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Oh, I completely agree with you on this. Why is it that out of seven siblings my sister is the only one who turned out that way? And she found a partner who was exactly the same!
Are they born without a conscience?
Are they made that way in the womb?
I just don’t get it! All of the stories on here leads me to believe that it has to be some kind of illness.
How is a person happy living this way?
Read the book
“The Sociopath Next Door”
You may be surprised. It described one of my in laws to the T
Interesting reading.
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Last night, contemplating whether to post on this thread about my own considerable family insanity, a little grace came my way. This winter, while celebrating my deceased mom’s 100th birthday on line, a fact was brought up by one of mine, that while unflattering, had been confessed by my mom, and added humor to the discussion. Some expressed appreciation for the comment. My sister afterwards stated that she wanted nothing to do with me or my immediate family for the rest of her life. Whatever. The drama never ends in her direction. Always tenuous, sister’s mental health has been in recent decline and she has made similar past declarations, if more quickly resolved. At first I was fine, no more crazy discussions, and mental gymnastics in her direction, and I have trained myself to not be upset by her chosen and endless dramas. But I started to miss her, and contemplate this loss, given the other thread. It has been a number of months. She is the only person from my family of origin left in N America and when on an upswing, she can be a delight. So she called, out of the blue last night and I was genuinely thrilled for the contact, and that she feels able to be in communication again. A med change and some therapeutic insight helped. It may not last, but will take what is offered.
I was thinking that we live for these moments of grace and acceptance, when family relations go right, jokes are shared as well as sometimes ritual and a deep sense of history. There may be many trials in between those moments of grace, but those great moments hopefully balance the harder and hurtful times.
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This is scarily similar to my story. With the same outcome. It started when the then GF (now SIL) stole money and prescription drugs from our parents whenever she and my brother visited them. Brother was shocked at our visceral reaction. Furious that we would make such a big deal about it and not accept her with welcome arms into our small close knit family. Admittedly he’d been catered to most of his life and had a victim mentality. I had very young children at the time and was seriously scared some drug dealer was going to come rob my house.
At first I was mad at her and felt she was the villain. But after 10 years I don’t care about her and realize that he is really the problem.
The above was the final straw. After years of me jumping whenever he said to. Years of him not doing anything for anyone that didn’t also benefit him. No empathy. Never stepped up to help in a crisis. Walking all over our gullible parents. It drove my husband crazy at the time watching all this go on.
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Just a few comments if it helps anybody.
I know this appears as a total over reaction. And it is. To me. But I was floored by my normally sane sister’s reaction as to how much the appearance of our loved one made to her at the funeral.
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In this case my mother was criticizing not the funeral parlor’s work (which I know is important to make the person look ok), but something stupid like the shoes or dress on the body. However, my mother already had that covered with all her funeral clothing (including footwear) all put aside in her closet and labelled. So it was not only overreaction, but needless as everybody knew (my father, myself, my sister, etc.) she had that all prepared.
Thank you everyone! This has been cathartic, to say the least.
I know that I really appreciate the raw openness and frankness in the sharing of these incredulous family histories.
I thank you all because I thought that it only happened to our family because we somehow deserved it?. It just confirms that no matter how hard we try, there will always be family who take advantage of others and feel no shame, guilt nor stigma. All we can do is hope that we live our lives according to what is just, fair, good, decent and that we treat others with mutual respect.
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I deleted what I’d posted about my family, but I’ll share about H’s family. FIL died years ago, so it’s just MIL. She favors two children and their children, including in her will (as far as we know…she’s said some things).
Two sibs aren’t speaking to each other, and one sib’s wife came to blows with the other sib about 20 years ago. One time MIL called us to try to find out what was happening, when a Christmas present was mailed back to one of them. We really had no idea, as we weren’t involved.
But, oh, MIL loves to be made a fuss over. She has a milestone birthday this summer, and so all will be together. Family Harmony Theatre will be on full display to make MIL happy. As for me, I’m probably not even going to go, so i will miss all of it. But one of my sils will fill me in.
I’m sure I would be challenged if I mask indoors. And one sib (the most-favored one) always invites a bunch of hangers-on from her dil’s family with their dogs. All told, there will be 5 or 6 big dogs running around. They are allowed inside and sit on the furniture, apparently, leaving some humans to have to stand. I don’t like dogs, so all in all there will be just too much stress for me. And I figure at my age I don’t have to do things to make other people happy, especially when it’s not even my own family.
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One brother is an alcoholic and his disease and his desire to hide it have created pain and chaos in our lives. The other brother cut him off. I keep him at arm’s length but cannot bear to cut off all contact. My dad, who I expected to be more judgmental, also maintains communication.
