by Jamye Waxman
After twenty-five years, I didn’t see or speak to her again until her final days on Earth when I called her from the opposite side of the world to wish her a bon voyage; there was nothing else to say but that I never stopped loving her.
When I lovingly fall deep into the innocent eyes of my infant daughter, I see the simple hopes and dreams I expected for myself as a child, and all I can wish for is to not screw her life up. I know that the break up with my mother was the best decision I ever made in my life, and not just for me but for this little girl. If I could walk away from that caustic relationship and heal, then perhaps maybe, just maybe my daughter will never feel the need to break up with me.” —Scott
Breaking Up with Secondary Attachments
Secondary attachments include siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Basically, these are people you aren’t or have never been financially or emotionally dependent on, but whom you still call “family.” Disconnection from these family members hurts because you still share memories, history, and experiences. Even distant relatives have a bond with us because we share a bloodline.
This shared history can help us grow closer as we get older, but it can also aid in creating distance. Especially when it comes to siblings or other family members we grew up with. These people have known us our whole lives, and any rivalries we had as children can be carried into our adult lives.
For example, an older sibling who beat up on her younger sister may always be seen as a bully, even after years of not bullying. It can also work this way with other negative personality traits like selfishness, bossiness, rebellion, anger, and deception. While these early personality traits often follow us into our later years, they aren’t usually our primary way of relating as we get older. Still, when it comes to secondary attachments, the perceptions people have about us, and the feelings they incite, can keep us stuck in roles that aren’t actually accurate any longer. It can be hard to repair the way we think, and a break up can help us reset the record playing over and over in our minds.
Fact: According to a TIME magazine article, 85 percent of adult Americans have at least one sibling, yet an estimated 3 to 10 percent have completely severed contact with them.5
Sometimes these relationships break up because we simply can’t outrun our history. My sister and I had that problem. We were both stuck in the roles we assumed around one another as children. I was the big, bullying older sister and she was the stop-bossing-me-around younger one. Our break up, turned break, happened at a big event—our grandmother’s funeral—at a time when my bossiness got the best of me.
When I tried to tell her I thought she should stay upstairs away from other people because she was sick, she said something obnoxious back to me. This brought on a short fight, the same fight we had had many times before. At the end of the three-minute altercation, I told her I didn’t want to do “this” anymore. By “this,” I meant get into big fights over little things.
Much to the chagrin of my parents and sister-in-law, it was the last time we spoke for over three months. She unfriended me on Facebook. But I knew that if we started talking again, it had to be different. My sister and I had gotten into this horribly ugly pattern of hating each other. She despised me for being a mean and selfish big sister, and I didn’t like that she was the spoiled younger one.
After the fight at my grandmother’s funeral, I began exploring what role I played in making her feel this way. I grew to understand that I wasn’t a great big sister. My thoughts were always about me, not her, and I didn’t care about fostering a relationship with her when we were younger.
It’s been over two years since our break, and that, along with the birth of my daughter, was the best thing for our relationship. In our time apart, I could see that I was selfish, mean, and hurtful. I was truly sorry for not loving my sister better when we were both children, and I was also upset that I didn’t change once I grew up and knew better. The break up gave us a chance to live in a world without one another and to see how we could shape a relationship that would work for the two of us. I don’t foresee another break in our relationship; in fact, she asked me to be the maid of honor at her wedding.
Secondary attachments can break up for any number of reasons, including times of stress or death. It can happen when relatives are trying to negotiate care of an elderly primary attachment or as they’re trying to figure out who gets what after they’re gone. A relative not liking a new spouse can also end a relationship. So can a big move or a disagreement around running the family business.
Real-Life Break Ups
“My sister never loved me in the way that you would think sibling love would be. We loved each other because we were supposed to, but she was always extremely jealous of me—her younger sister. I have since confirmed with relatives, including my dad before he died, that she just resents the fact that I was born. When we were children, she would do anything she could to hurt and humiliate me.
Our mother died when I was twenty. My sister had a very conflicting relationship with our mom. There wasn’t a lot of communication between us after that, except that every once in a while I would call her up and say, ‘We’re sisters. We’re family. We should at least speak on the phone occasionally.’ We’d go through phases where we would. She would basically talk about herself, and she would go to places where she was always manipulating the relationship.
She’d often call me in the morning even when she knew I’d been out all night. So, I said to her on the phone one day, ‘I’m really, really tired right now. Can I call you back later? I can’t talk.’ And that’s when she said to me that I was a perfect example of everything that she despised in the world. And that she wanted me to live the rest of my life as if I had no sister at all. If I tried to contact her, she said she would not respond. That was it. I remember the exact words.
