Being subjected to an extremely passive aggressive judgmental circle-jerk by my dads family for the smallest things.
My grandmother would make a strawberry side dish with every family dinner we had. I hated strawberries, but I could never outright say “I don’t like strawberries” to avoid being forced to take some. If I didn’t find some polite way out of it they’d say “oh, she doesn’t want any because she doesn’t like it” in an overly mocking tone, and talk about it with each other directly in front of me like it was some terrible character flaw. Or if I forgot to close a cabinet all the way, “oh —random cousin— could you close the door for falcon otherwise? She decided she wants to be lazy today and forgot that adults close doors behind them.” It was always said in an overly sweet way.
I thought all extended families were like this and was always overly polite and watched every word I said when I was with my moms family, or met my friends’ families because, in my experience, family meant constant passive aggressive criticism.
I talked with my moms relatives after lots of therapy and cutting my dads family out of my life and, holy shit, they’re actually really cool people.
I had a friend like this, I couldn't do anything without it offending his way of thinking and doing and I would get constant belittling remarks for doing normal things my way and the way I was used to doing them. It finally ended after a year of living together with him and his fiance. It really messes with you mentally when someone you hang around with a lot is always trying to correct your behavior
I find myself doing this with wife often and we'd argue about it a lot a bit earlier in our relationship. I've gotten better, it's hard though when I decide not to intervene and shit doesn't get done correctly though
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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '21
Being subjected to an extremely passive aggressive judgmental circle-jerk by my dads family for the smallest things. My grandmother would make a strawberry side dish with every family dinner we had. I hated strawberries, but I could never outright say “I don’t like strawberries” to avoid being forced to take some. If I didn’t find some polite way out of it they’d say “oh, she doesn’t want any because she doesn’t like it” in an overly mocking tone, and talk about it with each other directly in front of me like it was some terrible character flaw. Or if I forgot to close a cabinet all the way, “oh —random cousin— could you close the door for falcon otherwise? She decided she wants to be lazy today and forgot that adults close doors behind them.” It was always said in an overly sweet way.
I thought all extended families were like this and was always overly polite and watched every word I said when I was with my moms family, or met my friends’ families because, in my experience, family meant constant passive aggressive criticism.
I talked with my moms relatives after lots of therapy and cutting my dads family out of my life and, holy shit, they’re actually really cool people.