How to help kids not date/marry people who trash talk their folks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom once told me to try to avoid marrying someone who doesn't get along with his family. She said either that person is right and you'd be marrying into a family with difficult people OR the person you are dating is the difficult person. Either way it's bad news.

It was pretty good advice!

No, it's not. It's far better to be with someone who recognizes the dysfunction of their family and take steps to establish/maintain healthy boundaries than be with someone who can't recognize they've been condition to accept dysfunction and allows their partner and kids to be subjected to it.

Agree with this. For years my mom has talked about my brother’s SIL and what kind of a horrible person she must be to not speak to her own mother. I’ve since realized the dysfunction in my own family and have set boundaries with my own mom.

You can’t “get along” when your family is dysfunctional. But you can learn to deal with it in a healthy way.

[Anonymous]

I think people who don't speak the truth are far, far more dangerous than people who "trash talk their parents." I know parents who were very abusive to their kids. Are you suggesting their kids lie and never said a bad word about their parents? If so, that's beyond messed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom once told me to try to avoid marrying someone who doesn't get along with his family. She said either that person is right and you'd be marrying into a family with difficult people OR the person you are dating is the difficult person. Either way it's bad news.

It was pretty good advice!

+100 People on DCUM who are practically crowing about how they are estranged from family, or worse, encourage others to become estranged, don't realize that they are announcing that they are damaged goods. I hope my kids avoid those people, too.

You’re lucky to come from such privilege. Not all of us are so fortunate. I guess we did a crap job of choosing which family to be born into and we deserve what we got, or something like that. As much as I resent you calling me damaged goods for having the bad luck of being born into a poor, abusive family, I don’t wish you ill or even wish that you learn from experience how the negative actions of your family can affect you even though you have no control of them, especially during childhood. I do hope you find more empathy though. Maybe someday someone close to you can share how they rose above adversity and you’ll realize that escaping cycles of abuse, poverty, or addiction is a good thing, not a bad thing.

You are describing me. What I don't do is brag about how horrible my family was, and urge others on DCUM to see themselves as victims and to dwell on every bad thing about their relatives. Funny thing is, those people have ZERO empathy for their big, bad relatives -- they happily "grey rock" and shut them out, and tell others on DCUM to do the same. That's the exact opposite of empathy.

You truly need therapy. Leave other people alone and let them deal with their issues. You are likely someone who would tell people who are being abused to shut up. People like you allow the Sanduskys etc of the world to continue their abuse.

LOL, PP. The person you're responding to is absolutely right. People like you, PP, seek so much validation that you fail to allow yourself to heal. The person you're responding to is MUCH healthier than you will ever be.

DP. So much for your 'empathy'.

I am the poster who wrote the sentence "LOL, PP." Read my 4 sentences again. I never claimed to have "empathy."

For that matter, why should I have empathy for someone who fails to step up and do the hard work to heal themselves?

That person, instead of accepting another person's response, instead trips in and trashes them by making false statements and accusing them of horrible atrocities. That is not a person who deserves "empathy" imo. That is, however, a person who deserves to be scourged for their false statements and lies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DH and I both come from dysfunctional, sometimes abusive families and one of the reasons we wound up together is that when one of us would talk about our families in less than glowing terms, the other one was willing to listen and believe what was being said, instead of turning up their nose in distaste.

Some people come from messed up families. Some people have bad parents. They need to be with partners who understand that dynamic and will support them in healing. If you want your kids to marry people who come from families with good parents, fine, I get it. But saying you "don't trust" people who speak negatively of their families is the wrong tack. Your kids might wind up marrying someone who never has a negative word to say about their abusive parents. Trust me when I tell you that is much more of a red flag.

Not the OP.

I see what the OP is talking about. If someone overshares about their family, and it is all negative, that is a bad sign to me. Unless we're intimately involved or besties for life, I shouldn't know your deepest darkest thoughts about your parents and/or sibs and/or anyone else in your family. When someone blurts out that stuff or brings it up constantly, it is off-putting and really not any of my business. I would turn away, too.

A bad sign for what, if you aren't dating them? Like what do you think will happen if you are friends or acquaintances with someone who has a negative relationship with their family?

Life isn't all about mates and dating. If you are friends with someone who has a negative relationship with their family, you need to think about WHY they have that negative relationship and does it say more about them or their family? Maybe that person once had a good and healthy relationship with them but then their own unhealthy habits caused them to move into a negative and unhealthy relationship. Will that eventually come to pass in your relationship with them?

Don't blindly assume that the person you're friends with is telling the full truth about their family. Don't have tunnel vision. Take it all with a grain of salt. And be aware of forming a relationship with anyone who is constantly at odds with one person or another. That kind of unhappiness cannot be cured by you and will likely mean a lot of trouble for you. Let that person go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DH and I both come from dysfunctional, sometimes abusive families and one of the reasons we wound up together is that when one of us would talk about our families in less than glowing terms, the other one was willing to listen and believe what was being said, instead of turning up their nose in distaste.

Some people come from messed up families. Some people have bad parents. They need to be with partners who understand that dynamic and will support them in healing. If you want your kids to marry people who come from families with good parents, fine, I get it. But saying you "don't trust" people who speak negatively of their families is the wrong tack. Your kids might wind up marrying someone who never has a negative word to say about their abusive parents. Trust me when I tell you that is much more of a red flag.

Not the OP.

I see what the OP is talking about. If someone overshares about their family, and it is all negative, that is a bad sign to me. Unless we're intimately involved or besties for life, I shouldn't know your deepest darkest thoughts about your parents and/or sibs and/or anyone else in your family. When someone blurts out that stuff or brings it up constantly, it is off-putting and really not any of my business. I would turn away, too.

A bad sign for what, if you aren't dating them? Like what do you think will happen if you are friends or acquaintances with someone who has a negative relationship with their family?

Life isn't all about mates and dating. If you are friends with someone who has a negative relationship with their family, you need to think about WHY they have that negative relationship and does it say more about them or their family? Maybe that person once had a good and healthy relationship with them but then their own unhealthy habits caused them to move into a negative and unhealthy relationship. Will that eventually come to pass in your relationship with them?

Don't blindly assume that the person you're friends with is telling the full truth about their family. Don't have tunnel vision. Take it all with a grain of salt. And be aware of forming a relationship with anyone who is constantly at odds with one person or another. That kind of unhappiness cannot be cured by you and will likely mean a lot of trouble for you. Let that person go.

+1000 I have a narcissist sister who trash talks us to her friends all the time. I know this because she tells me how “shocked” they are at some perceived slight by us. They don’t realize how horrible she is in real life.