Hi, listeners, welcome back. I'm Natur Glover Towab and you need to hear this. I wish sometimes that there was someone to tell me you are making the right decision, excellent choice. But often we have to figure things out the hard way. We have to either suffer the consequence or celebrate when we've made a good choice. And with relationships, it's hard to predict how we'll feel after we make difficult decisions. And when it comes to family relationships, oh
my gosh. We have been told for years and years and years how to behave, how to function in our families, and so when we have to get to the point of making difficult decisions such as estrangement, it's like, is this the right decision? Am I doing the right thing? Thing needs to happen for me to end the relationship. That's always a really difficult thing to process. I think there are some things that can happen in a family relationship where society and you know, even ourselves will be
more accepting that this relationship has to end. If there is some you know, significant violence, it's like okay, yes, well, clear cut, don't talk to that person anymore, right, Or if there is some you know, major thing that happens. But what if it's I just don't like the people in my family. We just don't have anything in common. We really don't have a relationship. Those things matter too, right,
But many of us feel the pressure. We feel the need to stay in those situations, whether we feel uncomfortable anxious. It's like, stay in those situations because guess what, it's your family. Push your anxiety to the side. You should talk to these people. Maybe you don't have anything to talk about, you should listen to them, talk, just be in the relationship. There is no easy way to process these situations. So in today's call, we will talk about estrangement,
and estrangement is never an easy option. I want you to keep that in the back of your head, for the people you know who are going through it, for the people who are considering it, and certainly for those who are already in it. It is never an easy option, and it's a well thought out one. You know, many times we think estrangement is abrupt, like this person called and you were like, no, never talking to them again.
It takes lots of time. Many times you are reflecting you are taking years and months and really trying to be in a relationship. So when it gets to the point of uugh, I don't think I can do this anymore. It does typically come from years and years of trying, let's listen to today's call.
So I'm having a hard time deciding if an estrangement for my family is best. I grew up in a household where we didn't communicate, and issues we had between each other were frequently pushed under the rug. And the last few years, my wife and I have used their techniques and we strive to communicate clearly and raise our future family to do the same. Unfortunately, my family history goes pretty far back, and I did not have the tools that I have now for communicating my boundaries and
frustrations with my family. It essentially started eight years ago with my sister not accepting my wife, who was my girlfriend from college at the time. At first, it was just general coldness towards her, which could almost go unnoticed, but it eventually turned into my sister inviting me the things and asking me not to bring my girlfriend, or asking her to step out of any family pictures, and excluding her in every way possible from family events. She
does not treat my brother this wife this way. But I think that's because my brother's wife was never seen as a threat to their family culture and she's known her since childhood. My wife and I live in a city area, whereas my family lives in a rural area, and my wife and I choose not to drink alcohol for health and religious reasons, whereas my family is almost always binge drinking and seems to feel uncomfortable with the fact that we don't drink.
Drinking is like a mirror for some people. When you say I don't drink, They're like, what's wrong with my drinking? You've said nothing about their drinking, their lifestyle choices, but it certainly makes them think that you're saying something about them. This can be you know, with family, at work and social environments. I've seen it play out. If you turn down a drink, make it really uncomfortable about their drinking. So what do they do? They're like, Okay, you need
to drink. Are you sick? What's going on? It's are you on medicine? It's it's almost like there has to be a significant reason that you're not drinking, and just saying, you know, I don't want to, I don't like the taste of alcohol or religiously, I don't mean, I've even heard people say, well, there was wine in the Bible, you know. So people come up with all sorts of reasons for you to do what they're doing because, guess what, it makes them more comfortable doing these things that you
don't do anymore. And so they're saying, if you are just like me, we could just be really comfortable in this relationship. If you are different from me, we will be uncomfortable. And boy, won't they make it uncomfortable. They will make it uncomfortable. They will talk about it, they will bring it up. It will be a whole thing around drinking. So that is, you know, that is a
common challenge in family relationships, particularly at gatherings. You know, even if you're the person hosting the gathering and you don't have alcohol there, you know, it's like, you don't have any alcohol here? Should we go to the store. It's like, no, I just want to lemonade and tea. You know, I don't drink and it wasn't on the menu.
