How to deal with loud abusive family member

How do you handle being around a family member who you have disliked for years, tried to get over but can't?

My dad's uncle has always been loud and verbally abusive to those around him. I finally stopped talking to him altogether but recently thought to try to like him for my dad's sake.

He and my dad believe that if you're a family member, you should be "friends" no matter what.

I tell myself all kinds of things to be a more tolerant person. I've tried to be "an adult" and just get over it. But I simply can't be around my uncle. And it upsets my dad, which I hate.

What should I do? How can I go around ignoring my uncle if he's such an ingrained, close part of the family? My family is apparently more tolerant than I am, and I hate that. I feel like muffling my feelings is not fair to me. If I stop muffling them, it will cause much disruption in the family and more verbal abuse.

I hate the idea that we have to tolerate unacceptable behavior just be cause they are related to someone. The problem is with him, not you, but you’re asked to deal with it when he’s the one responsible. You certainly don’t have to. You can have a relationship with your dad that does not include tour uncle. I don’t think you should do anything that is destructive to yourself, whether it makes your dad feel better or not...

Maybe just tell your uncle that you do not care for him period! and from this time forward other than a polite hello and goodbye that will be the only interaction you will engage in.

Boundaries are certainly not easy to use and maintain. I have numerous relatives I have had no choice but to do this.

Your well being is the most important thing.

If members of your family have a problem ? a simple “you do not have to understand my reason for removing him out of my life as much as possible , because I deserve the right to take care of myself “ I hope you can accept this but if not I’m sorry but I will not change my mind

I like that....you do not have to understand my reason. How do I handle feeling guilty for not making this relationship work?

My family gives the idea that I'm childish for not being able to tolerate him. I'm 45 years old! I think through situations like this to the degree that you would not believe. I suppose it's not my problem that they think I'm being childish.

Thanks for your response. I agree that I shouldn't do anything that is destructive to myself.

You sit your parents down and start with .. I am not going into this with out lots of thought. My uncle is just someone that is not healthy for me and I know you want me to take good care of myself as I am your child. I will be polite with a hello or goodbye to him, and that is it.. if for some reason he doesn’t understand I do not wish to have any more interaction I’m sorry. If I will leave the situation. Please keep in mind I don’t want to leave family gatherings but my mentally well being is some that I can do.

Stand your ground

Hey @imaginethat

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Originally Posted by imaginethat How do you handle being around a family member who you have disliked for years, tried to get over but can't? My dad's uncle has always been loud and verbally abusive to those around him. I finally stopped talking to him altogether but recently thought to try to like him for my dad's sake.

I wish society or families or whatever would stop making people feel that its ok to take abuse because its coming from 'family'. That you should be forced to endure horrible relationships for the sake of another family member. Or that you are a bad person if you do not engage with them. Would you ever tolerate this from a friend or stranger? Then why tolerate it from family?

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He and my dad believe that if you're a family member, you should be "friends" no matter what.

He and your dad do not understand human dynamics then. Tolerating abuse from friends or family is not ok, Its not disloyal to take control and protect yourself.

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I tell myself all kinds of things to be a more tolerant person. I've tried to be "an adult" and just get over it. But I simply can't be around my uncle. And it upsets my dad, which I hate.

Your Dad is cosigning your uncles's BS and a part of the abuse if he tries to make you feel bad or influence the way you feel about your uncle. Sorry to say but if he is upset about you doing the grownup thing and ignoring your uncle- then he is a part of the abuse. He should love you and want to protect you. He should want you to feel safe and loved. He is choosing your uncle over you and its not ok.

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What should I do? How can I go around ignoring my uncle if he's such an ingrained, close part of the family? My family is apparently more tolerant than I am, and I hate that. I feel like muffling my feelings is not fair to me. If I stop muffling them, it will cause much disruption in the family and more verbal abuse.

I am going to be blunt here, and I am not trying to be harsh.
It is your responsibility to protect and take care of yourself. You already know that your loved ones are not going to do it for you. You need to set boundaries and stick to them. I believe you should have a convo with your dad and whatever other family members that encourage you to turn the other cheek, and tell them you cant, you wont and you dont have to accept abuse. Set consequences, expectations about what will happen when your boundaries and then keep them. You may want to tell your dad that you will not accept abuse and that he needs to stop pressuring you to accept it. Tell him that if it continues you will have to limit contact until your boundaries are honored. Tell him that it hurts you to know that he is tolerating this behavior and expecting you to as well. Its not worth having this conversation with your uncle because he has already shown he doesnt care about your feelings but your dad and other family needs to know. And they need to know that you know you cant count on them to take care of you and that you need to care for yourself. We teach people how to treat us- in the sense that if we repeatedly tolerate abusive behavior without saying something, Or we say something, share a consequence and do not enforce it- we are teaching them that our word means nothing and we really wont go through with what we said we would. They will keep re-victimizing us knowing that we will not actually do anything about it.
I am sorry you are in this position with people that are supposed to love you.

