As far as I know, the current culture around dating/relationships includes meeting your SO’s family and letting them meet yours. And probably sometime on the first few dates, at least asking about family. Problem is, my family is batshit insane.
-
My parents are in an abusive relationship and constantly scream at each other
-
My father is a violent abuser who avoids talking to people because he can’t even pretend to be sane
-
I had to raise myself because most of their advice was hateful trash; they tried to raise me into a bigoted loner asshole who only cares about himself and ties his self-worth to pretending he’s better than everyone else
-
My brother is an emotionally volatile gun owner in a relationship with an insane psycho who abused her cat to death
-
They all believe that people who are different should be suppressed or purged from society because God or something
I think at this point, my family may be too dangerous to maintain ties to at all. I really wish I could burn it all down and start over, but I might not be so lucky due to my fledgling financial situation.
Ridding myself of my family’s influence has been a decade-long project that I’ve been working hard on, and I gotta say, “Your parents raised you well” has got to be my least favorite compliment.
Jokes aside, I’m interested in hearing about experiences from others in similar situations. How did you talk about it?
I feel like this is an unavoidable red flag either way for a lot of people (After all, how would anyone know that I’m as sane as I claim to be?), but I’d still like to find the least horrible way to talk about it without lying.
Thanks!
I can’t give a first-hand account, but I’d think it should be enough to say you aren’t close with your family. The details don’t have to come unless things start to get serious, and even then, only what and when you’re comfortable sharing.
"Remember, you only get one mother!’
“Promise?”
People who haven’t been there, do not know and really can never know.
I’d say, your best and safest bet, is to cut ties. When it comes up in conversation, politely explain that not all families are “presentable”.
I’m not sure why any of this is somehow a red flag. Your partner is going to be dating you, not your family.
Maybe my experience isn’t the norm, but I find that a significant portion of people I meet have fucked up families.
Yes, people often ask about families when meeting each other, but it’s perfectly fine and common enough ime to say that you aren’t close with/don’t have a good relationship with one or multiple family members.
My advice would be to keep it brief and somewhat vague at first…just stating what I said above should be sufficient enough. You’re getting to know each other, but you’re not there to learn every single intimate detail about every moment of someone’s life. Don’t go into a long tirade or story about anything at first. Over time, you will get to know each other and can slowly talk about more bits and pieces with time.
Just let it happen naturally, as you’re getting to know each other. If you’re truly the sane one, they’ll eventually see that you’re sane and explaining your family history won’t be as daunting anymore.
I told my now wife everything as it came up, I never hid anything from her. Also I had already cut ties to almost all of my family.
When people tell me " your parents raised you right" I respond with " no the family dogs did most of the raising, my parents served as a bad example"
Sometimes you can let the water run. Sometimes you just gotta let the faucet drip reeeeeeaaaallly slowly
Pretty much that. All this topic does is ward off potentially good relationships before they get a chance. Let your partner focus on evaluating you first. Open up your baggage only when you need to.
I would inform potential dates that there really isn’t going to be a family for them to meet and that I am probably the last representative of that family. If they ask me if they’re going to have a father-in-law or a mother-in-law, I would tell them it is probably in title only.
The goal is to spare your dates or would-be newlyweds from getting involved with what drama or dysfunctionality your family has gone through. You are doing your date a huge favor.
This. I would do this if I had to date again.
My parents are maybe one notch down from OPs. Mother used to live with a violent alcoholic while raising me and my brother in a too small apartment, feeding us only sugarstuff (not the US but she’s from there) and generally abusing us verbally, physically and mentally, totally abandoning at least my school education and generally gaslighting everyone including teachers, friends and family that shit wasnt as bad. I think growing up in a trailer park would have at least help me grow up without as much self doubt due to all the “pretend normalcy”.
I havent talked to any of them for years and I dont plan on changing that. In no circumstances would I have a date meet these fucks.
I would just keep it vague but honest. Everyone knows someone with a shit family or has one themselves, and you don’t owe anyone details. People will pick up the situation without you having to get into it and anyone worth being in a relationship with isn’t going to care how shitty your family is except to be angry at them on your behalf.