So it can be a really tough conversation, particularly in families where binge drinking is a thing they may see that you are noticing their behaviors that they're not ready to maybe change or accept or do anything about. And so if you're not doing those things, they see that as judgment. It's like, Oh, you're walking around judging me, and it's like, Ah, I'm actually judging myself. I don't want to do it. I'm thinking about myself and being very selfish in this decision. It really has nothing to
do with you. Let's keep listening.
Shortly before our wedding five years ago, I confronted my sister about the way she exclused my wife and treats us like we are invisible. She told me that she cannot accept my wife into the family because she didn't come to enough family events in the three years we dated before marriage, and she told me I wasn't acting like her brother anymore. I told my mother about this interaction to ask for help, and she told me to try harder, while she ignored her behavior and chose to
continue supporting my sister's housing, schooling, and daily errands. Afterwards, my family continued to pretend to be one happy family, and my wife and I continued to attend the larger family events where we were casually avoiding my sister and not really talk to her. We were still cordial overall, and my wife has always been very kind to my sister. So I'm not quite sure what we did wrong in the first place, other than not attending enough family events.
As my sister says, we moved two hours away after marriage for our career choice. My family tells us they never see us, but they refused to drive our way, and it's a lot of work for us to drive two hours to family events to be ignored by my sister and parents. Last year, my sister got married and her fiance called us drunk one month before the wedding can be to get a suit and be a groomsman. I told him no because it was last minute, and said that I would like to work on the relationship
before committing to something like that. My sister's fiancee agreed that the relationship between my sister and I was poor and that he wanted it to be better. After her fiance is called, I texted my sister and offered to work on the relationship if she ever wanted to talk, but she never responded to my text. I felt pretty rejected and like I had my answer. Later, my mom called me and was upset I refused to be a groomsman.
My mom said she doesn't like the way my sister and I don't talk and said that my wife must have just got off on the wrong foot and told me to try harder. I told my mom that I contacted my sister about working on the relationship and she ghosted me. But my mother still blames me for our strained relationship and has done more harm than help between my sister and I.
Enough family events? Huh? You know how many? Was enough? Was there like some tally that you didn't know about, Like if this person comes to eight family events, they would be accepted into the family. Was it ten? Was it twelve? That's a pretty vague response for disliking someone. You know, I don't like them because they didn't come to enough family events. Hmm. I wonder if it's much harder to say, you know, I really don't have a reason. I just don't like this person. She reminds me of
my third grade teacher. I don't know, you know, just anything. Sometimes we don't even have like this will thought out. I don't know what's happening. Maybe we feel like we have to come up with something that makes sense. But when we're just making stuff up, it always it doesn't make any sense because it's like made up. And maybe people feel like the truth of why you don't like
someone is too hard. Maybe the truth of I had a different relationship with my brother before this person was in the picture is much harder to say than you know, she didn't come to enough events. Maybe you know, you think like if I say this thing, this will get them off my back. And it's like that thing is not what makes the most sense, and it truly can't speak to what this situation is. So there has to
be something else going on here. I don't know what that something else is and you may never find out. But it's never okay to be mean to a stranger because you don't see them often enough, Like I don't I don't know about that one. But let's think about this situation of your mother telling you to be the bigger person. I heard that a few times, where your mom is like, be the bigger person, be the bigger person. And maybe you're taller, so you are being the bigger person.
