Declare There Is No Bottom

on to that I need to release for myself? What am I holding on to that I need to release for my peace of mind.

give you a bit more backstory on this incident. The day of their wedding, my fiance called his mom and requested that I come to the hotel earlier than planned, where the bridal party was getting their hair and makeup done. The plan was to hopefully get me in earlier than plans so that I could get home, get the family, and head to the venue without running into evening traffic. We'd hit evening traffic the night prior for the rehearsal dinner,

and we were trying to avoid that. They did allow me to come earlier, but once I got there, I didn't get my hair and makeup done until hours later. For whatever reason, they had me sit there for hours, even though we made our concerns very known about the timing. Once there, I didn't mention the timing again, as we had already expressed concern and I felt it was out

of my hands. I will say I have a suspicion that my sister in law wasn't too thrilled with me being there getting my makeup done, as I had removed myself from the wedding party, so maybe that had something to do with the urgency I was given in the queue of bridesmaids. My fiance and I and our two little girls ended up being late to the wedding, so was the bride and groom an entire wedding party for

that matter. As for the family photos, there were plenty of opportunities during the wedding for the bride and groom to get the family photos, had they put in effort and worked with their photographer. Nothing was ever said, though, and the wedding went on and I thought everything was okay between us. It never even crossed my mind there was animosity towards us, especially because of their wedding. On our way out that night, my sister in law even grabbed me and told me how much she cared for me.

It was a sweet gesture, as she and I had what felt like a falling out leading up to her wedding. I stepped down as a bridesmaid months earlier because I could not handle her poor behavior. She turned into a bridezilla. Her laid back, chill demeanor that I had always adored had gone out the window. I was understanding that this was her big day and trying my best to deal with it for as long as possible, but for mental health purposes, not being in the wedding party and subjecting

myself to hurt any longer. It was a relief. It's something I'm happy I did, even though I know doing so, I was looked at as if I was the bad guy.

to emotionally regulate themselves. After watching a few episodes, I realized that they have a recipe sort of for self destruction and for ruining your real relationships post wedding. And it was to create like a high intensity, high stressful sort of environment. Like I don't know if it was like, hey, let's make all the caterers quit on this person, and then it would be like, oh my gosh, I have to make the food for my wedding, and you know, it was just always chaos, and I think sometimes we

think that's how weddings have to be. I get so many questions around I'm getting married. It's going to be so stressful, the anticipation is already there. It's going to be so stressful. It's going to be a terrible experience.

How do I get through this? And I have to believe that some of the people we've seen, some of the stories we heard, certainly this one, you know, Certainly things we've seen on TV sort of influenced this idea that there is a way where suppose to act as a bride, There are certain things we are supposed to expect and demand of other people. And I don't believe it to be true. I think there are some folks who have a very peaceful process and they don't lose

their relationships in the wedding process. I think the way that we do that is with boundaries. We are clear with our expectations up front. We're not overloading people with things to do. We're managing our mood because sometimes when we are stressed, we can't be a little snappy. We can be demanding. We can tell people, you know, how they should pose in a picture. Oh my gosh, I

say off white, you have beige. You know, we can do things when we're already really stressed, maybe about finances, maybe about you know, becoming a part of a new family. Maybe our best friend who's the maid of honor is not you know, maybe they're newly pregnant. You weren't expecting that. Like all of these sort of things come up, we have the power to better manage our situations. Now in

this case, who knew that the issues were there? Who knew that this person was so upset about these things that didn't happen years before, and now this energy is being transitioned into a new family wedding. It is up to us to set our expectations reasonably, and so that is what will help preserve those relationships. Now, let's think

about some reasonable expectations. If you are fresh out of college and you want to get married and all of your friends are recently graduated, you may not want to have the most expensive wedding of your dreams and expect everybody to travel to whatever paradise and be able to pay for themselves and have you know, the thousand dollars bridesmaids dresses. And if you do that, maybe expect that

some people can't go along with it. Maybe expect that, you know, there will be some people in your family who are going to have some feedback. Maybe expect that your sister in law isn't always going to be bubbly about your experience. How can we temper our expectations around our weddings? It is such a special day, you know, I think so many of us we're planning, we're processing, We're like, this person must do this. Nobody can ruin my day. But I promise you a wedding is just

