When Family Boundaries are Challenging
Dear Colette,
I have an extreme problem. Family members are controlling my life to a complete destruction. This is a confirmed fact. I refuse to just be trampled by them but I do not know what to do. I have tried everything to fight their negative influences and lies but they continue prevail in their efforts to devastate my earning ability and now my health. Please help me by providing an opinion on how I could protect myself from them. – No More Control
Dear No More Control,
An extreme problem needs an extreme solution.
You’ve asked me for my opinion so here it is, strictly my opinion. If someone was devastating my earning ability and my health and I was letting it continue to happen, I’d have to ask myself what is the payoff for me remaining in that relationship? I know it would break my heart to separate from my family but perhaps the pain of allowing my heart to break by distancing myself may be the healthier solution.
Before you dismiss my opinion, consider these two things. Number one, don’t try to change people. Recognize that people are exactly as they are. Second, no one can control your life unless you allow them to. We stay in something abusive because we feel connected to that person. It will feel “wrong” to betray the family story by choosing to remove yourself altogether. There is a payoff of familiarity that we get from family, but is that strong enough motivation to stay?
When we know our abusers, we know what they are, we want them to be different and we stay because we have this deep connection and obligation that we feel towards them. Fighting doesn’t work. Removing yourself altogether is a way of neutralizing it. Make a plan to leave, be it all at once, or in small steps, but if you want to take control of your life, your finances and your health, it has to start and end with you, not them.
Love and blessings,
Colette Baron-Reid
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