Or maybe there are other things that you can release, you can let go of. But when you decide to spend your life with a person and you have this family member who is going out of their way to be mean, not including people in pictures, not wanting them at events, ignoring them all of these things. That is pretty hard to be big around, right, because it's like
it's me behavior and it's inappropriate. It's almost saying, hey, I'd like for you to end your relationship with this person for us to even have a relationship, And I wonder what the relationship will look like if they try to be nice to this person, if they included them, Like, there's another way to do this. This is not the only way to show up. And so if you're choosing to show up in that way, I don't know if it's on you to be the bigger person, you will
be ignoring a lot. And it sounds like you have you've tried to, you know, maintain your distance at some of these events and play nice and show up and all of these great things, and none of it is working. So being the bigger person is not always a solution to chaos. We love to use that as a solution, like, you know what, if you're the bigger person, they'll stop hitting you. It's like, what, so if I just block myself for ten minutes, then they'll stop, Like when does
this end? When does it stop being put on you to recover a situation that you're not even creating. There is some blame that's being displaced in this situation. In terms of the expectations for distance. You are talking to a person who left their home city and moved ten hours away. And I will say that for some family members that can be very challenging, and the expectations around living away can sometimes look like, well, you move, so you visit, right, It's like you moved away, so you're
responsible for visiting. We don't have to come see you. That is an interesting way to think. And what typically happens is some resentment sets in and you're like, you know what, Well, if it's not important for you to see me, I don't care about seeing you anymore. But I'm hearing that you do care a little bit, right, like you would want in these relationships that people return to favor that if you drive two hours and sometimes they would drive two hours, sometimes they would want to
be a little bit involved in your life too. The way that this typically happens is, you know what's happening with you where it's like, no, we refuse to visit you. And then there's this one person who's always doing the visiting. And for some people that's okay. They love going back home,
they love seeing their family in this familiar environment. And for other people, it's like, I want to see you here, and it sounds like you've been very clear about that, like, hey, we'd like you to visit, and your family is letting you know we're not visiting. You chose to move away to that job far away, We don't need to visit you. If you want to see us, you come here with that information. You get to decide what you do with it. I don't know if there's a right or wrong there.
You can take that information and say, hey, I'm not going back to visit them, or you could take that information and say, you know, I'll go for these big events, or you know, I'll go every other weekend. It's really your choice and how much you want to be connected to them. There is no right or wrong there. That's the challenging thing about making difficult decisions. We try to think of them as right or wrong decisions instead of difficult.
It's like is this decision right or wrong? And it's like, no, it's just challenging. It's just a hard decision. I don't know if it's a law to be broken in this decision. I don't know if something will happen if you make this decision. It's just a really hard one. And it seems like you have chose for some time to continue to make that drive for two hours to visit your family.
But I wonder what is it doing to the relationship When we're doing things and we feel like we're not being treated fairly and the love is not being reciprocated, that resentment comes up and it starts to look like, like, why am I seeing these people anyway? They don't even come to see me. Why am I going out of my way to operate in their space and they won't even operate in my space? You know, For me, it has looked like when I go back to Detroit, it's like, Hey,
this is the space I'll be. If you want to come to this space to see me, you can. I'm not driving all over the city to see people. I've already come eight hundred miles. I'm not driving to more. I'm not driving one and a half more unless you're ninety. So that's my position. And then also I will visit as often as I feel the need to visit. Sometimes it has been multiple times a year, sometimes it has been no year, you know, So it really depends on
what feels okay, what feels good. There is no right or wrong. There's certainly the opportunity for people to come and visit me, some people, not all. But it does feel good when the connection is reciprocal. I support your stuff, you support my stuff. I call you, you call me. I'm excited to see you, You're excited to see me,
Like there is something relational in that. If I am doing all the stuff, if I come to all your birthday parties, all your thanksgivings and I can never have my own, or I can have these events and you won't be there, I'm starting to feel like am I the only one in this relationship. It's like, you know, I just need to put a little picture of you at the table, because that is the way I'll have to remember you in my life because you actually won't be here. It'll just be you in my mind. There
will be this picture, but no person. I'm wondering if there is a need to have more one on one conversations about this or is it it's like a family collective conversation where you talk about Hey, you all, it's like, no, you, sister, you, mom, you cousin, you just one on one conversations around Hey, next weekend, would you like to come visit? Because sometimes people don't visit because they haven't had a direct in light.
And then you have other people who will say like, oh, I'm going to come and see you, and you know, they may need a little push to say, hey, you said you would visit. It's been a mom So I wonder what the clarity around that has looked like. But we'll keep listening because maybe that's not even what you want. Maybe you just want to cut ties and I'm just talking about visitation, and you know, maybe it's not a thing, So let's keep listening.
