believe version of family history. So now nobody does.

My mum is a bit like this although not to quite the same extent. Unfortunately it meant that I grew up feeling I always had to be “fine” when I wasn’t really. I find that my mum is able to talk about things that happen in my life now that aren’t fine slightly more easily but reflecting on the past doesn’t really go anywhere. I still feel that I have to put a positive spin on everything.

My dm is a bit like this and as above i often just use fine as an answer as it is easier. She slightly reinvents history as if difficult things were a jolly adventure rather than address the reality. I now tell her nothing that is not positive. She seems to shut down if you do not follow the jolly narrative.

Yes, I can relate OP. My parents construct their own reality, a bit like how Donald Trump does. Anything that happens that doesn't fit with their version of events simply doesn't exist. My mother used to do the gaslighting denial of reality years ago. It does make you feel like you're going insane and is deeply hurtful. These days, if you mention something you're not 'supposed' to, they just sit there like statues. It's as if you haven't spoken and don't exist

My uncle through marriage is the greatest thing since sliced bread in their eyes. He can do absolutely no wrong. No matter how much of an arsehole he is to his own family, no matter that he tried to get off with one of the bridesmaids at my sister's wedding. He's still golden boy in their eyes and always will be

I spent years in therapy, and I don't have a lot to do with them these days

My STBXH family is like that.
Talk about the weather and football.

Any potential tension/disagreements are swept under the rug and you carry on as if nothings happened.

I'm very much the opposite and believe that things should be addressed (obviously not everything) and I found it infuriating and toxic in a way...

Noone knows how the others really feel, as.long as everyone's "polite " being authentic doesn't matter.

Kind of sad

Yes, to an extent. We (siblings) are all very different, with some commonalities. My DPs were also very different as people, and neither were very good at managing their emotions.

We do discuss a lot, but anything that's significant or with an emotional component is not welcomed and you'd risk a lot by bringing it up.

My abusive marriage ended, I've gone through separation and now divorce, and all the associated stress of bringing up 3 children alone, and I have never had an opportunity to really talk about it with any of them. Specifically, they would help me if I asked them, but I do this as infrequently as possible - what I really want is them to care, to check in, to offer support (emotional and practical, rather than financial). It's all very complex - I still like them, and spend time with them, but had to learn to accept the situation.

I am not like this and do ask about their lives, offer support - which they accept. But I have had to realise this is my way of doing things and now I limit how much I am prepared to be involved in their lives.

Their treatment of me has caused enormous hurt, which they are largely or fully unaware of, but there is no way of having those conversations.

I really encourage my teen / pre-teen children to say how they are feeling and 'have it out', believing it is a lot better to be open and deal with 'big' feelings, than make the other person feel ashamed for having them.

My ex's family are like this.
It's weird. Like they live in a delusional bubble. Then when things do spill out like they inevitably will, all hell breaks loose.

My ex was just like his family turns out and when I took him to relationship counselling, the emotional discomfort he went through just by me speaking the truth was crazy making. He denied anything at all that he didn't want to hear and tried to gaslight all my worries and sadness away.

These people don't live in the real world.
Your family certainly doesn't.

I'd keep them at a distance but definitely don't hold back on being the 'truth teller' at family gatherings. They can't expect everyone to pander to their delusions.

Yes, my family are definitely like this - if it's too awkward to discuss, or might cause somebody a smidgen of ill-feeling, then it doesn't get discussed at all. Smiles all round, don't talk about the hard stuff.

I keep conversation with them very light, and live at a distance.

I get this.

And if I tried to raise the issues, and talk about them or how I felt, I was labelled 'difficult'. It really stuck with me for so long, and it's only recently, with a lot of counselling / therapy, that I realised that while I also didn't go about things the right way, I wasn't doing anything inherently wrong, and they were unfair and unkind in their approach to me.

Yes this was and is my family. It is toxic positivity before toxic positivity became a thing. I am very close to some of my cousins on both sides who are absolutely not like this and resent it in their families too. It was obviously how they were raised too. Image is everything and no sense of self is cultivated in any way. There are some serious, serious skeletons that they have successfully swept right away including abuse. Seriously hurtful and honestly they think it is sweetness and light but actually it is just very toxic.

Some of what you mention could link with covert narcissism- you might find it interstellar to read up on that area.

