Posted by Lyrical13 on January 5, 2004, at 6:03:45
In reply to Re: divorce one's family?, posted by Gracie2 on January 12, 2002, at 22:34:37
My best friend lost her brother in 1989 and still has a lot of grief about that. Her mom and dad took it all out on her...said terrible things to her..put her in the middle of their divorce (she was already a grown woman). She moved to the other side of the state to get away and her mom followed her. Sounds similar to your situation. She keeps herself distant from her mom amap and has no contact with her dad...he ditched her and her family a few years back after being very close to her oldest son.. now he's trying to come back into their lives like nothing happened...like he didn't disappear for 2 years and leave her little boy (only 4 or 5 at the time) absolutely devastated. If I were her I wouldn't be in any rush to have him come into my children's lives and hurt them again. She still really struggles with her brother's death and the ensuing family dysfunction...actually the family was pretty messed up before then but the death was a catalyst for the divorce. She lost her whole family after that. Very rough row to hoe indeed.
The other thing that triggered something for me is your talk about how your mom responded to your change in interaction with her...violently it sounds like. Have you read any of Harriet Lerner's books? "Dance of Anger" or "Dance of Intimacy" ? Latest one is called "The Dance of Connection" She talks about how in families we all have a dance we do..everyone has their role they play...when dad says this, sis reacts like such and such. It's a pattern of interaction that repeats itself over and over with different words and different contexts. When someone in the family gets help and starts to change how they interact (changes the dance) the rest of the family reacts violently (not literally always but there is a backlash) to try to force the person back into their usual role because that is what they are used to.
In my life I see it happening. All my life I didn't stand up to my mother. When I tried to defend myself, the yelling got worse and the lectures got longer and she just got angrier. So I learned to just shut up and ride out the storm. Now that I'm older (34) and have been through lots of tx and have started being more assertive and standing up for myself, suddenly (according to mom) I'm a b$##$ and am "being defensive" She tries to yell/lecture/guilt me back into submission and when I don't fall back into my old role, that makes her even more angry. I've changed the dance and she can't handle it. The ironic thing is, she's the one who gave me those books to read in the first place!!!!!
REally good books if you have a chance to read them...in your case I'd start with the one about anger..it sounds like there's a lot of that!
Good luck! L13
poster:Lyrical13
thread:16577
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20031229/msgs/296611.html