This is from a fairly famous reddit post which describes so many families.
Thought it was worth the repost.
Don’t rock the boat.
I’ve been thinking about this phrase a lot lately, about how unfair it is. Because we aren’t the ones rocking the boat. It’s the crazy lady jumping up and down and running side to side. Not the one sitting in the corner quietly not giving a ■■■■.
At some point in her youth, Mum/MIL gave the boat a little nudge. And look how everyone jumped to steady the boat! So she does it again, and again. Soon her family is in the habit of swaying to counteract the crazy. She moves left, they move right, balance is restored (temporarily). Life goes on. People move on to boats of their own.
The boat-rocker can’t survive in a boat by herself. She’s never had to face the consequences of her rocking. She’ll tip over. So she finds an enabler: someone so proud of his boat-steadying skills that he secretly (or not so secretly) lives for the rocking.
The boat-rocker escalates. The boat-steadier can’t manage alone, but can’t let the boat tip. After all, he’s the best boat-steadier ever, and that can’t be true if his boat capsizes, so therefore his boat can’t capsize. How can they fix the situation?
Ballast!
And the next generation of boat-steadiers is born.
A born boat-steadier doesn’t know what solid ground feels like. He’s so used to the constant swaying that anything else feels wrong and he’ll fall over. There’s a good chance the boat-rocker never taught him to swim either. He’ll jump at the slightest twitch like his life depends on it, because it did .
When you’re in their boat, you’re expected to help steady it. When you decline, the other boat-steadiers get resentful. Look at you, just sitting there while they do all the work! They don’t see that you aren’t the one making the boat rock. They might not even see the life rafts available for them to get out. All they know is that the boat can’t be allowed to tip, and you’re not helping.
Now you and your DH get a boat of your own. With him not there, the balance of the boat changes. The remaining boat-steadiers have to work even harder.
While a rocking boat is most concerning to those inside, it does cause ripples. The nearby boats start to worry. They’re getting splashed! Somebody do something!
So the flying monkeys are dispatched. Can’t you and DH see how much better it is for everyone (else) if you just get back on the boat and keep it steady? It would make their lives so much easier.
You know what would be easier? If they all just chucked the ■■■■■ overboard.
Thank you for letting me ramble. Thanks for the support, and advice, and humour. Thanks for just being here 
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There’s a newer book (2020) called Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door ( Stout) which is supposed to have advice on how to actually deal with such people (beyond avoiding them). I have not read it .
Just watched “The Shrink Next Door” on Apple and wondered if they took the name from her book since the sociopath in this case was the shrink. It’s a very interesting (and true) case. Watching the manipulation and how the therapist cuts the patient from his family and incorporates himself into his patient’s life was enlightening.
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Thanks. I will have to look up that one!
Our extended family has lots of issues, some of which would curl your hair. Some of the issues are petty, like UIL’s obsession with DH not wearing sneakers to his funeral (because of something DH did/did not do at a funeral when he was, like, 8 or 9 years old and didn’t know any better).
The other issues run the gamut. For example:
- My dad choosing to start dating my mom’s friend 3 months after my mom died from cancer. Tried to add Mom’s friend to his benefits at work as a domestic partner, got mad when HR told him no because the woman was still legally married to somebody else. He also tried to rewrite history and claimed that because Mom was too sick from weekly chemo & daily radiation treatments, the fact that she refused to have marital relations with him during that time meant that he was an abused spouse.
- In that same time frame, my dad removed my sister & I as legal & medical power of attorney in his estate documents because, as he put it to 1 of his friends at the time, he “didn’t trust us and thought we’d pull the plug too early.”
- for the last 2 yr of her life, my grandmother lived with my aunt in my grandma’s house. Aunt unwisely chose to quit her job when she couldn’t afford to and took care of Grandma full time to tend to all of her needs. There was no written or verbal agreement to any of this, by the way. Grandma passed away and then Aunt decided to sue Grandma’s estate for wages for all of the hours of effort she’d put in for the 2 years’ prior tending to Grandma’s needs. My mom was the executor of the estate and counter-sued Aunt (her sister), claiming that Aunt should have been paying rent to Grandma that whole time. It finally got settled in court…the estate was split down the middle 50/50 and the 2 of them never spoke to each other again.
- …until my mom died from cancer. A couple of months after that, my dad mailed a letter to Aunt (my mom’s sister) which was a letter that my mom had written prior to her death. It was a laundry list of all the reasons my mom hated Aunt and it ended with 'I hope you go to hell." I ripped my dad a new one for mailing it…he knew exactly what was in the letter. Pretty cowardly thing to do, if you ask me.
