If an unwanted divorce is not enough to be dealing with many of us women are dealing with a toxic family of origin as well.
I’ve been coaching and mentoring women through the divorce recovery journey for over four years now. In my experience, I’ve only coached a couple ladies who did not have problems with their birth family as well as marital problems. I believe this is because we all have what we believe is “normal” behavior passed onto us by the generations before us.
I’m not saying this is a predictor or causation for marital calamity but there is definitely a coalition between experiencing toxic relationships in adulthood and being raised by a toxic or dysfunctional family. Furthermore, toxicity isn’t always a personality flaw but generational curses or patterns of behaviors that are repeated by families without even knowing why they act the way that they do.
How to know you’re dealing with toxic family members?
1.) Getting together is not a peaceful or joyful experience. You feel nervous and anxious knowing you’re going to have to see one person or the entire family. There is always a conflict between you and them or them and someone else, and they expect everyone to get involved – which causes family drama and stress. Their issues are always at a crisis level and always more important than anything you or anyone else is dealing with or feeling. Gossip and putting others down (when they’re not around) is the game they play at every event and you wonder what they’re saying about you when you’re not around.
2.) Your relationship seems to be codependent. When you need space or to practice self-care they make you feel guilty and act jealous of your other relationships. Or they don’t allow you to be alone without them. They don’t want to share you with other people so you feel controlled by that person. They create a codependent relationship with you, especially if you’re the caregiver type so that your life revolves around them. Anything you do for your own emotional health takes from them and they feel threatened. You feel there is nothing else you can do but try to always please this family member or the entire family.
3.) Asserting your boundaries leads to drama. The toxic family feels they should have access to you and your resources whenever they want. You say you won’t be attending a family gathering but you know instead of well wishes and understanding, you’ll get backlash and criticism. You tell your family that you can’t help (physically or financially) this time or rescue someone again but that is not acceptable to them. You feel forced to allow everyone else to have their way in order to keep the peace in your life. You don’t want to cause anyone, especially yourself, discomfort. If this is you, you have become a peacekeeper rather than a peacemaker.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. – Matthew 5:19
4.) Money is a HUGE manipulation tool. The family member(s) who comes to the rescue financially, repeatedly, does so because they feel powerful and in control in doing so. They often want you to be dependent on them so you can’t be independent – which means you won’t need them. The Bible says we are a slave to our lenders (Proverbs 22:7) so when you owe someone money, they own you – that means power.
A toxic family member will say (or sometimes you just know without them saying) that they control who comes to events if they’re paying for it. Their money has strings attached meaning they control how things will go if they’re loaning money or paying for something important (dinner out as a family, weddings, graduations, funerals, etc.). These are not suggestions because you know what they’ll say and/or do if you don’t do what they want.
Some toxic family members even compete for the upper hand by giving more than someone else can or do (especially during gift giving times – grandparents who try to give more than a child’s own parent – just to look better). Everyone in a dysfunctional family walks on eggshells around the person with the fat wallet or purse strings because they all know who has the most money and who’s in control.
5.) They’re emotionally unavailable. All close relationships need to connect on an emotional level to grow. Often toxic people are closed off to emotional connection and sharing their vulnerabilities because they don’t want people to see what they may be hiding. Toxic people may be there physically but they’re not able to be there emotionally for you; they may even lack empathy. On the other end of the spectrum, emotionally safe people are able to share the private aspects of their lives (the good and the bad) and still accept each other for who they are.
6.) There are two sides to these people. They have a public persona and a private persona. This person can seem very kind, caring, and say they love you (or other family members) but their actions say something very different. In private they tear down other races or religions but pretend to love thy neighbor all over social media. They give to the poor because the church has a food pantry (and everyone else is giving) but often state welfare recipients are lazy and just looking for handouts.
Really caring for others means meeting people right where they are at. Toxic people are unable to do this so don’t expect them to understand what you’re going through while you’re struggling through your divorce recovery journey.