In the last year or two, my sister has been more cordial towards us, but never more than a conversation about the weather or something bland like that. I still talk with my brother and his wife on the phone, but we do not visit as frequently due to living far away. My parents and I talk, but it's also very limited conversations and not very deep overall. We see my family for the big holidays and weddings, but that's
about it. During one holiday event, my mom told everyone the company I worked for, but it was the wrong company and I hadn't worked for them in two years. I use that as an example to say our overall connection is quite poor. We recently found out that both my sister and my brother's wife are pregnant and do three months apart. They all live within twenty minutes of each other, so I expect that they will all spend
a lot of time together with their children. I know that no matter how hard I try, I will only be able to attend larger events for my new niece and nephew. My wife and I have not been able to have children yet, and we are struggling to decide
our level of involvement with my family. We find ourselves very stressed every time we attend their events, sometimes because we are the only ones that don't drink, but also because my family spends a lot of time together without us, and we feel very awkward and disconnected.
Are you interested and improving the connection without lumping everyone together? Which relationships do you want to be more involved in Maybe it's a relationship with your mom or this family member or that family member. I'm hearing the conversation being centered around the family as a whole instead of looking at everyone as an individual. Maybe you're not ready to sever tisee with your mom, but you might be ready
to sever ties with your sister. I wonder how you can build those relationships out independently, even though they have relationships with these other people. I also wonder, as you're having these conversations with them, are you allowing them to remain surface level if you want them to be deeper? Are you asking questions? Are you saying, hey, I'm working at such and such, or are you just yeah, so the weather here there's sixty five. Are you going along with
the surface level conversations or are you trying to go deeper? Now, sometimes people don't have the capacity for deep and maybe you do. I'm hearing a shift in what you're desiring in the relationship, and so if it's your desire, I wonder if you need to lead the charge. If you are the person who needs to take some of these relationships deeper, you get to decide, you know a little
bit what these relationships look like. Now, if they're showing that they don't have the capacity for deeper, that's a different thing. But maybe they do. Maybe they do have some capacity to talk about things beyond the weather or beyond you know whatever. Sports teams. Oh my gosh, when people have surface level conversations and it involves sports, my eyes want to pop up my head. I'm not a big sports person, so it's like, okay, can we just
talk about anything else? But you know, it's it's where people go, you know, it's like, oh, your team this or your team that are Oh the weather here. It's like, okay, we're we're not talking about anything, and I really want to talk about something. How do we do that? In other relationships? We just keep going, We just bring those
things up. I can't think of friends that I've developed close relationships with where the conversation goes on about weather longer than twenty seconds or a sports team longer than twenty second. It's like girl is hot here, girl is cold here. Okay, so what happened at you know? So how do we go deeper with people and really build a relationship beyond this stuff? Because sometimes when we have differences they don't know what to talk about with us.
But I have found that all people have something. I might not be able to talk to you about self help and psychology, but we can connect around gardening.
You know.
I love to know what you're planning right now. I'd love to know how your zenias are growing. Have you had any butterflies in your garden? Okay, Well, if we can't talk about gardening, I'd love to talk to you about shoe and soles and which ones you have found to be the most comfortable. Well, if we can't talk about shoe and soles, I would love to talk and on and on and on. So there is something we can talk about, you know, even if it's a past story.
Remember the time I put on my snowsuit and I forgot to put You know, whatever it is, it's something there, you know, and we have to go beyond what our present is. Yeah, and maybe it's making a declaration. I don't want this anymore. I don't even want to talk about the weather. It's cold, is high, it's rain and its cloudy. Got it. We have covered weather, maybe not today's weather, but we have got weather. What are you watching on TV? What do you think about that character Jack.
You can shift those conversations to certainly make them a little bit deeper. If you start to do that and you feel like, oh my gosh, these folks don't have the capacity. They only want to talk about this thing. There is nothing there. Every time I try to talk about this, they bring it back to that, then you are free to make a decision from there. The other thing I suggest is creating individual relationships, not this collective
family as a unit thing. Everybody is an individual. They have different stuff, So try, you know, really getting in on the one on one relationship. Lastly, I'm hearing a little bit of feeling left out. I feel left out and they have this relationship, this conversation, this connection that I'm not a part of. Even with the drinking, you know, like there is a sense of being left out, like I am, I'm not in the stuff with them, So it's like I'm sitting on the sidelines. It's kind of awkward.