- my FIL was very abusive to his kids. The sort of abuse that sent him to weekend prison/jail (it was the 80s, prison sentences were really different then compared to now for this sort of thing) when he was caught and he had to register as an offender for the remainder of his natural life. Thankfully, he died 3 months before any of our kids were born…suddenly died in his sleep in the middle of the night for no particular reason. Thank the Lord. Am grateful every day that he’s no longer present on planet Earth.
- When SIL (my DH’s sister) married BIL, she never told BIL about the prior abuse from FIL. DH & I learned later on that she told BIL that it was my DH who’d abused her. I asked them, “Then how come you let your kids spend the night at our house before if you thought that my DH would do such things to little kids?” Oh…they thought it would be ok since I was going to be there. I told them at the time that such an excuse is THE dumbest thing I’d ever heard in a long time. And SIL looked like she wanted to be swallowed up by a big hole in the ground when I set the record straight and told BIL that it was FIL, NOT MY HUSBAND, who’d abused BIL’s wife for years when she was a kid.
- Couple of years ago, BIL started an affair w/woman across the street. Other Woman’s husband knows about it and is ok w/it (I’ve met them all, they’re really weird people). SIL asked BIL to stop. BIL said no, he has no intention of stopping, and has declared that they now have an ‘open’ marriage, despite SIL not being ok w/it. They’re still married, though…why? Because neither of them earns enough to be able to live on their own in the high cost of living part of the country where they live AND they’ve remortgaged their house a million times over (ironically, the house which used to belong to FIL, but SIL inherited when he suddenly kicked the bucket, and SIL owned it free & clear w/no mortgage at first).
- There’s also UIL, who’s favorite topic of discussion for 10 years has been all the different ways he thinks he’s doing to die.
- There’s my MIL, who got mad at my sister because my sister didn’t offer to bring my MIL w/her on a vacation 2 yr ago to Hawaii. MIL wanted my sister to offer to have her tag along and for my sister to also pay for everything. Same woman who also refuses to wear eye glasses because she thinks they make her look old…meanwhile, doesn’t think it makes her look old when she holds the menu right in front of her nose when we’re at a restaurant.
- 6 months after my dad mailed the “I hope you to go hell” letter to my aunt, he called her up out of the blue and “just wanted to talk” and didn’t understand why on earth Aunt wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him. Um…maybe it’s because of that letter you sent, Dad. Get a grip.
If, by now, you feel like you’ve watched a bad episode of Sally Jessie Rafael or Geraldo or Maury Povich, then you’re not wrong.
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Wow.
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So…how many of your family has “abandoned the boat”? I’m not a “no contact” advocate but I also don’t advocate going down with the ship. At some point you need to block the insanity and save yoursel
My MIL was one of these people who not only had “bad luck” but created her own turmoil and then blame it all on others. My FIL was actually a good person on his own but was a “boat steadier” to follow the analogy and basically sacrificed his family to the constant storm she caused. I think the only thing my H never forgave his dad for was not divorcing her to protect his family. His death made the final needed changes. The final outcome is that she is now basically “no/low contact” with all kids. The kids are supportive of one another. They watch out for her still with some financial help (although she doesn’t know details) and I know would figure something out in an emergency situation. Less than an ideal upbringing to be sure.
I still don’t understand her psyche. I know she had a hard upbringing herself and could be a very wonderful person one moment and then turn like a snake to bite you. Bitten once, twice shy.
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Almost everybody in our extended family either rocks the boat or is a boat steadier person. I’ve often frustrated all of them randomly over the years for my repeated refusal to participate in the game. It doesn’t prevent them from continuing to try. My DH is also a boat steadier person, especially with regards to his mother. But now that we don’t live 15 min from her, the larger distance has helped immensely with that.
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I have a boat rocker family member, in that, somehow, there is always hassle and drama, in the end, when they are involved. This is a kind, caring, compassionate, lovely, intelligent person, with whom one can have a fantastic discussion. A person who 90% of the time is great, but then, when that something happens, whatever it is, they bring drama upon everyone’s lives.
There is diagnosed mental illness, that likely has a big role in the misperceptions that are a catalyst for the drama. Also, the world view is askew.
After many years of being involved in week by week life, something transpired where I told my sister, that’s it, if the person decides this is the path to follow, I am done. Not emotional, not angry, just over it. I guess I got off the boat.
I am not good at gray areas, not good at editing what I share. Any time, in the decades since I got off the boat, that I let them back in, eventually, it would bring hassle to my life.
I love them, I care about them, I keep them at arm’s length, and more, because they don’t call people, they wait to be called & I don’t play that game any more.
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I got off the boat with my dad and sister once I realized we were on a boat they were rocking.
Eventually my dad came to shore with me. I guess only time will tell if my sister does.
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