I’d just tell them your family is abusive and you have distanced yourself from them.
You have, right?
Emotionally, yes, but financially, I don’t have the means to move out yet. I have health problems and disabilities that make it difficult to get a job, so I don’t yet know the timeline or feasibility of making it out on my own.
I’m not planning on dating until I have a better idea of what the future looks like, but I decided to ask about this stuff now just because the question has been bouncing around in the back of my head for a while and I figured that people here might have similar experiences.
Slightly off topic, but if you are receiving any disability benefit payments from SSI please make sure to get in touch with the social security administration to get the process of switching it to just your name and to a separate account at a different bank than you family uses (just prevents the off chance they find a way to access your account if a banker doesn’t do their job correctly).
someone comes to town, someone leaves town
by cory doctorow
This will depend on how long you have been dating someone. On a first or second date or whenever it is first mentioned don’t drop everything at once. Say something simple or innocuous that is true but not a full detail. Say something like “My family and I are not close because we don’t have the same values” or “My family and I are not close because they drive me a little nuts and we don’t have to get into it now” or “I am moving towards non-contact with my family”. What you want to show is that early in the relationships you can show good judgement to whoever you are dating and don’t trauma dump about your crazy family all at once.
As you date someone more you can show who you are. You can demonstrate through your actions that are a normal person and don’t follow your family dynamics. This also shows that you understand what is and what is not appropriate for first dates. From there slowly roll it out doing a high level summary like you gave above. From there just tell stories as they seem appropriate. So its going to be a full disclosure but won’t be full disclosure right away
My wife has a pretty crazy mom and dad. She did something similar where she first talked through their contentious divorce and then more details as we were together. Her story is a little different because her family isn’t as nuts as yours and she didn’t realize how toxic they were until she did lots of therapy while we were dating. So we are now reframing her quirky childhood stories and two crazy people making each other as miserable as possible and the trauma that caused. So a slow roll is what is needed.
Also note we are all messed up so you are not the only one.
That’s the neat part, you dont.
You can’t teach/explain everything. Small warnings and you can talk about it when it happens, when they understand. You shouldn’t need to prove they’re crazy or that you’re sane. Most people who do aren’t.
As far as I know, the current culture around dating/relationships includes meeting your SO’s family
Date someone that doesn’t rely on ready-made recipes/expectations to meet people?
I mean if your family is screwed up (mine was), you should not be bothered to try to explain it to anyone. Not mentioning that most likely it’ll end giving the exact opposite result of what you’re looking for (I mean, anyone hearing someone telling them ‘fear not, my family is nuts but me yeah I’m 100% ok’ won’t feel that confident about you). That’s also useless.
Like I said, my family was… problematic. Did I try to rationalize them? nope. What I did is that as soon as I was able to, I let them behind me where they could live their live like they wanted to, and I started living my own… and meeting people that would not care the reason why ‘mom/dad/family’ was not an essential part of my own live. That works. Ask my spouse ;)
From life of experience, it’s just as you said: without lying.
You said it here, ‘I have an abusive family, I’m glad I managed to turn out ok but I don’t want them to involve you in their bullshit.’
And if you don’t want to talk about it just say it as well and leave the door open: ‘I don’t want to talk about it and ruin the day but if you want one day I’ll tell you.’
I’ve been married for almost 20 years without having met her parents, they didn’t “approve” our wedding and we just didn’t care about it. As long as you are two sane and respectful adults there’s no problems.
If you’re already dating someone, explaining the situation, or rather, telling your own stories of the kinds of shit you had to deal with, should give them a good picture of the situation and of your character as well. If your date thinks they’d rather not keep in touch with you after that, it may be for the best for both of you.
While I thankfully had a mostly common family, my last ex had a very abusive mother who was extremely rude to her own daughter and would 180 into a flower whenever talking to me. It was an astonishing dichotomy and I always understood why my ex wanted to stay away from her house as much as possible.