Everybody's you know, they're drinking. That makes it seem like they're having a lot of fun and I'm over here, or they're bringing up these things like yeah because last time, and it's like, oh, and I'm over here. This is something that happens, and we don't talk about it enough. When you start to make these changes in your life and you start to develop community and connection outside of your family, you go back to your family and you're like, are you my people? Are we still people? What can
we talk about? I don't even like to talk about this stuff. And that's when we start to think about those relationships one on one, when we start to consider the value of them and maybe even nurture them in a different way. Let's keep listening.
My mom stopped calling or texting us after she found out both of my siblings were pregnant, and I know she's busy, but it feels as though they have their happy family without us. If we want to maintain a relationship with them, we will have to do all the work and drive two hours to each event. I feel unsupported and concerned that when my wife and I have children, my family will not parciprocate our efforts with things like attending the shower or helping the baby after birth, etc. Etc.
And we'll keep telling us that our house is too far for them to drive to. My wife and I feel as though we are essentially already emotionally estranged on some level, as we only see my family for big holidays and events, But we wonder if it's easier to cut ties completely as we haven't had any luck resolving things with my sister. My mom continues to support her
behavior without even reaching out to us. My family has never abused or physically harmed me, so it's hard to think that we could be estranged over something as minor as my sister not wanting to include us in the family. So I guess my question is, how do you decide when it's time to be officially estranged from a family and if there's a good way to move forward with this relationship.
Thanks The deciding fact for estrangement is typically when staying in the relationship is harder than the actual leaving of the relationship. I hear you minimizing your experience by saying you've never been abused or physically harmed, but you have been emotionally neglected. You haven't felt their presence, the relationships haven't been nurtured, and that is a really big deal.
You're giving more weight to their being some physical scar and very little weight to the emotional scars that you're carrying with this relationship, you have already taken the first step. You are emotionally estranged from your family. There is no emotional connection there, and what you're doing is you're hanging on by a thread with the physical contact. It seems like you need to decide where you want to be
in these relationships, and you can remain in limbo. You may not need to make a decision today, but you are in the deciding process of what these relationships can look like. It may not be complete detachment. I won't answer the phone if you call, but it might be allowing them to lead the charge a little bit more, allowing them to miss you. Having some hard conversations may help the situation. Does your mom even know that you've noticed that she's not calling? Have you said that, Mom,
I haven't heard from you in a few weeks. Why haven't you called me? I'd love to hear from you more often. That can be really helpful to your mom, because perhaps she hasn't noticed the thing about your family not being present when you have children. It's not a thing yet, you know, and I know it sounds like it's very likely, but I wonder what it would look like if the relationships are improved. Maybe they will be.
We don't know that part yet, so to have any feelings about that, it's kind of like, h we don't know, maybe you know, we don't know yet, But what we do know is the relationships are not where you want them to be today. There seems to still be a desire to have these relationships because you're talking about it. It's something you're thinking about. But what the relationships can look like might be different. It might be less of
a relationship or it could be more. There is no right or wrong to this, because this is really a matter of the heart. This is something that involves your emotions. You know, you're feeling awkward, you're feeling nervous, you're getting anxious. Those are indicators of someone who might be on a cusp of any relationship with their family because it becomes
so uncomfortable to be around them. That can be addressed by having some conversations if that's the road that you would like to take, or you can decide to not be in those relationships. It would involve you having more conversations with your wife and being really clear about why you're even keeping the relationships, Why am I in these relationships? Which of the matter. If I were to leave this relationship, what would change in my life? If I stayed in
this relationship, how would my life look? Those are all important questions for you to answer with each relationship, not as a family collective, but each relationship. And you may find that with different people you have different answers. Allow yourself some space to really figure that out on an individual level. With your family members, you need to hear this estrangement sometimes happens with a big event, a big blowout, but most often it happens from little things adding up
over time. You can get to a point where nothing has happened that's too big, but it's such an offense to the stuff that has already happened in the relationship. So if you are sitting with something, if you are sitting on something, stop letting it go and address it in your relationships. You need to hear this. This is an iHeart production hosted by me Nedra Glover to wob Our executive producer is Joel Bonique. 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.