one day in the grand scheme of being married. And if we don't get through this baby step, we will have some challenges ahead in our marriages and in those families that we are becoming a part of. And it sounds like if that is not remedied early on, it just it just keeps going and all of these issues sort of come up, unfortunately at a time that isn't even about you. So that brings me to my next thought. Passive aggressiveness. You know, I know it's a phrase that

many of us have heard, like what is it? Though? One big thing that it is is bringing up information or aggrievance at an inappropriate time. It's not your moment, this is not your event. No one said, hey, does anyone have any issues here? And here you are stating an issue. Here, you are throwing something in someone's face that can be very passive aggressive, passive because you hadn't said anything about it, and you've been holding onto this

aggressive based on the way that it's coming out. The behavior after is an indication of how you felt about this thing for months, four weeks, four years, and it's sort of coats, you know, some of those future experiences with people. So let's continue to listen to this letter, and I'm sure you know thrown in here there will be some more things that we'll be able to pull out. Let's keep listening.

of them bringing up these issues was just too bizarre. This, too, is an odd situation because we used to be extremely close with my sister and brother in law. Pardon me believes that it wasn't actually about needing an apology for the wedding. There have been several comments and conversations over the years from my in laws about how there's possibly some degree of jealousy at play with my sister in

law towards us. We ultimately decided not to apologize for their wedding because we didn't want to be inauthentic and tell them what they wanted to hear, because in our hearts, we do not believe we cause their wedding to be late, or do we take responsibility for them not getting the photos they wanted.

I actually don't apologize. I do want this relationship with you. I wonder how we can can work through it. But this is not a situation that I'm ready to take any accountability for. And it doesn't mean that you'll never apologize. It just might mean you need more time. You're not ready yet, you don't have enough information. In hindsight, you might see some things that you know bring you to the point of, ah, I really did hurt them. I did cause you know, this sort of rift in the

family or whatever it is. But to say right now, I'm not feeling that, and so I do want to continue in this relationship, but I can't offer you what you need. I think that's a very brave place to land that I'm not ready yet and I want us to continue, and I wonder how we can work through this. Sometimes you know when it's when it's time to apologize.

Having more information and really developing the compassion for the person who is injured can help you discover, you know where the apology is maybe is not the apology for the thing that there think, and it might be for something else. So you know, sitting and having conversations and developing your compassion can reveal what the apology needs to be. Let's take a break and we'll be right back.

bottom of everything. Since then, there's been so much ugly drama but this happening. I had even gone no contact with my in laws for about six months because it felt so draining and toxic. At certain points, it felt like my mother in law and father in law were taking some in all of this, so I felt best going no contact at that point. The family dynamic is very intertwined. My father in law owns an electrical company whom both my husband and sister in law both work for.

So even when we wanted to distance ourselves from the negativity and let things calm down, it was very difficult. I do suppose time has helped, but we do not have a relationship with either my sister or brother in law. Now we've attended a handful of family gatherings with them and we have literally not spoken to one another, have avoided eye contact and shuffled around each other the best

we can without engaging with one another. It has made birthdays, holidays and get together is very stressful and something I dread. In some cases, my husband and I have declinented joining in the family festivities, including some major holidays, because we want to avoid the uncomfortableness and awkwardness.

end up staying away. We continue to maintain the silence, We continue to carry that thing that that happened because we haven't chosen to re engage. I learned my level of moving forward when I became a parent. I didn't I didn't even know it was possible to be so offended by someone and and then just you know, have

to feed this person. You know, your kid flips out in the target parking line and kicking a tire and you're like, you know what, I still want to get you in the car safely, Like I just I just want to get us home, you know, I just want to I just want to lay you down. Like it's like, I'm not past that situation, but I can move forward with you. There is no grudge, there is no punishment. I understand that you were upset, and I'm not personalizing it. I would be upset too if I passed all that

candy and could never get it right. Like you start to acknowledge that holding the grudge means hurting the person. Holding the grudge means that you're no longer in the relationship with this person. So if I'm saying, you know, I would really like this relationship to work or I would really like to resolve this situation. I have to lean into that initial discomfort of resolving the situation, which

is going to be some awkwardness. Now again, we may need to set some boundaries around Hey, you know, this situation happened. It doesn't seem like it's anything that we can agree about out. You know, we all have our different positions, and what could be helpful is if we choose not to talk about it anymore, and we choose not to have these side conversations about it, what could it look like if we continue to move forward without

revisiting this thing. The agreement can be we don't talk about this for now until we have a better perspective about it. Maybe we need some family therapy, maybe we need some individual therapy. But there are other things that we need to explore before we can come back to this conversation. Because what happens is we'll hold on to our point. You know, I can think of tons of scenarios where I could have been in seventh grade and

