family rifts, crazy behaviour from adult children

dr phil always urges people to try to get on, that you never know when somene is suddenly out of your life forever and you dont have another chance to fix things up and you feel really stupid for not getting on. He urges poeple to talk about things that wont inflame the situation and try to get on , be gracious to each other.

i had a tough year mostly full of challenges that various of my children had, but in general we all got on and helped each other through so much. that should be a wonderful thing to focus on except that currently its all gone haywire.


one family member had a crisis which caused larger problems and rifts and people blaming each other or feeling blamed where they actually werent being and instead of everyone talking, learning and moving forward , 2 members of my family have started causing rifts even doing crazier things when we all just need to calm down and recover.

a bit of a conversation, or time out, or ignoring some things keep families working but not everyone seems to be mature enough to take those options and its so draining, time consuming, frustrating when they choose crazier unnecesary options instead.

i wish 2 of my adult children could just practice skills taht make families work and get on

-egtake time out

-ignore things

-calm down

-focus on the good

-get counselling on their own or together

-talk calmly, even a few times, resolve things, sometimes they are resolved so easily with a bit of talking

- make positive things bigger and negative things smaller rather than inflaming anything possible,

instead of going crazy things or creating rifts or doing really crazy crazy things.

how many other poeple i wonder are actually happy when there are rifts with others as it is one way of getting some peace from them. rifts are painful but they give us some peace aswell.

Xennias post of what we put up with is sometimes not so clear cut
of where we forgive, get counselling maybe together, make allowances, take breaks, reconnect, or simply cut off forever.

I seem to be the only sane calming voice in my family. Others at present are happy to inflame things fast or make rifts when simple skills like conversing could clear many things, and i'm sick of it.


i beleive my kids have seen that i am an easy target to abuse or use as a scapegoat or behave crazily to, because there is no other sane adult calming voice with a backbone in my family saying ' hey what are you doing, stop that!" so they've learnt they can get away with absolutely crazy behaviour towards me that they would never ever do to anyone else, especially if anyone had done so much for them as i have or even a hundredth of what i've done to get them through daily life or bigger challenges.

I have been through alot without having people there for me, so i really try to understand and help others tht they dont feel alone, especially if i have the lifeexperience to easily help them and they are hardworkers themself in their lives. I dont think people need to feel always alone. people do better when tehy have supportive friends and family, a listening ear, a bit of understanding or affirming is all so energising.

this year things went well and we could have felt ' who needs friends when we get on so well and enjoy being with many members or our family'

but currently i feel the opposite of ' who needs enemies when you have family like that'

How i feel at the moment I dont think i want to reconnect w it a couple of my adult children when they decide to grow up ,calm down and want me around in their life again. I will go to all extremes for them when they need it so many times and then when they are troubled at the slightest thing i'll ge t kicked in the face big time.

i'm sick of their dramas, immaturity instead of simple chats to clear things up when things arise.
Why do adult kids reserve this special kind of idiotic dramatic totally crazy behaviour only for their parents?

I can enjoy this break now while they are troubled
and then after either

forgive them, realise they were very troubled and make allowances,
but get counselling so i dont keep getting used abused then kicked in the face at the slightest thing
so that they try simple conversations instead of doing idiotic things, often thigns can be resolved so easily but they cant be if people dont even bother talking and then wonder why they arent resolved,

i may find other things to fill up my life with after 3 decades of being devoted to my family, and stay out of their lifes for alot longer than what they would have ever liked, because i'm sick of being used and abused and kicked in the face by troubled adult kids.

though if i dont reconnect with one of them it means i dont get to see my grandchild.

i also find it hard that some traumas you can tell others about eg my friend was diagnosed with cancer or had a heart attack, but you cant very well say,, well i'm having a hard day because my family are fighting each other instead of just conversing and resolving simple things,.


I'm sick of being the calm ,forgiving, understanding, supportive, giving one, surrounded by toxic hotheaded immature troubled ones. and yet it seems a reality. pity after quite a good year, full of challenges, not mine but ones we all helped each other with whoever was going through a hard time, but its gone sour currently. time for other interests.



Francine.
 
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i live in a different country from my family and see them once a year (maybe twice) for a huge get together with lots of love and sharing.

although i do miss them like heck - i am sure we'd drive each other insane if we all lived in close proximity as the personalities, priorties and values are just too different.

perhaps you need to "force" some time out thru circumstances.
 