Have you ever apaproached your uncle and let him know directly how his behavior affects you? Have you ever asked him to make a change and explained how it would serve your wellbeing?

I appreciate your suggestion, Christina. I just don't think that my parents will accept it because they'll think I need to "bite the bullet" and get along.

I sympathize with you @imaginethat more than you know.

I have two uncles like yours; one is alive and one is dead. Like you, I'm 49 (you are 45). Like you, I've been undermined by family members whom I've confided to about these uncles, where they invalidated my feelings.

Muffling your feelings about your uncle won't change the way your uncle behaves and it won't change the way your family enables him to behave this way. And, it won't suddenly make your family members sympathetic to you -- because you stopped confiding to them about how much his behavior bothers you.

What I did with my two uncles:

My father's brother: I wrote him a letter spelling out EVERYTHING in print to him about how his behavior bothered me. I made him read the letter in front of me because I told him it would be proof that he read and understood what his niece (me) felt. After he read my letter, he apologized. I thought it would change him, but it didn't. The proof? Years later at my brother's wedding, he tried to sexually molest me...again.

My mother's brother: We have VERY different political and religious views. The only commonality we have is for our love of literature and poetry. He's the only person I can quote poetry or prose to, who knows the poet or author I'm referencing on-the-spot. But, unfortunately, he's an asshole. He condemns me because I'm an Atheist and because of my opposite political views. He's still alive but we no longer talk. His other brother who died about a decade ago, was much kinder and more accepting and was my favorite uncle. So, that knowledge may play into why he and I clash.

In both of these examples, I tried to alter the dynamic between my two uncles but regardless of any effort I made, they both refused to change to improve their relationship with me, their niece.

So, my advice to you is what's already been suggested here: set up some boundaries to protect yourself. Set up consequences with your boundaries as Sarah suggested. Set aside your need to placate your family members. To put it crassly, 'screw them.' You are an adult. Your family is not allowed to dictate the circumstances of your quality of life with them esp. where your uncle is concerned.

Do what you need to do, to take care of yourself emotionally. Limit your time with this uncle and any limit your appearance at family functions where he will be. Have a buffer with you (in the form of a person, or a rehearsed response that you can just repeat like a broken record). There's a ton of cognitive therapy tools available to you to use with dysfunctional family interactions. Or, you can just do what I did; walk away and estrange myself from them. They don't support me or even like me, so I've lost nothing by walking away from that toxic group of family members.

You're so right, Sarah. My family knows I won't stand up and when I do I'm made to feel like a little selfish weak girl. They take my uncle's side, which I've never thought about, which isn't fair to my mental well-being. Why they don't care about me as much about him, I'll never understand, but perhaps understanding doesn't matter. I have to deal with my own needs no matter what they think. This is a big lesson for me.

I appreciate your blunt advice. It wasn't harsh at all.

Blanche, I like how you put that..."To put it crassly, 'screw them.' You are an adult." I've never thought of it that way. They don't know what it's like to be me. My parents don't know what it's like to have to keep my mouth shut for the sake of keeping the peace. And it they do, who cares. That's their problem.

Standing up for myself is really hard. It's something that affects my entire life. I need to learn to do this. I will learn how to do this or my life will be the same until I die. And that's not fair to me.

@imaginethat you don't need to stand up for yourself. You don't need to change who you are. The only reason I reiterated Sarah's suggestions is that because you don't have to 'change' to utilize the tools that CBT - cognitive behavioral therapy - offers to people who don't have to be in active therapy to use those tools. They come in the form of YouTube videos from licensed therapists, from library books about the different techniques related to conversational judo tricks (as I like to call them) that you can use to deflect your family's emotional and verbal abuse.

Of course, they won't appreciate that you are suddenly investing more value in yourself than they think they've allowed you in their previous mistreatment of you, so they will push back and act out even more. But take that as a sign of your success of setting up boundaries and following through with consequences.

It's scary, and it's energy-draining, and can cause self-doubt because CBT is a new set of communication skills.

But when you have toxic people around you, who invalidate your very existence because they are petty, mean, superficial, self-centered and small-minded, the only way to get your life and your self-power back is to arm yourself with skills.

This does not mean you have to change yourself. That's a self-defeating thought. All you're doing is reading about how to arm yourself with stronger communication skills that you can use with these toxic family members to emotionally protect yourself when you converse with them.

An internet search of YouTube videos on "how to deal with toxic family members"