7.) You never hear an apology for hurtful words or actions. You could get screamed at, names called, and the toxic person feels he or she has a right to do so because you did or didn’t do something (it could be very minor too). They could lie to your face, talk behind your back, and stonewall you so you don’t feel you can speak up and defend yourself but there will never be a sincere apology for what was said or done. Somehow it’s always your fault for having feelings, being too emotional, or not being a forgiving person.
8.) They place the blame on one family member. Every toxic family has unstated labels they put on certain family members. Just like a bullying situation the toxic family has the bully and his crowd and the person who’s being bullied. The bullied person (the victim) may get the silent treatment (“everyone is mad at….”) while other members are blaming the victim and finding other members to join in.
One label for the victim is the scapegoat – the person who is blamed for all the family troubles. And another is the black sheep – the person who stands up to the family dysfunction and refuses to participate or take the blame. If you’re trying to have emotionally healthy boundaries, these labels could be put on you.
[You May Also Enjoy: 3 Ways to Know You Need Better Boundaries]
9.) Family secrets must be kept concealed. This is a huge red flag that your family is toxic. You know one (or more) of your family members who lie, steal, cheat on a spouse, or participate in other immoral or illegal behaviors but it’s the family’s job to keep that all concealed – for the protection of the family image. If you shared or even talked about a family secret you know you’ll receive one of those labels (the scapegoat or the black sheep) so you too protect the “family name.” Protecting others while allowing an immoral or illegal activity to continue is not a healthy or godly thing to do. Healthy people don’t cover for dysfunctional behavior.
[You May Also Enjoy: Not Our Job To Cover Abuse]
10.) Alcohol or other addictions are a priority. I don’t believe family gatherings or other events need alcohol for people to have a good time. But in toxic families, there are people who need alcohol or other drugs just to be there. Or when they do drink (or take drugs), things always get out of hand. Addictions are a real problem for families but toxic families support and enable the behaviors instead of stopping them before things get worse.
[socialrocket-tweet quote=”Sometimes during divorce healing, you realize your own family needs some emotional healing too.” tweet=”Sometimes during divorce healing, you realize your own family needs some emotional healing too.”]
Sometimes you also need to divorce your toxic family, in order to find peace and emotional healing. I share some signs and my story in this video.
We all get to decide how we behave as adults. Our toxic family doesn’t define us and we shouldn’t let their actions control us. Getting emotionally healthy is seeing the toxic behavior and making a choice to act differently – to stop the cycle!
[You May Also Enjoy: 5 Emotionally Healthy Things I Learned After Divorce]
Do you have toxic family in your past or present life? How are you dealing with these people while healing after divorce?
God bless your healing journey,
Hello,
I am so grateful to have found this site. For a moment, I began to question my status as a mother. I have a 31 year old daughter from a previous marriage. I’m shaking my head as I write this. I still can’t believe I’m here.
In as much of a nutshell as possible, I was active duty in the Navy when her father and I divorced. Because I was on sea duty, physical custody was given to him. I was deploying. It wasn’t long before she realized she can play one parent against the other. He would give her anything in the beginning so she would want to stay with him.
I recall my visitation, driving two hours from San Diego to an empty house. I’d wait for hours. Call, only to get his voicemail. He’d finally show up with her late in the evening. After a two hour drive back, you could say my first day of visitation was shot. This keep away game went on for years until finally I requested the court mandate a neutral pick up and drop off point. They did. It was the Sheriff station, blocks from the house.
There was finally a third party that could document if she was not there when I was to pick her up. To document when I dropped her off and he wasn’t there. One of his favorite things to do was hand me wait until he finished a swing shift at 11:30 pm. Sitting in my car or Denny’s with our daughter for hours. I still had to commute two hours back to San Diego.
Due to the intervention of the Sheriff Dept, things got old. The immediate thrill of abusing my time was no longer. He began placing boundaries on this child who was spoiled and out of control. She would call, crying, begging to live with me. Please mommy, please. Three times, in total, I would have the attorney file papers requesting a change of physical custody. Each time she would appear in court and say, I want to stay with my dad. Each time stung more than the last.