We've hardly seen my partner's mother (which has been fine as usually we come back going "argh, why did we visit?") recently. We are visiting Adelaide less and less as this town sprouts more infrastructure and businesses and the last time we came down - with lots of advance warning and our last visit for the year - they were on holidays for the weekend. Each to their own I suppose, just seems hypocritical that we were hassled so much for grandkids and now she's got two of em, one (ours) gets pretty much ignored. We've had this house for over a year and they've never seen it and only get the occasional cursory "so how's your unit?" (its a house on 1400sqm, hardly a unit), and they only saw our old house in late 2007 when the entire place was in disarray because we'd just been flooded and had all the furniture stacked up or with blocks under it and the floors bare with the sodden carpet out the back. So they probably think we live in a hovel based on that one impression.

So we are ending up visiting my parents and my partner's father instead, and they have visited us a few times as well. You usually come away from visiting those either neutral or better for it, which is much nicer. We live around 200km from both sets of parents, and for the Adelaide set you have to drive past a LOT of wineries and restaurants to get to us so there's other things to see and buy on the way.
 
My inlaws are 16000kms away.
We will not live close to them when we return to Australia to live.We enjoy seing them, but they have their lives and we have ours.Short visits are always best.
My mom and brothers live about 10 minutes away. I hardly ever see them. My mom's health is deteriorating, and she is almost 80. My older brother lives across the hall from her apartment.I am just so thankful he is taking on this responsibility. After raising 4 children, I don't want to.
My eldest brother and I had a falling out about 10 years ago.Unless it is a funeral we never see each other. He is estranged from my mom and brother.I know he loves me, and the fact we don't have a ongoing relationship doesn't change that.We know it is probably better to leave things the way they are.

So, in our family, having distance is good.
I look at my children, and know eventually their relationships will fade with each other.I feel bad about that. However, I think that is better than constant bickering.

You look at other people's families, and they seem to get along so well.Then you hear them saying they smallest things, and you realize there is still alot of politics in that family. Everyone has a role to play.
 
Hello

Hi
sometimes in life I have found that the answer lies within us. The world around us is something that goes on and on.

Opening our hearts to allow true compassion and seeing everyone in our own light, I felt brings a tremendous amount of patience to deal with any happenings.
Its not easy but when the moment occurs, you pinch yourself and say "wow".
Its magical, you loose all expectations, preconceived notions and surrender to the cosmic divine.......and then things start falling in place

The strength of this centredness also opens you the idea of leading life on your terms without having a constant worry of pleasing everyone and fixing everything. There is a meaning to all events, and most often we do not want to see it.

Hope this helps

Cheers:)
 
Hi Francine

I know a family with very similar issues to what you are talking about here - blow ups over the smallest things, irrational behaviour, walking on eggshells the whole time etc, particularly with one family member. For about twenty years from mid teens for one of the sons this went on and the parents were wondering if common sense would ever prevail.

Turns out he had undiagnosed and mild form of bipolar all this time - with medication he is fine and almost a different person. Stopped smoking and drinking (both were self medication) and got his life back on the rails and healed the rifts with the others. Biggest problem is keeping him on the medication now because he doesn't think he needs it and I reckon he misses the "high" from being manic - it must be rather addictive.

Of course none of this may be relevant for you but it could be worth a thought - part of the reason this went on for so long was that the parents didn't want to countenance the possibility that a mental illness could be the problem.

Good luck with it!
 
Francine, if my mother was a member of this forum, I would have sworn she wrote that message! Your story sounds identical to what she's going through with my brother and sister.

I'm the perfect angel child. :D
 
wow thanks. thats what i needed to hear that my family werent the only crazy ones.

I did have lizzie and rumpled elf have a good answer live far away

hi equity - well we had one of those too but he is the best one at the moment alls good after years of challenges.

Look none of them are bad kids like some you get . but they are ruining my health with their behaviour at present. As i said we had quite a good year with working together well during many challenges.

This has brought me down alot.

pais nail what you write is very sublime and i'd love to know more .i have tried many types of attitudes, philopsohies techniques and staying calm and centred.

The meaning i can see in all this is that one year ago someone told me to step back for my own health from my kids dramas and i should have rather than given so much only to be kicked in the face.

the other meaning i can see is that raising kids did consume me for 3 decades and i need to nurture other areas and not be so drained by such heavy caretaking of dramatic children.

and like the first meaning, i am getting a chance to focus on other things even if its not the way i wanted it to happen.

but the compassion i have had endlessly is what has led me to forgive them too fast and then be open to be used as a punching bag too fast.

