Is it ever okay to divorce a family member–a mother, father, brother sister, or your cousin, aunt and uncles– or even your child?
Yes.
Is this an action to be taken lightly, as an act of revenge or petulance?
No.
Some Vocabulary
I believe that sometimes the healthiest option for all concerned is to fire or divorce a family member. To do this, it helps to understand why it can be so difficult and why normal methods of talking and compromising don’t work.
Divorcing or firing a family member is a radical solution and should not be done out of anger. But I believe our first commitment is to love ourselves well, so that we can love others well, and love the world well. We cannot love ourselves well or anyone else well if we’re constantly being abused psychologically, physically, or spiritually.
Each of us is like a lovely, unique flower. If we got planted at birth next to a fountain of acid, we will never grow well. We get to replant ourselves into soil that nourishes us, and to the kind of sunlight that makes us grow healthy and strong. Some people are committed to their pathology, bless their hearts. But we can choose whether or not we want to continue to be the object of their pathology.
If you choose to fire or divorce a family member, you can count on being judged and misunderstood, but I can promise you you’re going to feel a surge of energy, relief, and even a giddiness at the new world you have created. “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God I’m free at last!” will about sum it up.
To paraphrase Marianne Williamson, “There is nothing enlightened about shrinking under someone else’s ridicule, shaming, bullying or any other form of abuse. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. You’re taking a stand for your being Sacred Space is the best way you can serve the world.”
So, how do you tell if a family member needs to get fired or divorced?
Apples versus Onions
Most people are Apples. They have a core. When you ask them, “How do you think that makes Sally feel?” they go inside themselves, find their empathy, and connect to the human condition. They feel bad for what they have done and want to do what they can to make things right. They have a conscience.
A few people are Onions. They have no center. How other people feel is irrelevant to them. They are narcissists or sociopaths–other people are characters in their Life Drama in which they are the Star. They care about pain all right–their pain. Their pain is very real and very important. Your pain, on the other hand, is at most an irritation, an irrelevancy. They have no sense of shame, no conscience.
Onions usually do not change no matter what kind of help they get. I am always open to the possibility of healing, but to hope for healing in these people instead of protecting yourself from them will keep you in harm’s way, for a lifetime if you allow it.
Borderline Personality Disorder
People who are dealing with Borderline Personality disorder, mostly women, are suffering from a black hole of need in their belly. Nothing is ever enough. If you buy them a nice set of dishes for Christmas, it’s the wrong kind of set of dishes–the wrong color, the wrong style, from the wrong company. Your present, intended to make them feel loved or cared for, actually proves to them that they are unloved. You have failed them again.
But you will always fail them. You can never win. You can accommodate, which only makes them worse, only kindles their voracious need. But you cannot heal them by pouring your life energy into their black hole. They will only get angrier at your failure to heal their wound.
It is always everyone else’s fault, never the fault of the person suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. They always look outward at the cause of their suffering, never inward. They throw temper tantrums and make scenes and expect the world to cater to their demands. They can be enormously charming, though, so they get away with it.
People are either wonderful or despicable to someone suffering from this disorder. You can go from being wonderful to being despicable in a heartbeat. We can be with someone who is suffering from a borderline personality disorder and they will feel mistreated by a clerk, a nurse, a gas pump attendant, and suddenly you will be embroiled in a self-righteous screaming display.
Most professional therapists will only take on one client who is suffering from Borderline Personality disorder because they are energy vampires. I know this sounds very harsh and it is, but this is why Energy Vampires get away with sucking the life and confidence out of those they are around. We have to get very fierce indeed to take a stand for our right to be treated as Sacred Space at all times.
I don’t think anyone wakes up, looks in the mirror, and says, “Today I will be an Energy Vampire.” But that is what they do and you have a right to not play with them anymore, whether they are a family member or not –especially if they are a family member.
Vicki’s Rules for Protecting Your Sacred Space
#1 If your Sacred Space, your sacred emotional, physical, or spiritual space, is continually violated, even though you have made numerous requests for better treatment, you get to fire this family member. In fact, if you let people practice being abusive and if you let yourself practice being abused, you are doing no one a good turn. What you do matters, and you’re always doing something. If you’re allowing the abuse, you are taking energy away from love, compassion, forgiveness, and appreciation. These latter feelings are what change the world for the better.
#2 If you feel contracted, belittled, anxious, or insecure around someone, you have the right to take yourself out of that situation and consider what action would be best for you to take to protect your Sacred Space.
#3 You do not have to go to anybody’s birthday party, anybody’s wedding, any holiday meal, on any family reunion, or on any vacation just because the people who invited you are family members. You get to choose whether you want to go or not. You get to tell the truth. You get to say: “Right now the best thing I can do for myself is stay home. I wish you all well. Tell me how it all went when it’s over.”
#4 You don’t have to be clear about why you want to go or why you don’t want to go. You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone. You just get to say “no” period to people who want to bully you into an explanation, or people you get to decide you don’t want to hang around with anymore.
#5 You get to grow up. You get to change. The labels put on you when you’re a child get to be removed. You get to decide whether something is funny or not. The joke is only a joke if no one has to pay for it. If you’re paying for someone else’s joke, it is a thinly disguised act of aggression.
#6 If you feel you have to walk on eggshells around someone, something is terribly wrong. If you are dealing with an Apple, you can tell them, “I’m feeling like I have to walk on eggshells around you.” An Apple will say, “Really? I don’t want you to feel like that! Tell me more.” Someone with borderline personality disorder will probably start screaming at you. Then you’ll know what you are dealing with and you can make choices to protect your Sacred Space.
This is tricky stuff. I have not begun to cover this subject adequately in this article, but I do want to help you entertain the idea that just because someone is a family member doesn’t mean they have a green light to come in and tromp all over your self-esteem, your dreams, and your divinity.
Should I do a teleseminar on this subject? E-mail me and let me know. vicki@outrageousvisions.com
Firing or divorcing some of my family was the hardest and wisest thing I have ever done. I do not regret it for a moment, though sometimes I know I have been judged and misunderstood. Oh, well.
Blessings to you and those you love, whether they love you back well or not,