I still feel like I'm right about that situation. Right, It's like, no, that teacher, It's like, you know, if I really look at the situation, from outside myself, maybe I could see I'm wrong. Maybe if I had another voice in the matter, maybe I could see this from a different perspective or their perspective. But when we are holding on to note I was right, I'm always right in situations, it's really hard to have any movement around the idea, and sometimes we just have to agree we don't.

This is something we can't talk about weddings. You know, we had our issue with them. Now we need to focus on who can be the monopoly champion in this family. We need a new topic, We need a new thing. We cannot focus on these old things, the initial awkwardness and you know, just sitting there and not knowing what to talk about. You can be the icebreaker. You can be the person to have regular conversation. You can be the person to play games, you can be the person

to coordinate the event. Some things don't deserve second, third, fourth, and fifth conversations about them, because we're going back to those conversations with the same mind said, I'm going to say here, everybody was right from their own perspective. According to your perspective, you were correct. According to your sister and brother in law, they were correct. Accord everybody's right. How do we continue on with everybody being right in it not being okay for us? Let's keep listening.

access to everything on that camera. There is concern for my mother in law how this would make my sister and brother in law feel if they saw us going over for a little birthday party for our son without extending an invitation to them. In this situation, it led to some pressure to invite them and for us to be the bigger people. I wish we hadn't given it a feeling that way and not try to people please in this situation, because it ultimately led to many problems

for months. My brother in law is not very fond of anything that has to do with family get togethers, let alone get togethers that are sprung on him last minute. He's overall just not the family oriented type. He shows up only when it's absolutely expected and or necessary, and it makes for a very uncomfortable situation, especially since we've never resolved anything from the past. We ultimately went against our better judgment and invited them, knowing it would be uncomfortable.

I believe that my sister in law actually wanted to be there. However, the energy that my brother in law walked in with was quite disgusting. He walked in and you could feel the energy radiating off of him that he did not want to be there. Essentially, this was an inconvenience for him. When he walked in, we weren't even able to say hello because he didn't even attempt to make eye contact with us. He walked straight past us, sat down and started watching the football game. It was

such an incredibly awkward and hurtful situation. My husband and I decided that the best course of action for the situation was for us to leave and go home to celebrate. By us leaving, it did cost some drama, but honestly,

sitting there for an extended amount of time. People who act like that about coming to their one year old nephew's birthday party sounded absolutely miserable and not something we were going to entertain, and this time arguing did break out briefly, which honestly, I know we could have handled better, but everyone's emotions got the best of them. A few days after this incident, after much thought, I reached out

to my sister in law. I asked her if we could please speak in person and get to the bottom of this. Her response to me was that she would meet me and we could talk, but she would not participate in discussing the past. She made it very clear she was only interested in talking about the future. With that response, I didn't push for a meetup, as I felt it wouldn't be productive. After this incident, there was

months of drama. Several holidays were done separately. Since then, I started therapy to try and figure out the best course of action for us to take as a family in the situation. We've been open to the idea of rekindling a relationship with them under the condition that we address what has happened in the past. With the years that have been wasted away on all of this fighting, I decided that I'd reach out one last final time

to my sister and brother in law. I ran this by my mother in law to see if she felt it was worth trying, and to see if her and my father in law could maybe help financially with paying for family counseling for the four of us to attend.