Paisnel i definitely would like to know more please.


its the best child who is the worst at present. i hear from others she felt blamed for something, which all it needed was a chat not a whole lot of crazy actions, to fix that.

Francine.
 
I did have lizzie and rumpled elf have a good answer live far away
Believe me, 200km isn't far (remember the speed limit is largely 100 on the highway) if the people who could visit are oldies with a penchant for upmarket tourist stuff and you live at the north end of an upmarket tourist stretch. Its not like we are forcing them to drive 400km through the desert with nothing to look at on the way.

Check out the Clare Valley in SA in Google. The drive alone is worth it just for the scenery, it is like one picture perfect quaint olde English village full of craft shops and overpriced antique stores after another for most of the way between wineries - and there are a LOT of wineries. The place is packed on weekends.

Not so pretty the 40km or so north of the wineries, we had a tornado through a few weeks back and there's quite a few houses with big tarpaulins for rooves while the insurance companies do their thing. Missed us by about 2km, apparently ...
 
You Victorians have too many towns too, all too close together. You should put in a petition to move them further apart. Borrow some of NSW if you have to.

And where's your long stretches of 110 zone with one cop per 5 towns so the hoons can just zoom along at 160? Pft.
 
Believe me, 200km isn't far


Hi Ms wrinkly small green person with pointy ears....


Having met your in-laws, they are extremely nice people. Salt of the earth good community members. The mother Jean was a very nice lady indeed.


Maybe you are the problem ??
 
Mmmmmmm you must be mixing up inlaws. Salt of the earth might refer to the industrial chemist, though, she works at a soda plant ... that's a salt isn't it?
 
we all have tiffs with our relo's from time to time , but blood lines are forever , know the difference, and learn to forgive or forget silly little arguments,
But outlaws are a different game all together, ;)
 
I kind of like the step-mother-in-law. She's very practical. When she's not doing the salt thing she's a financial planner with a few IPs, and her kids are about the same age as mine. She is, slightly disturbingly, reasonably close to my age too. Its kind of like a one-person real-life Somersoft, actually ...
 
I kind of like the step-mother-in-law. She's very practical. When she's not doing the salt thing she's a financial planner with a few IPs, and her kids are about the same age as mine. She is, slightly disturbingly, reasonably close to my age too. Its kind of like a one-person real-life Somersoft, actually ...

that would be one thing off my wish list if it were me , :)
 
i like what craig wrote to just forgive and forget relatives tiffs, and thats exactly what i wish was ahppening but they seem to love making enormous dramas instead. I need a break from some.
 
my brothers are the same , as people mature at different times, but i told them if they dont sort it (even if they admitt mistake)i will bash em both , we do that with little brothers , bothe over 30, lol ;)
 
thanks for that. well what bothers me is that i dont have someone with a backbone like you who speaks up and says' this is crazy stop it"

in fact i have a hot headed relative who seems to love me being tortured and is egging it on and inflaming the craziness instead of being a wise calming influence.

i've been told this 3 years ago and i've been told it again now

that some people just dont know how to appreciate a good thing

they use me as a scapegoat when they can

and that i have to build am imagernary wall around me and let it all bounce off and not let myself be effected by the fact that they are so troubled.

and i need to put more into caring for myself after exhausting myself to the bone with deacdes of giving in such extremes to so many
to kids who at times deserve it and at other times kick me in the face

its all such a shame as we had a good year with all working together and enjoying each other but at the moment its fallen apart and had a negative domino effect. 2 are being nasty when i do not deserve that at all, they are just very troubled. so i'll focus on this wall and letting it all bounce off and trying not to let it bother me. hope i'll be successful alot of the time.

on today tonight or aca they showed a family who had members come forward to give one member 3 kidney transplants to help her health, and my family are currently trying to torture meand ruin my health instead . its sad. i hope it straightens itself out sooner rather than later but meanwhile i have to find other ways to keep my centre and find joy and protect myself from troubled people and not let them into my life so easily again once they are less troubled.

Francine.
 
Francine, will swap you mine for yours, except my sister. You will then know how lucky you are.

Went from Vic to the NT to get away and that wasn't far enough, so took off over seas to the last country they would want to live in.
 
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