Advice on How to have Boundaries with New Family

[momof3anddog]

I am adopted. I have no problems with fact that I am adopted. Loved my adopted parents -- but they both died by the time I was 19 years old. Therefore I did all of my adult years without any parental guidance other than extended adoptive family aunts acting in that role -- during the summers I needed a place to go until I was done with college and graduate school. Recently, I decided to try to get some medical information on myself, as it was getting difficult, when dealing with physicians for myself and especially my 3 children, the lack of information known about my side. If anyone knows about adoption through State of Wisconsin -- it is difficult to get information. They basically only put you in touch with your birth parents if they want to be involved and then it is up to you to get what you need. I have connected with my birth mother and her sisters. This may sound cruel, but my birth mother is basically one drama fest after another. She IMO has mental health issues, probably a personality disorder (borderline I would guess) and probably a prescription drug addiction. Talking to her like being in the middle of a Jerry Springer show. It seems like she thrives on drama and wants to pit one of her family against another at all times. I have tried to get information from her that I need, but she is not reliable. She has other sisters who are much more pleasant and more reliable and have even warned me that she is like this at times. However, if she hears that any of them have contact with me, and even if she just perceives that there is some contact with them rather than there really is, and whatever she perceives is way more attention than she got from me, she is angry, jealous and will call them up saying I said things about them that is not true. I have called her on her behavior and told her that is not making me want to have any sort of relationship with her. Her sisters are aware she did this as I called them and told them it was happening when I figured out what was going on. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of "friending" my mother and her sisters on facebook so that we could get to know each other slowly. Now I get rant and rave e-mails from her and another sister who acts like that and wants me to "join them" in being against the rest of the family. I'm thinking the "rest of the family" is the people that I should have contact. I am really disappointed by her and the one sister's behavior -- almost sad about it. It has really made me realize what I have always known -- how lucky I was to have the adoptive mom and dad I did -- even though I didn't have them very long. I have blocked the posts of the one sister who is so "off the wall" with everything she says, but not unfriended her yet. Does anyone else an experience like this with an unknown branch of family that you tried to get to know and then found out it was way more than you ever wanted to know -- but not anything good. How did you keep contact with the ones you want without having to deal with the difficult ones? I have minimized my contact with her to one visit at her house and occasional phone calls initiated by her and the "facebook" contact -- only because she is so difficult and demanding on the phone.

[sharon]

Wow, that sounds really complicated. I'm so sorry there's all that drama for you with them!

Would it help to maybe come up with just one line you could say whenever they tried to pull you into the drama? Sometimes if people don't get the reaction they are looking for and instead just get a "broken record" it can finally sink in (It's a technique that works great with 4 year olds but I find it works with adults too )

So something like "If that bothers you then you need to talk to her about it. I'm not going to get in the middle." Or , I don't know. Something that matter-of-factly sums how how you are feeling.

Emails you can just not read, and you can use your privacy features to decide how much you see of each other's stuff on FB. It's the phone calls that sound harder to me.

Wow, I'm so sorry. How frustrating!

[momof3anddog]

Thanks Sharon. That's pretty much what I do. I do it all day long as a social worker with difficult clients who don't take responsibility for the messes they get themselves into so they don't have it happen again. Just didn't expect to have to do it in my personal life too. Not really expecting to have a "mother daughter" relationship as had a great mother when I had one. But didn't expect to have such a dsyfunctional lady in her 60's blaming everyone and everything and everybody for every choice she ever made in her life and trying to drag me into it. Warning to those who are adopted -- unless you really have to know or need to know the medical information like I did -- be sure you can really are made of strong stuff before you open the door -- because what is behind it might be something that you don't want to deal with. Luckily I have gotten most of what I need from my aunts as my mother had 9 siblings who survived to adulthood with her. Two of them I get very good info from. But still bio-mom just won't stop with the drama and the youngest sister is even worse (she is only 9 years older than me!!!). I feel I should have more compassion from her, but I just don't. Some people are really damaged I know. She is one of them. However, much of what has happened to her is her own stupid choices in her 30's and beyond. We are not talking about stupid choices that get you into trouble in your teens or 20's like most of us do from time to time and take a decade to get straightened out. We are talking way later in life. She is the kinda personality that just rubs me the wrong way. My brother is also adopted. His birth mother got involved in our lives in our teens to share some needed medical information that our parents needed to know about boys that are born to her family that she didn't know was there until it started consistently showing up in all boys born to her siblings after my brother was already adopted. When my adoptive father died in an accident and my adoptive mother was already dying from breast cancer at the time, she really stepped "up to the plate" to help both of us deal with it. She was like a "big sister" to me while I was at college trying to go to school full time, taking care of a dying mother, and trying to figure out what to do with a brother in high school who no longer had a parent watching him but wouldn't listen to a big sister only a little older than him. She is a wonderful person. My mom was always greatful my brother's birth mom for being being so selfless to give up a child she could not raise so she could have a child and so proud of how successful she became in her own life, as well as very happy to share her adopted son back with her. Especially when she found out that she wasn't going to survive the breast cancer and wanted to know he would have someone who wanted to mother him. I really wish I gotten her as my birthmom and not the one I did. It is just sad. I have 3 wonderful kids, a great husband who is the best dad ever to my kids. She never asks about them EVER.

[dara1012]

Sorry you are dealing with all of this. You are a wonderful, intelligent person and as hard as it sounds I would recommend filtering your birth mom/family out of FB (you don't need to un-friend them to not cause more drama, just set filters) and be really direct in phone conversations about not tolerating/being pulled into the drama.

You need to focus on taking care of you, DH and your kids. Do what feels right and follow that instinct.

[ReneeW]

I think the ladies have great advice. It will make your life better to escape the drama, and the sooner the better. I agree that you can block people so that they don't realize it -- just for simplicity's sake. You can keep a limited relationship with those individuals who add value to your life and have healthy relationships. But people who are toxic--even relatives (especially relatives?)--will keep spewing poison at you unless you take action.

Hang in there!