I’d been through it before, so honestly I didn’t think that much of it. But something clicked in me. I didn’t call her back. I didn’t reach out. I didn’t speak with her for twenty years after that.
What I finally accepted is that my sister was never a sister to me. I think she does love me in the way that you can’t help but love someone who is your sister, but she’s always resented me. I should say fuck you to her, but I can’t. In the bigger picture, I know there is something horribly wrong with her, and I need to figure out at what point is she responsible for her actions?
I’m in therapy where I learned it’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to see her as a monster. I learned to stop expecting things from her. But there’s part of me that is that little girl and I really want her to love me and to be my friend. And I look at other families and sisters who are close and I don’t understand why mine is different.” —Amy
Options for Change
Whatever the reason, sometimes the best thing you can do for your family is take care of yourself. It may mean changing the relationship, taking a break, or breaking up. Still, it can be the greatest gift for everyone when one person has the insight and strength to walk away from a situation that isn’t serving anybody at all.
FAMILY RE-BONDING
When it comes to breaking up with the most important family members of your life, including those who gave you life, you want to be really careful with the what, how, and why. Sometimes what we think is wrong in the relationship is more about not getting our way than it is about our parent’s not getting it right. Only once you figure out what is really going on can you decide how to move on from a relationship that isn’t working for you.
Before you close the door, answer these three questions:
1.What is the value of having this person in my life?
2.How do I feel when I’m with them?
3.What would life look like without them?
Answering these questions can help you better understand what you have to lose or gain by ending or amending the relationship.
BE CLEAR AND CONCISE
While it’s easy to make a general statement, such as �
�You’re a shitty parent,” it’s not going to be helpful to you or your family member to start a conversation out that way. For starters, it’s not specific enough to make clear what it is about your primary attachment that upsets you. And it’s defensive, trying to attack your parent before giving them a chance to explain themselves.
Even if the “shitty parent” part is true, a shitty parent won’t actually be able to hear it in a productive way. Usually awful parents are awful parents for a reason. Whether they cover up their shitty with even more bad behavior (like alcohol, drugs, computer games, gambling, or being absent a lot of the time), they are wounded, damaged people who probably can’t handle such harsh accusations. If you can’t be gentle and non-critical, they won’t hear past what a bad person they are, and they won’t be able to move forward at all.
Explain to them why you feel how you feel. Give specific examples of actions that hurt you without anger or judgment. For example, “I’m having a hard time embracing you in my life because you spent so many hours at the bar when I was a child. It felt like you would rather be drinking than playing with me. I wanted you to play with me.” While they still may go to the “I’m a bad parent” place, providing reasons for your hurt will help them see specific actions they have used to cover up their own pain too.
Provide them with a short explanation of your needs too. Let them know if you need some space, and thank them for listening, even if you’re not sure they heard everything you said. Validating their participation in the conversation may help them understand this is a two-sided relationship, even if one side is calling the shots right now.
If you can do this face-to-face, great, but if that’s tough, then try a video chat. If that’s still too much, a letter is powerful too; even though it doesn’t allow for an in-the-moment interaction.
CREATE RULES
While it’s easy to say you’re not going to participate in this relationship anymore, this is your family you’re talking about. These people presumably love you as much, and sometimes more, than you love yourself.
If you want to continue working on the relationship you can write up an ultimatum in the form of a list. Clearly writing your desires down in the form of rules gives your family member one more chance to respect your boundaries. If they still can’t work with the list, then you have written proof as to why the relationship isn’t working.
The list should be rules for your interactions. Write everything down and read it through together. When you hand it to them, you can say something like, “I feel like our relationship continues to play out old patterns, and I want us to change some of those behaviors. I love you, and so I thought about ways we can do this. I made a list, and I’d like to share it with you and see what you think.”
Or shoot them an email. You can succinctly tell them you want to find a way to improve your relationship and then send them the list of your ideas. Keep the list simple. You don’t want to share fifty things your dad has to do in order to stay on your good side, but you want to make sure that it’s detailed enough to highlight the changes you need to see. An example of this list might look like this:
1.Treat each other the way you’d want to be treated.
2.No yelling or screaming.
3.If a situation makes you want to yell or scream, leave until you can control your emotions and talk in a calm, cordial manner.
4.No more name-calling.
5.Offer advice only when asked.
6.Only call each other once a day—max.
7.If one of these rules is broken once, it heeds a warning. If it’s broken again, we take a weeklong break. If it’s broken a third time, we discuss going to therapy.
You can’t change other people, but if you can stick to the changes you create, it’s easier for others to want to stick to the changes too. And if this doesn’t work, you can always go for the break up.
SEEK COUNSELING
You may not want to make a list or talk about your feelings one-on-one, so instead a mediator could help you through the make up or break up process. Therapists stay in business thanks to the fact that we are raised in families that operate with some level of dysfunction. All families do. It’s a luxury in Western culture that we pay someone to listen to our issues with parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, or anyone else.
