Hello missm -
I am dealing with a similar circumstance presently, can't say for sure if what I'm trying is/will be successful for even me, but perhaps might be helpful.
I've gone through many years of personal growth/therapy to untangle a complicated web of family dysfunction which had some obvious problems (alcoholism/mental illness) and only within the past year realized the dominant role of NPD in my mother has played...it was so insidious and painful to admit that I couldn't/didn't see it for what it was for many years, which made for a very confusing situation...but now certain things make perfect, albeit nasty, sense.
And when I first came on this board I had genuine desire to somehow retain some type of relationship with my other siblings/mother, and when reading stories of people who simply cut off their N-families, felt that was too drastic for my situation. But after making best efforts, and getting mildly burned as a result, I've recently realized that it will be best to have as little as possible to do with my N-mother and siblings (who are highly enmeshed in her NPD).
The wrinkle in my situation is having 2 young children who know/remember their grandma, as well as really developed a bond with their cousins (an enmeshed sibling's kids) during some prior visits. We live across the country from the N-mother and rest of family (no coincidence), so my kids don't necessarily see the abrupt change in relationship that already has taken place between me and my family after I broke the silence about how emotionally abusive we have all been to each other as a result of how we were raised...but my wife and I have been essentially shunned by the rest of the family...cut off, but not cut off, sort of a hang-nail treatment emotionally. The N-family system seems to have pushed us into some abused-subordinate role...despite some earnest attempts to engage with my siblings, N-mother and sort some of this out, there has been what could be described as a coordinated withdrawal, and the only communication is on their terms, usually with some overtone of 'message' that is crazy-making to figure out/process. We could remain in this dangling situation -- passively mistreated/disrespected, etc etc -- or we could take the initiative and simply cut these folks out of our lives, emotionally. That's what we've decided to do.
Our current goal is to have our kids know abstractly they have relatives 'out there' by way of receiving nominal birthday/x-mas cards, and at some point when they are much older to explain -why- we don't see much (if any) of these family members, and let them to decide whether to have closer relationships on their own. In otherwords, we see value that our kids know they have cousins in their generation that they might someday in the future connect/reconnect with, even if the adults in the prior generation don't have much to do with each other. But in the meantime, we'll redirect our emotional energy (for our kids and us) at friends and my wife's family members...in otherwords, build a network of other loving/supportive relationships, so that the lack of 'real' relationship with my N-mother and siblings doesn't amount to a void, merely an abstract fact-of-life to my kids.
What my wife and I are now trying is the following:
- any letter from my family member she opens, scans, then throws away. If there is key factual info, such as a major illness or death, she'll let me know -- she won't tell me anything else, and generally our policy is to simply not act/respond to any request/action, etc. And definitely not respond to the context of the letter, which may contain the usual suspects of manipulations/innuendo, etc.
- we got CallerID on the phone so we know if a call from them is coming in (none do, but at some point I won't be surprised if they start trying to flush us out)...if a message is left from a family member, my wife will listen to it, using same policy above.
- one brother who I keep in touch with has schizophrenia -- after the rest of the family shunned him, I re-engaged and keep in touch via email and phone, but even lately I realize he is part of the emotionally abusive web, and have requested that he not discuss any family related matters. If I hear on voice-mail him mention my extended family members I stop the play-back. And I've not done it yet but if needed create a separate email folder to route his messages to so I can review them at my leisure.
- send b-day cards and simple Christmas gifts to nieces/nephews, but discontinue anything sent to the adults.
This approach only works if my family's N-dysfunction doesn't get under my wife's skin given her 'filtering' role of the letters/phone calls, and so far so good -- she doesn't have the same buttons to push that I do. Though at the first sign that she is getting emotionally jack-knifed by this process we'll try something else (she goes to therapy herself, so in addition to she and I checking in about how she is feeling about this role, she has someone else who is keeping an eye out). The upside to this approach, according to my wife, is that she gets to see greater evidence of how screwed up my N-mother is: she is lagging me a little in terms of how we regard extent of my N-mother's problem and the benefit/need to disengage. It's too early to tell if this will work, but it feels much better to be pursuing my own interests on my own terms. My family's manipulations are relatively harmless, with distance and lack of communication...not all these situations are this easy to disengage from...but we'll drop these folks entirely if any evidence of them using even the nominal communication with our kids to weave their manipulative web.
I would add that the decision to cut off your family will likely be uniquely personal, and not something that can be digested simply by seeing what/how other people have done it, or recommend that it be done. But chalk me up as an initial skeptic (of the cutting-off option) who has come around to that conclusion.
Hang in there and trust yourself to find the right path.
BG
