Drop the rope theory

[MyOlivePeer]

Can anyone explain what drop the rope theory means, when it comes to dysfunctional family? As it relates to years of passive micro- aggressions towards each other. I want out. Thanks.

Life your own life, don't pick up their rope so to say. Maintain your own rope. So what you're happy with, do your hobbies etc don't panda to them at all 😁

You don't sound completely ready to let her go. It's a very long painful process when it's family and can take time to see what's happening.

One day, you will know you've had enough and you won't care if your actions set off a chain of events that mean you don't speak again.

Bringing it to a close means you're ready to stop defending, to even discuss anything they say and you don't care anymore because you see that they're almost not human ( this could be a massive exaggeration in your case but it was reality in mine). You can't reasonably communicate with someone who is not of the same god damn species as you! 🤣

I don't know if all your family are a bit dysfunctional but it's probably worth reading up a bit to see whether it fits.

This is a really interesting thread and I thank you OP, because it's given me some ways to deal with my own ridiculous family.

Just came on to say, if you feel pressure to reply when messages are "read", if on WhatsApp you can change your settings to not show read receipts. It means you can't see others read receipts for messages you have sent either (except for group chats), but I've recently done this it's given me a lot of peace and taken pressure off feeling like people are going to get mad from me not replying straight away and it means I can bide my time with what I want to say x

For what reason do you need to stay in contact with her?

I stay in touch with my elderly mum because she’s a bit isolated, I loved my dad and he loved her, and I want to meet my maker knowing I did the best I could.

If she wasn’t a vulnerable dependent woman, I wouldn’t read her messages- or I’d save it for the weekend, read in one go, and answer ‘sorry to hear that. See you at Christmas.’

You can totally ignore this person, stop trying to win or be right or help. Just leave the game.

Maybe rather than dropping the rope you prefer the analogy of leaving the dance floor, or getting out of the car.

Make it so whatever she says or does has no impact on you.

It means let them have the last word. Don't defend yourself, don't explain why they're wrong. Don't do anything. Just let it go. Let the conversation become one sided. Don't participate in it. The boundary is for you, not them. It's a boundary on your own behaviour because you can't control their behaviour. But you can make yourself a promise that your boundary is that you don't respond to text messages from this person, or only respond to reasonable ones. If you aren't confident in your ability to do this, then that's what blocking is for. You don't have to read messages, or read them immediately, or respond to them immediately, or respond at all.

Stop saying 'but if I ignore then . . .' and using that as an excuse not to ignore.

All you do, if you cave and respond, is let them know that if they are persistent enough, they can get you to engage.

You don't have to respond to messages just because you've read them. I've got a relative who persists with messages that I've asked them not to send. If I read, I wait 48 hours before I respond, which is long enough for me to reply from a calm and rational place which I find really helps. Sometimes I journal all the angry thoughts I would like to respond with, so I've written them down somewhere and processed them and then the urge to text them back subsides.

But as I say, you need to put the boundary in place for yourself first.

This person is way beyond drop the rope. You need to just go full NC on this drama queen.

You're concerned about whether she sees you've read and not responded. Just block the toxic cow and have done with it. She's the sort that keeps pushing and pushing for attention, she'll look elsewhere once she realises you're not playing anymore. You don't have to let anyone into your life who gives you this much drama. And block anyone else who is her "flying monkey" who tries to drag you back into this shitshow.

If you really can't block her, don't open her messages from now on and don't look at anything.

If she turns up at your house, ignore her. If she doesn't go away, just call the police and tell them she's harassing you.

If she lies about you to other people, just correct them (if they're likely to listen) or just tinkly laugh and "oh she tells such tall tales doesn't she haha so anyway what did you think of this new TV programme...?") so you're not even engaging. Stop being so earnest about it all because that's why she's targeting you.

If she sends you a present, a card or some nice message (or gives them to someone else to give to you) just send them straight back, unopened, or bin them. Don't let her guilt you, the "nice" aspect is just more manipulation to keep you in her circle.

Just stop letting her control your life and stop enabling her behaviour by pandering to her when she asks things like "did you mean to hurt me by (insert bullshit here)?" decent people don't talk to each other this way and she's not worth explaining yourself to.

@MyOlivePeer

I'm just wondering, is there a reason you don't just flat out block her now? Why wait for the next text, take preemptive action.

And if your cousin lied to this person to save her feelings then it sounds to me as if your cousin either intentionally or unintentionally threw you under the bus, no?

Along with counseling (which I still think would do you good) I think you need to consider how you communicate with these people. Perhaps it's time to stop being so honest in what you say to them and to start keeping your feelings and opinions more circumspect. I'm not saying you're being 'wrong' particularly, just that with some people we need to remember that 'silence is golden' and that 'discretion really is the better part of valor'.

If the only thing she does is send abusive messages, why do you care about them? Just block her now. Let her rant and rave in her own home. She doesn’t get an explanation why, she knows she was rude today. You already know she’s going to contact you at Christmas with abuse, why let her have the opportunity only to work out how to respond?

drop the rope today. Block now with no explanation. Stop acting like she has a right to upset you.

