Five Ways to Recognize a Toxic Family Toxic families are not that unusual. If you were brought up in a toxic family you probably don’t know it. Your experience of what everyone else sees as a toxic family seems normal to you, because you know nothing else. Part of growing up in a toxic family [...]
Trudy a twenty-nine year old local newspaper reporter and Max a thirty-three year old limousine company owner had endless fights about who was doing the lion’s share of parenting their two children. They argued about what to do, how to do it, when to do it and who should take the blame when things went wrong. Trudy’s sister Sophie got mad at Max when she saw her sister miserable and at a loss. Sophie rescued Trudy countless times, and usually felt heroic in the process.
Blake got away with everything and Aaron was sick to death of having to pick up the slack for the sake of the business. He wanted to quit so that his parents would get a real taste of what it would be like without him, but a sense of loyalty and commitment stopped him from walking out and starting his own business- something he had thought of doing several times before, especially when he felt unfairly burdened by the weight of Blake’s nonchalance. For the rest of that week Aaron kept reminding his parents about how hard he worked and how much responsibility he took on. He wanted them to make things more equal between him and Blake but they just palmed him off with a pay raise or luxury travel vouchers. He felt that they favored Blake and expected him to carry his younger brother on his back.
Do you feel like your family members don't care about you the way you care about them? Are you always wondering whether you matter to your spouse, your mother, your father or a sibling? Then you must be in a constant state of anger and sadness that you do everything you can to prove your love and commitment but are left hanging when it comes to getting the same back from them. Perhaps you hear complaints about the caring not being sufficient or good enough during family conflicts.
Dreading meeting up with loved ones while looking forward to it at the same time causes stress and ruins the occasion. The dread comes from the anxiety that you have to come face to face with an old part of you that you walked away from and that now threatens to take over again. You are back in an old war zone getting ready for battle scars instead of being ready to receive welcomes and loving embraces from family members. Learn 4 ways you can reunite with your old self in ways that empower you so that you can enjoy family reunions in peace and with pride.
Relationships were hard work and Shirley was angry about it. There was no end to it. That made her even more angry. The angrier Shirley became the less her husband and children wanted to be near her. They too felt that they had to please her in order to be loved and accepted. Proving love through obedience rather than through a genuine joy of sharing herself with her family became the name of the game.
