Have you ever had to “divorce” a relative?

I have an aunt whose major issue in life seems to be that she is not as smart or successful as her sisters. Naturally, she takes this out on her nephews and nieces. Most of us are also smarter and more successful than she is, however, so her strategy is to try and infantilize us. My mother and I always got the worst of it because she lived with us for about five years when her first marriage fell apart. My mother never charged her rent, never uttered a single “I told you so,” and never asked her to do any chores around the house—in return for which my mother received endless criticism about how she organized/cleaned/decorated the house.

She also had a tendency of accusing my brother and me of lying to her over the stupidest things (no, I did not hide 30 rolls of toilet paper in the linen closet, that’s just where we keep them). And the one time she was left to babysit us, she immediately moved into my mother’s room for the week and told us we better not even try to open the door to “her room” (which was connected to the office where the family computer was kept). And if she didn’t like my behavior, she would tell me—a survivor of child abuse—that I “didn’t get beaten enough” as a kid.

The worst bit, however, was when she got cancer and blamed it on one of her other sisters. “You’re where the shitty genes started! Just look at your defective kids!” she shouted across the table at Thanksgiving (the “defective” kids were, of course, in attendance). Complete misunderstanding of genetics aside, we’re talking about kids who were ages seven and nine. (For the record, the “defect” is that one of the kids cannot speak and has to communicate through sign language. There is nothing abnormal about the other child at all.)

My mother made her move out after that, and I told her that I didn’t ever want to be around her again. I get the feeling that her siblings may have said something similar because I didn’t get much push back. She hasn’t been invited to pretty much any family event since. The one exception is one of my cousins’ weddings, and she pretty much went out of her way to avoid me (unsurprising given that I had been openly hostile towards her the last two years she lived with us, and I was old enough by then to see through—and call her on—her bullshit).

So all in all, it worked out pretty well once we collectively decided to distance ourselves from her. My younger sister was sad to lose her godmother, but felt differently when she got older and learned the whole story. I don’t even know where she lives anymore, and she has basically no contact with the family. And given how much of the story I’m skipping over, I really can’t say that I’m heartbroken over her absence from my adult life.

I have an emotionally abusive sibling. I wrote them off last summer. It’s been difficult for me because we were very close but I finally realized how abusive they were. They are the kind of person who gets away with pranks because they are considered the fun one in the family, but I finally realize decades later that it was emotional abuse. Not humor.

I’m much better without this sibling in my life. I no longer feel on edge all the time.

My dad had issues. They had gone on for years, but he was semi-functional. He could work, but could only hold down the simplest of jobs (even though he was a smart man). He was somewhat secretive in his thoughts, was paranoid, and was not socially smooth any more. And if you asked him, he had no problems so he never went for help. So when my wife (now ex) was pregnant with our first, we decided to have him out for dinner (in an effort to see family before the baby). He came out and immediately started causing strife. He told my wife she was fat. Not subtly, but more like “Hi! Wow, you’re fat!). Stunned, I reminded him she was like 8 months pregnant. He still argued that you could see she had put on a bunch of weight. Moving on, we had dinner. There were avocado slices on the salad and that reminded him (and so he reminded us) that if she didn’t eat such fatty foods she wouldn’t gain so much weight. Then we got to the topic of baby names. We didn’t have a boy’s name picked out, but if it was a girl it would be Caitlin Savannah. His response was “Caitlin…that’s a nice name. Savannah is a ni——r name!” More conversational fireworks ensued. We moved on. Then he started telling us about how he couldn’t sleep well. The reason was that “they” put a loose manhole cover in the road so they could drive over it with the purpose of keeping him awake all night. I asked if they had just put the manhole cover in and he said no. The implications of the conversation were that at some point, 20 years ago, when the road was last worked and that manhole cover was last touched, “they” purposely put it in the hole loosely, knowing that in about 20 years he would be moving into that apartment and they would be able to keep him awake with it.
After he left, my wife and I talked about it and I realized I didn’t want to include that sort of insanity in my family’s life, so I told him that he needed help. If he wanted to get help, I would be happy to be there with him every step of the way. But if he didn’t see the issues or want to get help, then I didn’t need to expose my family to that behavior. A couple weeks later, he called me up like everything was wonderful. My first question was if he had gotten help. He said there was nothing wrong with him so he didn’t need help. I reminded him of our conversation and that it still held true. If he didn’t see he needed help, I did and we had nothing more to discuss. I didn’t speak to him again for about 10 years. He almost died before I did. We mended some fences, but were never amazingly close again. We were close enough that I was the last person he talked to before taking his own life.
So I guess I divorced him and then sort of reconciled with him.