Yes, my uncle was gay. Us kids didnt know until he died (i was around aged 13). We were told he lived as housemates with a male. We had an inkling but were not allowed to talk about it. When he died, housemate called the house to talk to my parents who promptly told me to put the phone down on a very upset grieving “housemate”. My parents were older generation where being gay was not accepted sadly

'And if I tried to raise the issues, and talk about them or how I felt, I was labelled 'difficult''

Oh yes, that's a classic. Or 'too sensitive'. Either way, the problems all lie with you, according to them. More gaslighting and denial of reality

they live in a delusional bubble

^This sums up this type of behaviour for me.

This does ring a bell.

I think you can't really change it, only decide if you will go along with it for as long as it doesn't damage you, or else remove yourself from the situation. And most importantly, try to establish a different culture if you have your own children/family.

I think really it stems from a fear that if you talk about one thing openly, it opens the floodgates and there's suddenly no control of what's private or personal any more and chaos is let loose.

You see the same kind of thing when people try to talk about empire - a very firm WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT THOSE THINGS even if the discussion is not about allocating blame etc.

Yes, dh and I both, though slightly different. My mum is in a really dysfunctional relationship with someone who has a serious criminal record and she is so wrapped up in him that she has lost her whole family and most of her lifelong friends. No one will tolerate being around him and hate how she has changed as a result. I've attempted over the years to address all of this with her - it's serious enough that my children could have NC with her or him as offenses related to children (I tried to initially maintain a relationship because I was concerned about her) - any mention of how serious all of this is, she would literally just disappear for 2-3 months. Not a word from her. And then 2-3 months later, would pop up with a message like 'Here's some photos from the beach on our holiday. Look how lovely the water is. Hope the kids are great. Love you!! xx' And then when I tried to address my concerns again, we'd loop back through that same cycle.

When I disclosed my own experiences of abuse as a child, she disappeared for several months and then popped up to tell me that she'd been so busy trying to find a new GP and dentist for the past several months that she couldn't possibly have found the time to be in touch, but 'miss you! love you! rainbows and unicorn poo to all! xx' I kid you not, too busy to speak to me about being abused as a child (not by her) because she was spending all her time reading reviews of new dentists. She has been retired for 10 years and literally does nothing that would take up any time. Not even a pet.

We are NC now. I still get the twice a year 'Happy Christmas! Love you! Hope to speak soon! xx' messages, as if she hasn't destroyed my whole life and my kids no longer have any memory of her. It's bizarre, but I think it's the only way she can cope with the mess she has made of her life.

Dh's family, it's less crazy seeming and more just ingrained. If something bad is going on, just no one will mention it. The conversation is very shallow and surface, safe topics: the weather, the neighbour's garden, how the kids are at school, decorating ideas, if so-and-so's nan is going into a care home or not, etc. Difficult topics like dh's dad's alcoholism, toxic family members, etc. only come up when they get roaringly drunk at Christmas, and then MIL cries. It's so awkward. They insist upon visiting (they only really see each other at our house - that's another long story - but means we end up doing a lot of hosting so that the family can be together), but then no one wants to talk once they run out of safe topics. So I often just find them all sitting at the table staring at their phones. Or dh will find an excuse to mow the lawn all afternoon and the rest of them just sit there not talking. I've started just finding jobs now to take me away to do things as I can't cope with the awkwardness. And my own family is so dysfunctional (see above!) that they've stopped even asking me how I'm doing, or anything about my life, because they're so afraid it might veer into an uncomfortable topic. I had the whole family here at Christmas last year and I don't think any of them ever even spoke to me or asked me anything about myself other than complimenting the food or asking about plans for the day or talking about the weather.

My husbands family is a bit like this. My MIL in particular cannot stand any kind of confrontation and wants everyone to keep the peace no matter what - because being happy and keeping up appearances is everything. My MIL once told
my daughter that she didn’t need to cry about something (I forget the exact scenario) now and I said no, she absolutely can cry about it if she feels like it. Crying and showing emotion is very much the way in my family. It’s normal and healthy to show how you feel. I am not very good at doing small talk about small subjects. I deal with huge, life altering stuff in my work life and the minutiae of life just doesn’t work for me conversationally!

Yep, mine.

I'm still afraid to. My experience is that once you open the difficult topic up, someone has to leave immediately and it's your fault for raising it.

Oh look! It's time for therapy

I said this on another post recently this 'happy / high on life positive vibe' that is expected generally in society (otherwise you are labelled as moaning, overthinking, negative, miserable....) is probably responsible for a lot of mental health / wellbeing challenges faced by many.

Family life is not all jokes, laughs and good times. However, I do understand many of the reasons why some members of the family down play (have a different perception) family situations.

Absolutely. My family was like this. The answer for me was a good long stint in therapy.