If my brother and sister in law would be willing, I wrote them a very detailed, heartfelt letter about how we'd like to have a relationship with them, but we'd like to go to family counseling with them so we could get any issues resolved in a safe environment and to stop sweeping everything under the rug Sadly, my sister in law told me that they have a lot going on right now, so emotionally they are unable to read our letter at this time, but would like to focus

on moving forward to create a fresh start in our relationship and embrace a positive future. I responded with, we are very understanding and we're open to come back to this once they're in a better spot emotionally, and I never got a response back.

sure you have it in other spaces. And I'm not just talking about you, but also your sister in law, your brother in law. Like you take yourself with you wherever you go, and so if this is how you respond and conflict, it's not just in this space. So going to family therapy to resolve it in the family, it needs to be resolved internally, so it's not showing up up in these other spaces. I feel a little bit like when we have an issue, we pull other

people into it to get their input. For instance, you know when siblings are arguing, it's like, we're gonna call mine, We're gonna call dat and see what their perspective is. It can be really helpful for us as adults to just work through it with the person. So if your issue is with your sister in law, and that's the person who you think is the most reasonable to talk to to speak to her directly. You don't have to

bring your brother in law into it. She can take whatever you want to say to her back to your brother in law. But a lot of this it could be a one on one communication and it doesn't have to be discussed with your mother in law, your brother in law, the cousin in law. We don't have to pull all of these folks into it. And really owning your side of the street says a lot. Another thing I'm thinking of here is some things don't have a bottom. We think we need to get to the bottom of this.

We need to explore this more so we can really figure this thing out. I don't know if there's a reason for some things to happen, or if there is some explanation that would make you feel better about all of these years of contention. Maybe not getting to the bottom is okay. And I know what you're thinking here, like, oh my gosh, do you sweep everything under the rug? No? But sometimes we have to move on because we can talk about the same conversation over and over in the

same way and there is no progress made. Sometimes the progress is saying, hey, we're not going to make any progress on this conversation. We need to do topic. Both of you were hurt and wrong. That might be the bottom, that might be the resolution that we've heard each other before. How do we not do that again in the future when we need to communicate about a difficult topic. How do we let each other know that something is bothering us?

If I want you to be a part of something, how do I request that you be a part of this thing that's really important to me? How do I address our issues earlier? Those are the things that could be hopeful. But getting to this, why did you do this? No, I didn't do that. A few years ago. I had the same argument with the same person. It seemed like about once a year, and you know, it got to a point where, oh, here's the yearly argument again, and

I said, I'm not doing this argument anymore. My resolution is not to have this argument anymore. Like this is going to be the last time we talk about this thing, because I already know how it's going to go. I didn't do this. I think you did it. And we're going to go back and forth and it's going to take about it hour, hour and a half, and I can tell you how we'll feel when we walk away and no one was heard. You know, it's like paint the picture. We've already done it. We don't need to

talk about this anymore. It's not a helpful conversation to have. There is no understanding in the conversation. No one's willing to move from their point of view because we have a deep belief about what we felt and what we experience. And at this point, I think we're both telling the truth our truth now, is it the truth? No? But maybe my perspective isn't either. But I know this much.

We're not making any progress by talking about this same thing, even if it's a year later, even if it's two years later, because we still feel the same way about it. The only way we would make progress is if someone conceded, and that's not happening. So if we want to move forward, we have to choose to move forward. If we don't want to move forward, we have to choose not to move forward, but to be in this limbo of there is some conversation that will move this to a different space.

I want to tell you today that there are some things that there is no bottom too. This is not real, Robin. It is not like bottomless French fries like, oh, everything has some No, you know what bottomless means ongoing forever and ever and ever endeavor. That's why they have it that way. Sometimes or at some point, people have to stop it. That's why they give you bottomless. You have to choose to stop it, and most people do. There's no one who's been there for five years at the

rest around eating French fries. People stop it at some point. So the bottom is just choosing to stop it. So you can choose to stop it. She can choose to stop it. I would say, the person writing this letter, who is calling in with the frustrations and the pains around this, you are the person and who you know wisely might want to be the person to say, Okay, I think we need to stop it. I'm going to stop it.

that is. I feel she has answered loud and clear. My mother in law says she's talked to her daughter about this, and my mother in law bely is her daughter truly cares and wants a relationship, but she's just scared of conflict. I believe it's much more than that. Sadly, there's no desire on their end to actually get to the bottom of this. I believe I'm dealing with someone who does not want to be held accountable for anything

in this. My husband and I are okay doing things separately at this time, especially if there's an unwell for them to participate in finding true healing. We're no longer interested in sweeping anything and everything under the rug. My mother in law has agreed to also respect our wishes and doing things separately if they can't so much as take the time to read our letter. This sounds harsh, but I truly believe her actions in this really show where she and my brother in law are in all

