I hate my sister and her husband. I've blocked their numbers. We don't talk much though. My parents are fine for the most part. All of us meet up during the holidays and every time is miserable for me. I've decided not to put up with it anymore. I just don't know how to go about doing it.
Do you live in the same town?
I did the same thing to my sister, but it was slightly easier because I lived in a different state than she did. I admit it was difficult to some extent in the beginning for me emotionally, but I held my ground and didn't communicate with her, even though there were times when I would feel like I was going to give in and try to reconnect with her.
But I knew if I did, it was just going to be the same old thing and she was going to begin treating me like crap again. I completely cut her off. There were no phone calls, no emails, no letters, no nothing.
I actually went through a period of mourning.
I had to come to terms with the fact that I would never have the type of relationship with her that I wanted.
In the end, I think it worked out better for me because my life became much more peaceful once she was no longer in it. And 16 years later, when she actually died, I wasn't really affected by it because I had already more or less "killed her off and mourned her death" in my mind, so to me she had already been dead for 16 years. People asked me if I was sorry that I did it after she died, and I have to say I'm not sorry at all. I gave her every chance to treat me like a human being and she refused to. Not only did she treat me like crap, but she taught her husband, her kids, and later her grandkids, to all treat me like I was nothing more than a human ATM machine. The only time I ever heard from her or anyone in her family was when they wanted money from me or they wanted me to do something for them or buy something for them.
Of course, this would be a lot harder to do if you all live in the same town and you have to see them all the time in person. I was lucky because we lived in different states so I never had to see her after I cut her off. Also, when I first cut her off, I had two or three members of my family that left angry emails and I got a couple of angry phone calls from various family members wondering why I was "treating her so badly". They never gave a shit when she was treating me badly! It only ever went one way in my family. They could all treat me as much like crap as they wanted to and I was just supposed to sit there and take it. The minute I would fight back, they would all call me up and complain about how I was mistreating them. You just have to either be strong enough to ignore them, or if you're lucky enough to not live near them, you can just not answer the phone. It also helps if you have anyone else around you who supports you while you're doing it. They were times when different relatives would call me and I would have my husband speak to them and then just not tell me what they said.
It's not always easy, but it can be done.
I wish you luck.
