Family toxicity can bring many issues in your life. Learning how to set healthy boundaries, and letting family members know what will be accepted is not an easy task. You will have some issues about how you feel, but remember this is to protect your home life and sanity. Healthy boundaries for toxic family members need to be in place to protect you and your family's mental and emotional state.
When dealing with family, it can be a sticky situation because you can't pick your family; you are born into it. No one wants to hurt the people they love as if you don't care about them and what they're going through. Sometimes things can get messy if you know you are dealing with difficult family members. Setting clear boundaries helps keep toxic behaviors away.
We spend many years trying to remove stress from our lives, and once we have found peace from family craziness, some family members won't understand why you will not accept how things were in the past. You will hear things like:
"You've changed."
"You think you're better than me."
Everyone has good days and bad days. Your loved ones may need to express how they are feeling or what is going on in their lives. That is ok, but when the conversations turn negative, and stress begins to affect the number one people in your life like you, your husband, your wife or even your children, now we have a problem and need to make things clear on what will and will not be apart of your life.
How to See Toxic Vibes
When toxic behavior appears, those negative vibes scream at you from afar, and you can feel it coming.
Examples of toxic vibes:
• Negative comments and conversation.
• Getting calls about things that don't involve you.
• Social media craziness with drama under comments.
• Adult conversation in front of the kids without regard for them.
• Negatively making remarks about your life or others.
• Passive-aggressiveness.
• Brings up old wounds that no longer serve you
• Manipulation.
• Making you feel bad about the decision you have made.
When they are around, your exhausted, and your emotions are everywhere. Just remember you're not obligated to deal with drama; the easiest way to change the vibe is to confront the behavior.
How to Confront the Behavior
If your anything like me, You hate drama and don't want to be involved in it, so set those clear boundaries. Tell them:
"I'm not talking about this in front of my family."
"Can we talk about this another time."
"How about we talk about something positive."
My favorite phrase is, "I am in a different place in my life right now, I'm not going to feed negativity today."
Toxic people want to get a reaction, so the best response is none. If you need to respond, do so in a calm and concerning way. Letting them know that this behavior is not healthy, You are a concern for their mental and emotional state. Having a conversation about how toxic behavior affects your relationship with them and can't stand for it any longer. If there is mutual respect for the relationship, they will honor the boundaries. Most people want to keep their kids from ugly drama or issues.
The family members that can't understand need to be told that it is a problem for you. They need to know you love them, but there needs to be a change for their mental health. Making them see how the issues are becoming a personal problem sometimes sparks a more in-depth conversation of what's really the issue. We all want to be there for our family, but you can only go so far. Somethings need to be talked with a therapist, and you should encourage them to seek help to deal with the issues they are having.
Cutting off family is hard; you love your extended family, but you have to love your self more to let them go and figure their life off without you. Sometimes telling the family what your issue is with the drama will cause them to get defensive over it, and they will try to make you feel bad about removing that from your life.
Mental health is real; you can't take everyone's issues on when you're raising a family and building your marriage up. Getting those barriers up and communicating will direct the way family members come to you — positive vibes only.