I feel bad if I block her because on the very rare occasion she can be nice.
I also feel guilty if I block her as she is family and we were kind of close at some point in the past and saw each other regularly.

she is not dependent or vulnerable although I’m thinking she has a personality disorder.

yes the other person did throw me under the bus. But she believed them as they have more authority and are more of a matriarch type of person who I really can’t compete with.

I am definitely going to stop being so honest . I hadn’t given it that much thought, I was half doing something else and just quickly replied with the facts. But it was a bigger deal than I thought.

@MyOlivePeer next time try just sitting with the guilt and see what happens. You can acknowledge the feeling, but you don't have to act on it. Once it has passed, which it will, decide then about whether you want to respond or if, actually, you don't want to now that your head is clear. There are worse things than feeling a bit guilty. And all you're doing is not responding to a message. You haven't set the house on fire. No-one has died. You've just ignored a message.

It's also worth asking yourself why you feel guilty, and if it's an appropriate response.

she is not dependent or vulnerable although I’m thinking she has a personality disorder.
Thats a reason not an excuse. And not a good enough reason why you’re supposed to put up with her behaviour.

I feel bad if I block her because on the very rare occasion she can be nice.
That’s what abusers do. They’re nice often enough that it feels bad to let go.

I also feel guilty if I block her as she is family and we were kind of close at some point in the past and saw each other regularly.
Being a family member doesn’t entitle anyone to behave as a bully.
And it doesn’t mean you have to accept anything and everything.

Youre a huge people pleaser @MyOlivePeer
and you need to stop that for your own sake. Put your own MH first. I’m sure that family member would not put up with you treating her like the way she treats you ‘because you’re struggling with your MH’.

@MyOlivePeer but does her ability to occasionally be nice - balance out her ruining every Christmas and these sparodic tantrum messages? Just stop engaging with her. Anything negative doesn’t get a response.

It's probably worth reading up on the Yellow Rock Method then so that you don't completely cut the cord but you protect yourself and hopefully train her to realise you aren't entering the game.

You can't trust them with your feelings, anything personal, anything that shows your vulnerability. It's a very sad dynamic really and it's quite sad even communicating with them like a robot. Especially as you're so much more than that.

I feel sad about this with my own mum. I'm not of the same personality disordered state as them so being robotic is difficult. I value openness, authenticity and being real. My mum and sibling just can't do it. They're also incredibly emotionally damaging and have issues with alcoholism.

My sibling could also be so funny, so nice. That's what they do. That's what makes it incredibly difficult.

You'll never change her unfortunately. You might cope with her if you have boundaries ref how you communicate.

Have you ever shown these text messages to other people? Perhaps what you need to do, when you have several family members round, is to pass your phone to one of them and get them to read it out loud to everybody.

People need to know how vile she is behaving towards you.

no, she’s not even nice anymore to be honest.

she got married last year eloped in Spain, lives seven hour drive away so I rarely see her. I sent her a nice message saying congrats and that I miss her and hope she’s well. To try extend an olive branch. To responded quite cruelly ‘well if you miss me so much, you’ll have to visit me won’t you!’ The intent didn’t feel good.

She had been nice in previous years.

If she send another mean/rude/ accusatory text I am going to tell her that negative messages like that will not be responded to in future.

I have in the past told others about her texts.

OP, sometimes in situations like yours you need to accept and acknowledge that you are part of the problem to be part of the solution.

By that I mean that this is a difficult, abusive person with a personality disorder (you think) that regularly sends you horrible texts.
You are engaging with her and so the problem continues.

You CAN however choose to neither engage nor explain.

This takes discipline and silence.
Both are powerful when put into practice.

If you do not wish to block, you can archive the chat and mute it.

Then make a decision to put her out of your mind.

I do think @frances text is an excellent suggestion but simply ignoring her going forward is good too.

Your MH is fragile, you need to prioritise it.

Normal people do not behave like this.
Normal people do not accept this type of behaviour, they don't tolerate it.
Normal people rightly value their peace and protect it.

You sound like a normal person.
Drop the rope with this person that is not normal and focus on your own well-being.

But you will have responded. The being nice sometimes is fruit machine behaviour (do fruit machines still exist?) They pay out on a random and infrequent basis because that's how they keep the player pumping in the money. She knows that by being nice sometimes, she will keep you responding.

Set a reminder on your phone now for 9am on 22nd December. Put the reminder as “block [relatives name]” - set another reminder for 28th December “unblock”.

tell yourself if you unblock on 28th and a message comes in from her that’s nasty/negative etc, you’ll instantly re block, not reply.

however you might want to just block now.

You need to show them the texts. Otherwise it is just your word against hers.

Sometimes she sends a merry Christmas text. When i respond accordingly it’s as if she feels she has me on the hook to message me whatever crap she wants to. I would feel bad if she text me merry Christmas and I don’t respond at all. It’s the follow ups that are the problem. I am going to archive her number and try not look at anything until the evening time of Xmas day.

Send her the Merry Christmas text first then.

see she has got you right where she wants you.

so you can round off your peaceful christmas day with a stream of abuse?

I only reply at all, to minimise her damage as she has a habit of sending horrible text messages if I ignore her, including swearing at me.

Then you are still dancing to her tune to an extent. Ignore the swearing and abuse.