You mean like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall?
No, that is illegal.

I estranged myself from my mother four years ago. The relationship was toxic, damaging and irredeemable.
How has it worked out? The cessation of contact is a relief, but it’s a miserable situation with no joy. I wish I had done it years earlier. There really is no winning.

The only real positive here is that I am also estranged from the mean sister, a nice bonus.

Only one. I’m not inclined to tell the story. Part of me wishes I hadn’t told anyone what happened, because it made so I can’t just ignore it.

I divorced my Evangelical Christian sister some years ago, when I asked her how she will feel, watching me being thrown, along with billions of other human beings, into literal fire, to burn alive for eternity. I asked her how she would be able to sing joyfully to God after that.

Her answer was that God will simply make her forget me, and anyone else whose eternal agony would make her feel any sadness. I’m not ok with the Evangelical Christian definition of the words “love” and “compassion”. When my sister said “I love you” for the last time, I was, frankly, offended. Peace and luck

I divorced most of my relatives from my dad’s side years ago. They are all toxic, pretentious people who have nothing to do with their life other than evedropping other people’s business and proclaim their superiority. It’s impossible to 100% physically distance myself from them because we have to be together for those “traditions”, but I minimize my interaction with them. All of our conversations are just superficial exchange with no real information given. In my mind they don’t exist.

I have a link to an article on “Divorcing Your Family” of which is full of insightful information when dealing with dysfunctional family life.
I found it informative and well stated to sum up this thread and give hope to those still in challenging family dynamics.

I have left a dysfunctional family in order to live out a more peaceful and drama free existence and have not regretted that at all.

I read up on Behaviors ( Psychology) and this helped me to understand the “Why’s” of certain behaviors, most come from tragedy,abuse,ignorance,unloved,and the resulting mental issues that cloud these circumstances in order that the person can survive in the present.

I discovered that by understanding why something happened does not mean forgiveness necessarily, but I gained the understanding and thus empathy for the pain in those peoples lives well before I wad born into my family.

It makes sense that each finds there own way to survive and some choose negative ways out of ignorance and lack of positive supports.

Anyways read up on this persons way of explaining that is much more to the point.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/family-feud_b_1385505?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_
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It hasn’t actually been a divorce yet; however, my Mother’s sister & I are in the midst of the separation phase. She decided that after both my parents had passed that she was going to take their place & take over the control of my life. I’m sorry…I do love her; but, she’s a LOUSY mother to her ow children & I’m perfectly happy with my life JUST LIKE IT IS & I’m NOT going to change it just to suit her. She’s closer to my age than she was to my Mother’s age so she & I were always very close growing up. She even lived with us after graduating high school. I tend to express myself just the way I see things & I told her that as much as I love her that she’s just NOT welcome to take over my life!!! She keeps saying that she just wants to help now that I have no real family left. I had a great Mom & I would give anything to have her back tomorrow; but her sister CANNOT take her place!!! It’s similar to I would love to have my husband back; but, I’m NOT looking to replace him with another hubby!!!

She & I have been having this ongoing battle for about 8 years & I’ve noticed that she’s stopped speaking to me. I’m also catching her in a lot of lies & I have absolutely NO use for liars!!! I’m sorry that she’s choosing to stop speaking; however, I’d rather not speak than fight, so I’m OK with her decision!!!

Well apparently my sister divorced me 20 years ago and I’m not sure why and she refuses to explain.
I’m close to her youngest daughter tho. She is so sweet.

Several.

My crazy bro-in-laws for being overbearing brats and trying to force their way into a rent-free situation at our house and being ugly when they were refused. Among other things.

I have a hard time with a few relatives that are raging alcoholics, but I still try from time to time to connect but for the most part, we have written each other off.