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.

DH's family (inc their extended family) are like this. I'm from a very no nonsense Irish working class background where grievances are aired / arguments had but we are all really close, love each other and don't hold grudges. Then again none of us are twats who don't know how to treat people, perhaps just a bit thoughtless sometimes.

On the face of it. my in laws are a perfect middle class family, both parents professionals, retired mid 50s with excellent pensions, always off on cruises / breaks etc. Lots of extended family get togethers in shared houses / villas etc, rest of family very comfortable / wealthy. The reality is, FIL is a controlling bully and MILs side of the family have been hoping she would divorce him pretty much since they married (over 50 years ago!).

MIL tries to mask this by making snide and passive aggressive comments about her sister's marriages (DHs aunts & uncles are generally lovely and seem v happy/content with each other). She's also tried to make me complicit by 'sharing confidences' (in reality asking why I thought so and so was doing XYZ). I have no truck with this and will airily say things like "Oh wow I couldn't guess - why don't you ask her?". Knowing full well she would rather gouge her own eyes out than have an honest and direct conversation.

FIL will be a cunt to DH under the guide of 'concern', then when he realises he's gone too far (as DH has told him so / distanced himself), will be all woe is me and and "what have I done". Also tries to pull me in by asking me to help him "build bridges" with DH...another airy reply "oooh I think you really need to do that yourself FIL".

They do have good qualities and I know they love us, but as a result of the above we are very LC despite them living 10 minutes away. DH's mental health is so much better for it, as evidenced during lockdown when we didn't have to spend any time with them bar the odd video call and he felt great.

Wow just thinking that this discussion could so easily be about a workplace environment. I guess these family members work too and their views resonate. (slight derail).

My parents are like this, except the rule about having to be positive all the time only applies to me - both DBs are of a smug, snarky persuasion and are deemed to be perfect. There's also a wider taboo against discussing family feuds (except between long dead people) and against calling out the persistent rude behaviour of certain people. Cue awkward silences if an outsider accidentally draws attention to one of these taboo topics, e.g. "What a shame your mum doesn't see her [toxic but immune from criticism] sister much, Brexile. I thought they lived quite close by". DM was looking daggers at me so I just mumbled something along the lines of "I don't know, I suppose they're both quite busy..." I've stopped going to family events because they were stressful and miserable. I only spoke when I was spoken to (Mum's rule for me) and of course whatever I said was likely to be wrong. I don't care any more, but it's interesting to see that this dynamic is not unusual. Not just an English thing either, according to the OP.

I glad well, not 'glad' but happy not to be the only one in this boat others can relate.

What type of therapy helped any of you? Not to fix your family, but for yourself?

'What type of therapy helped any of you? Not to fix your family, but for yourself?'

The focus on yourself, rather than 'fixing' the family, is absolutely crucial. I did psychodynamic therapy for several years. The focus is on how what you experienced in the past is impacting you now. It's not about blaming and shaming but about understanding patterns in behaviour, past and present. It's about getting to the underlying root cause of what you might be experiencing here and now, like anxiety, depression, lack of focus, feeling lost, feeling stuck. Best (and hardest) thing I've ever done for myself

Yes mine. My dm is a closed book.
I married someone like that too. Now divorced.

Very lonely and no support in difficult times.

I wish I had a bigger family so at least I'd have more physical presence in my life if not emotional.

Thanks

I'm dubious about therapy. If it helps others then great, but it's a lot of money for something that's a bit hit and miss. In my case, moving abroad helped by enforcing low contact, and getting older helped me to give less of a damn what other people thought. It must have taken almost a decade to get to this point, after the initial realisation that my problems in the family weren't entirely my fault for being selfish, negative, rude, sensitive, hurtful etc etc.

Oh God I don’t wish I had a bigger family, that would be more people for me not to talk too. 🤣🤣

I have loads of relatives but my Mum’s family particularly were hiding my Mum out from having to deal with her own situation. When I spoke up about the abuse I experienced in my family growing up they (with some notable exceptions) simply never ever mentioned me to my mother again to save them all from experiencing any level of discomfort from their behaviour. I have spoken to family members who have told me this is the case so it is straight from the horses mouth so to speak. My mum wrote me out of history and not the abuser.

Some of my cousins have been really great though. I’m very grateful for them.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy was a god-send for me.

That is devastating and a real Everest climb, mid-avalanche, to come to terms with. How are you doing? Very big question, I understand.

Clearly you get it from what you have written it is just an awful betrayal and I’m so sorry for you and your daughter and that you have experienced it too. The delusional gaslighting that went on and I guess goes on in my family is extraordinary. Covert narcissism was mentioned up thread and that was something I realised was an issue in my family as well as the abuser’s narcissism too. I would look out for that around your ex husband too. They aren’t all just taken in by a narcissist’s charm, as so often the narrative around abusers goes, some people know well what they are doing is very wrong and do it anyway for their own selfish reasons.

Good connection is the only thing that got me through, a brilliant husband, fantastic children who had to put up with a broken lacking mother for a couple of years and amazing work colleagues and friends. I am totally blessed. The level of betrayal from my family though took a look of effort to make sense out of but I was adamant from the start that I would recover from what happened and I would say on so far as that is ever going to be possible that I have.

I'll have a look at psychodynamic therapy. Thanks.

My ex's family is like this. The daughter had several affairs. Never mentioned. My ex had affair, never mentioned. Now they don't see their Grandkids as could never talk about anything or discuss seeing them. They didn't cone to our wedding as it was abroad. Never discussed. The Mother looked at our wedding album while we were out and never mentioned it. My ex stole from them, never mentioned. Basically everything never discussed or looked into. Really disfunctional. Now they don't see my ex or our kids as a result.

oh and it repeats itself. My ex doesn't see our kids either and won't discuss it. Won't discuss divorce either. I think they all prefer to live in their bubble pretending they know the truth and can't discuss it as that would unravel the picture they want to set.

I agree. This is one of the main reasons why I finally committed to my own therapy after years of conscientious evasion: that I wanted to avoid passing as much damage on to my child.

Yes, my family are like this. I had a long thread about it all a few weeks ago.

It is very hard, and also very hard for those who don't come from our sort of families to fully grasp the impact it can have on you as as adult.

You have my solidarity!

@TortolaParadise I agree. The idea that we can all be happpyyy if we would just Be Positive is so damaging.

My husband grew up in a similar family. He really struggles as an adult to talk about or show his feelings and emotions as he's never had the freedom to talk about it before.

My in-laws are like this. Drives me nuts. Oh, let's not ever mention SILs chronic eating disorder, even when she leaves the table multiple times during a meal to go and throw up. Just keep talking as though it's not happening, and not say anything when she piles more food on her plate having having puked up the last lot.