of this. Half of me wishes my mother in law could see what I'm seeing. Part of me just doesn't care anymore, as long as I don't have to deal with the drama and we can all agree to do things separately and comfortably. I wonder if they secretly like this drama and keeping their distance from us and the kids, especially if they actually do harvard feelings of resentment or

anger towards us. I feel sadness and guilt because my father in law is not in good health and he, of course would like to see his family come together. I feel sad for my mother in law. She always does everything she can to pull the family together, and she worries greatly about hurting people's feelings by doing separate birthdays, holidays, and get togethers. I'm even sad the friendships were lost

in all of this. It's wild to think we used to be so close with both of them and now we can't even hold a conversation or be around each other. Truly does not sit well with my husband or I to pretend like nothing has happened, especially if they continue to walk into our children's birthday parties with disgust and carry this much unspoken animosity. I'm tired of shuffling around

them at holidays and feeling uncomfortable. I'm not sure what my sister in law expects for us all just show up to the next big holiday and for us to act phony and act as if we maintained a friendship throughout the past few years, like we're one big, happy family. I understand it's their choice to not want to talk about the past, but for us to maintain a healthy relationship, I believe talking through issues and concerns is a powerful

way to care for the relationship. I'm not interested in her words say they want to embrace a positive future. Their words say one thing, when their actions say something entirely different. At this point, what I'm more interested in is what our plan of action is in achieving a brighter future. Honestly, though, with their unwillingness to talk about anything, I feel like our relationship with them could be better

off just left in the past. It's a unique situation because they aren't just friends that we can quietly slip away from. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. Is there anything we can be doing to make this work without completely ignoring the issues and going against what we'd like to see happen. Is it wrong of us to want to discuss all that's happened and have a better understanding because we're still without answers and all of this thanks so much.

there any flexibility around a person having some imperfections? Is there any way to be cordially kind? Right? Like, we don't have to like everyone. And there are some people in your family who I know, I have some people. I'm only gonna see them at my mama house. They not coming to my house. But when I see them, hey, how are you? And that said, you know, it doesn't have to be my favorite relative. But when I see this person, can I be kind wave and have some

small talk? Sure? And is that being fake. Not necessarily. We just won't get along with everyone. We didn't get along with everyone in our class, but we certainly you know, if the teacher said passed them a piece of paper, you pass them a piece of paper. You didn't skip over their desk. And I think you're seeing this as I can have nothing to do with this person until

some extent. That's true, and you will have to deal with the consequences of what that looks like for the rest of the family, because it might mean you will not be at certain events, or your children will not be involved in certain things, or their children will not

be involved in some way. And so if you want like this We're all together sort of experience, it might require you to release this idea of getting to the bottom of having this conversation around what the answers are and saying, you know, perhaps there are no answers to be had, or there are no answers that would make me feel better, and in my desire to be a part of this family, there are some boundaries that I

can have around my relationship with them. Here are ways that I can show up and you know, still feel pretty true to myself. And here are some other ways where I will need to speak up for myself. So I wonder what your boundaries could be with them? You know what your long term goal would be with them? Can you be in a relationship with people who who think different than you and who are accountable? Sure? Do

you want that? So there are a lot of questions here that I think you'll need to answer and you'll need to think about. You know what this could look like long term, not just for yourself, but also for everyone in your household. You need to hear this. Throughout this episode, you have heard be say sometimes there is no bottom, there is no resolution that we can understand that we can agree with, and sometimes things just don't

make any sense. When we are going to people expecting them to release us from the discomfort we're experiencing because of who they are, we might be disappointed because they may not have the wise reason that we're looking for, because we're looking for a think, We're looking for a particular thing for them to say in a particular way for them to say it, and they may not be able to offer that. And what I would love to

offer you is sometimes we have to release ourselves. Last year, we had a podcast where we answered some of your shorter questions, and I'd love to do that again. So if you have a question that is short that we can answer along with two or three others, please submit it to be featured on an upcoming podcast. You Need to Hear This is an iHeart production hosted by Mendra Glover to Whip. Our executive producer is Joel Bardique. Our

senior producer and editor is Mia don Taylor. Send us a voice memo with your questions about boundaries and relationships at You Need to Hear This at iHeartMedia dot com. Please be sure to rate our show wherever you listen to it, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear this. Talk to you next time