Regret or Survival? A Pondering...

I love the season Fall (as opposed to the action of falling). I have not had a chance to get photos of the leaves changing colors here. The trees in Megan’s yard have started to change so I snapped a photo. Tomorrow we are going to Buffalo to Costco, and I hope to get one or two photos.

A few weeks back the following meme showed up on Facebook:

Earlier this year I may have agreed with this sentiment. Now, though I have come to understand that for some people talking to their family members is more toxic than regret can ever be. For some people their emotional survival comes at the cost of cutting ties to people who either created the toxicity or to other family members who remind them of the trauma. Having heard several stories from people who are estranged from their family members, I get it.

Their pain, in some cases thirty, forty, fifty, and even sixty years old, is not going to be healed by reconciliation. Especially when the perpetrators take no responsibility for their own actions. Or the perpetrators have died, and yet their voice lives on in the mind of the recipient.

All of this to say that I have had my eyes opened to why some people cut family ties. I also have learned how grateful I am for my parents and siblings. We had some tough years, financially, after my father’s accident. I have never felt like I wanted to be in another family, nor have I wanted to stop seeing my brothers. I love them. I love my parents and sister who have died.

We don’t all see eye-to-eye. This is not about shred values or shared beliefs. It is about a parent or sibling having unmet expectations of another child in the family. About comparing that child to another, “Why can’t you be like your brother?”

“Why are you so sensitive?”

“You need to be more like ___________ (fill in the blank)”

In one case a friend was told, "Why are you so tall? Why can't you be petite like (the name of another family member)?" While that sounds outrageous to us as adults. To a child it can be devastating. 

Any comments that set children up as competition to each other in terms of personality, looks, or physical ability should stick in the throat of the speaker.

I agree we should not wait until people die to try to reconcile if reconciliation is what we want. Living in the moment and having tough conversations that make us feel vulnerable is important if we want to repair a relationship. It’s a two-way street though. The other person must be vulnerable enough to listen and empathize with the estranged sibling’s worldview.

That engagement cannot include comments like, “You need to just get over it.”

“Well, I agreed with what was said to you. You should be more like so and so.”

And yet. That is exactly what people want to do in defending another family members’ meanness.

 I know I made mistakes as a parent. Fortunately, my child is open to talking with me about those mistakes. That is how healing starts. She is so much braver than most people I know.