I met someone, remarried and had two amazing sons. They filled that painful void in my soul with a joy o haven’t felt in years. Fast forward to today. December 2018, she was arrested for a DUI. Her bond was $220,000. I thought she hit and injured someone.
No! Turns out it was her second DUI at 30 years of age. Unpaid traffic tickets up and down Los Angeles county. She spent two weeks in jail, being transferred from one to the next. After a year of fines, community service, I had the bright idea thinking a change of venue would help her get her act together. She was living with her father all her adult life.
She enrolled in college part-time. Found a part-time job. Things appeared great. Not three weeks after moving in, she began coming home between 2-3 am pissy drunk. Lying, giving the silent treatment to her two brothers and myself. I didn’t notice at first but she began a passive aggressive behavior of gaslighting.
It was little things. Knocking over my toothbrush in its holder, knocking over personal things on my dresser, putting her soaking wet wash cloth on top my dry towel after her shower. I’d call her on every event. The tension was building. I began to see she was doing these things deliberately to push my buttons. It continued over a month. During the summer in Las Vegas, I have the thermostat set to cool at 73•, to return home after a 12 hour night shift to find the patio doors wide open. The unit running all night.
I was so on edge. Dreading the moment I’d hear her key in the lock. I was at my wits end. The harmony in the house was now tension. This past Tuesday I returned from work to find she placed a dirty pair of her panties on top of my scrubs I keep in the bathroom to wear again.
I can’t remember if I was still breathing. I stood unable to move for a moment. I put the panties in the trash, washed my scrubs and decided that was it. She returned early that evening looking for the confrontation that became the norm. She was met with silence. She went to the bathroom to find the basket empty. She thought, she must have seen my panties? She casually walked around my presence as if to look for something provoking the opportunity for me to attack. No, not tonight.
I was unable to sleep I was so angry and disgusted. The next morning I went to the Constables office at the court house. I paid and filed for a 5 day eviction notice. It was served the next day. She saw the notice when she came in after 2am. She said nothing. I had every light on on this house and was wide awake, I was ready for whatever scene she wanted to cause. She did nothing.
The next morning she called friends and others to cry in despair that I served her a eviction notice. I began receiving phone calls and pleas to try and work with her. My foot! She is out. If she violates the 5 days, I won’t hesitate to pay for them to physically remove her. Thanks to articles like this one, I know I deserve better. We all deserve better. At the very least I deserve her respect, I am her mother! I wish her well but she will never be welcomed in my home again.
Nightnurse
It sounds like you are on the right path to getting emotionally healthy and separating from toxic people – even if those people are your own child. I know it’s hard. You DO deserve her respect, especially if she lives under your roof. You have to do what is best for you first. Taking care of yourself means having boundaries with anyone who doesn’t respect your boundaries. I wish you well. Thank you for sharing!!
I know the first thing therapists look for is toxic family produces that tendency to get involved in toxic relationships. But. Sandra Brown, who wrote “Women Who Love Psychopaths” did a study with 600 women at Purdue University BECAUSE there were women showing up in her practice that did not have toxic family issues…I am one of these types of women. BUT, since I was in a 3 decade marriage to a covert narcissist, I can definitely see that his family was very affected and unfortunately his sons were affected, too (they were 9 & 11 when we married). I could clearly see issues especially with his mother. I just didn’t have a name for any of this until too many years passed by. Yes, we all have people in our families that don’t see eye to eye with us; that will run over our boundaries, etc. I do believe there are valuable lessons in this because the more we are educated, the more we heal and learn to deal effectively with behaviors that we don’t need to put up with in our lives…both friends, and family. There are a few of us that do not have abnormal toxic family in our early years; but we were targeted by a highly toxic person and the mask came off way too late, especially when the narcissist is a covert/vulnerable one who manipulates, gaslights, and the damage can be devastating for that period of time, and healing takes a lot of patience. So, just putting it out there that there is not a one size that fits all for women who have been subjected to this horrific abuse. Thank you for all that you do…women need this information desperately.