That being said, it’s important to feel supported by people during a hard time. While friends, your spouse, or other family members may be extremely helpful, going to therapy could help even more. The best option is to go with your family member, as long as they are willing to talk about the situation with an outside person. A therapist, or mediator, can help without either family member feeling judged. He or she can also help you see both sides of your situation and find a place where you can both feel heard and happy.
Therapy is a good option for moving in the right direction. And if you’re already in individual therapy and want to continue along that route, try asking your family member to agree to their own personal therapy too. This way you are both working on the situation in your own space and time.
Deciding to Break Up
Just like breaking up with your friends, there are different ways you can end the relationship with your primary and secondary attachment figures. You can meet face-to-face, do it by video chat or phone, send a letter or email, begin fading out of each other’s lives, or disappear.
As always, face-to-face is the best option whenever it’s emotionally and physically possible. After all, this is your family, and they do deserve to hear what you have to say to them and to see you to say good-bye. If you can’t do it because of distance, then a video chat is another face-to-face option.
Sure, meeting in person may hurt a lot, but in that hurt and sadness, you will find more closure than with any other option. Of course, face-to-face comes with the pitfalls of having to deal with both sides of the issue and the possibility of a fight instead of a conversation, which then brings up the conundrum of trying to get your point across without getting defensive or frustrated.
A gentle approach is the best approach you can take with anyone you’re breaking up with, especially a family member. It helps primary or secondary attachments to feel less defensive, and it may allow them to hear what you’re saying, especially a parent. “For a parent, hearing that they made mistakes is very hard—no matter the person,” explains Dr. Coleman. “Most parents take the job quite seriously, and even if they did a really poor job, their perception of themselves as parents will still be very central to their self-esteem and identity.”
Start with the good and work your way to the bad. Tell your parent, for example, what you liked about their parenting. Tell your sibling what you enjoyed about being their sister. Share a good time you had with a cousin. This way, they don’t assume the goal is to bring them down. Then, let them know, in no uncertain terms, that you’re ending this relationship.
Avoid shame and humiliation. Don’t character assassinate. Instead of saying “You were . . .” say, “I didn’t get/feel . . .” or “I needed . . .” Or try “There are ways I felt . . .”
Say your piece, and say good-bye.
If confronting a family member brings up all sorts of angst and other issues, you can write your feelings down in a letter or an email. Make sure to explain your emotions and tell them how and where you think things went wrong. If it’s a lifetime of wrong, make sure you let them know how you feel about how the relationship has evolved. Write down details of what you perceive as flaws, but again, find a way to do this that won’t make them feel like they are all evil and you are all good.
When it comes to writing letters, it’s not always easy to make sure your words have been received (both on a physical level and an emotional one). You may want to send the letter both in electronic form and written form, upping the odds of successful delivery. If you have the option of read receipt, like delivery confirmation, you can use that too.
Real-Life Break Ups
“I wish I had been able to do the
cold turkey thing with my dad because from the outside it looks easier. And it feels easier than struggling back and forth between knowing what is the right thing to do. But I also know that if you can shut somebody off like that, what else are you shutting off? You probably never dealt with why you shut the person off. And when you’re done, you don’t have to think about it again. Where I’m probably spending too much time thinking about it. I’d like to be somewhere in between. God knows what you can accomplish in therapy.” —Tracie
Dealing with the Rest of Your Family
The other members of your family may not understand your decision to end things with the other relative. Or they may totally get it, having had similar experiences to you, but they may not be ready or have the drive or desire to completely end their relationship with your parent, uncle, or cousin. (On the flip side, your break up could be impetus for their break up too.)
Your family members may feel annoyed by your break up, whether because you upset the familial balance or because they now have to deal with the relative in question to help them get through this ending. A family member may go to extremes to let you know just how much your break up has hurt the family unit. They may pester you to make things work or cut you off so they can prove to you that you can be hurt too. They may deliver messages from the broken up relative or bug you with calls and texts. They could post happy family photos on social media (or send them via email) so you can see what you’re missing out on. The best option is to block them from your news feed or ignore their emails, if this happens.
You may get criticism from the rest of your family for any number of things, including giving your family member an ultimatum and telling them that if they don’t change, they are being cut out of your life. You may be criticized for not telling them they need to change and cutting them out of your life anyway. You may be called cruel or heartless because you wrote a letter instead of dealing with the family member face-to-face, or some members of your clan may snub you because you broke up with another member of the tribe. And since this is family, you can’t run away from them all (at least not in most situations). And even if you can, who are you really hurting in that instance? (Answer: yourself.)