5 Ways To Deal With Your Asshole Family

Posted by fxckfeelings on July 6, 2020

If, like our reader from earlier, your Asshole family is wearing you down, there are ways to keep your anger at bay that don’t involve drugs, lobotomy or mass murder. So here are five ways to deal with your Asshole family. You can’t get rid of their DNA, but you can stop their dumb bullshit from taking over your life.

1)Forget Fair

If you haven’t come to terms with this fact already, it’s time to accept that your family will never play by the same rules the rest of us not-awful people do. They will bully you according to their needs, ignore usual rules of behavior, and try to turn other family members against you when they decide it’s your turn to be a pariah. As you’ve likely experienced an infinite number of times, protesting will target you for punishment and make you feel even more outraged about their unfairness, even though they have no understanding of fairness in the first place. Yes, you should still try to treat others fairly, but expecting fair enforcement of rules with these people will just exhaust you and make their behavior even worse.

2) Build Boundaries

It’s natural to want or enjoy love and affection from your family—that’s what families are supposedly for—but if you need love or anything else from an Asshole there are always strings attached, regardless of family ties. Maybe, in exchange for their kindness or basic humanity, a family member will expect you to listen to their complaints, side with them against someone else, or generally get involved with the family drama you’ve tried so hard to avoid. So learn to keep your needs to yourself or know exactly what kind of quid pro quo they have in mind before you engage.

3) It’s Pushy, Not Personal

Assholes can’t help blaming others for the hurt in their lives, regardless of actual facts, so it’s hard not to feel a little bit guilty when that blame comes your way. If you notice what they say about other people, however, you’ll see they do the same thing to everyone. So, while the criticism may feel personal, especially after hearing it for so many years, remember that their shit-list is long and all-inclusive. It has nothing to do with you and what you’ve done and everything to do with who they are.

4) Get Selective With Guilt

Remember, it’s easy to feel guilty, even when someone isn’t trying to make you feel that way. And Assholes are especially good at making you feel responsible for their feelings because they truly believe you’re the reason they’re unhappy, even if you aren’t. So no matter how insistent they are or how persistent your guilty thoughts, push yourself to think hard about whether you’ve done actually anything wrong. In the end, you’ll build up the ability to fight unnecessary guilty feelings, whether Assholes have induced them or not, and trust your own judgment before guilt gets you in its clutches.

5) Family is Figurative

If the people you’re bound to by blood are boundlessly awful, then you can make a better family of your own. This doesn’t just mean marriage and kids, but finding good, caring people who are fun to be with, trustworthy, sane and reliable. Beware of people who immediately try to get too close and have an immediate effect on you, because they’ll turn out to be exactly like the family members you’re trying to get away from. Find people to get close to who don’t partake of the usual family pastimes, like complaining, blaming, using and scapegoating. If the family you were given rejects you, make one that accepts you instead.