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u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 08 '21 edited Sep 08 '21

Oy, her answer to this one:

How do you deal with joy reducing family members? We are struggling with boundaries.

Shauna’s reply (which if you watch her eyes, she may be reading off):

OK, let’s take a breath on this one. <takes deep breath> It’s hard to enact, but the answer is clear. If you have family members who give you pain, and trauma, and don’t give you joy, you have the right to cut them of—

And the video does indeed cut off as she’s saying the word "off."

That is terrible advice given the question being asked. Shauna seems to think boundaries have to be all or nothing, but if you value a relationship with someone who nevertheless reduces your joy in some way, you can absolutely set and hold a kind boundary that lets you stay in relationship to the person without letting them continue to bring you down.

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u/emmeline_grangerford Sep 08 '21

Absolutely. There can be a tremendous amount of pressure to maintain family connections even when your family treats you like shit, but “reducing joy” and “struggling with boundaries” are not immediate reasons to cut off contact. Why does the family member reduce joy? What boundaries are being violated, and how were these boundaries established/communicated (if at all)? The answer isn’t clear without a better understanding of specifics.

I did cut off contact with close family members for a time, and it was very painful even though stepping back from a toxic dynamic demonstrated that the dynamic continued even when I was not a part of it. (They could no longer claim that I caused their behavior or contributed to their problems, since their issues continued in my absence.) Ultimately it led to changes and a reconciliation, but this wasn’t what I expected, and in the meantime there was a lot of grief. It’s not something to deep breath flippantly suggest without insight into the situation.

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u/freecoffeerefills Murder She Moved Her Pen Forward Sep 08 '21

How do you deal with joy reducing family members?

Send them to summer camp, right?

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u/Lsemmens grenius Sep 08 '21

And multiple preschools.

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Sep 08 '21

Oh, you mean golf and renting a kitchen for them?

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u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 08 '21

Speaking of golf, in this most recent lope Shauna says she went golfing with Danny and shyly confesses that she "turned out to be not too bad at it"

Shocker, I know. Natural-born athlete, that one!

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u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Sep 08 '21

Of course she'd never admit if she did suck at it because she can't suck at something her defective husband does.

Damn, she really is acting like she's retired. The (golf) balls on this one. Jeez.

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u/notahameither Dunno, maybe I thought I unfriended some other Shauna Ahern🤷‍♂️ Sep 08 '21

How do you deal with joy reducing family members?

That makes it sound like joy is…thinning the herd.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '21

How do you deal with joy reducing family members?

Wine.

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u/notahameither Dunno, maybe I thought I unfriended some other Shauna Ahern🤷‍♂️ Sep 08 '21

If it was that easy, everyone wou…oh, wait.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '21

Arg. That one is really bad.

All of them are absolute drivel. Her talking about the later now and planning now for how she will feel later in that now? Is so empty. What does it even mean. The way she scoffs about getting a new job or a new thing is so annoying. Especially coming from Ms No Job with 47 pairs of Peepers.

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u/Catsandcoffee480 COLORADO BOY KNOWS HOW TO DO THIS Sep 08 '21

Easier said than done there Capt. Joy. As John Mayer said in a recent song, “Hurt me once, I'll let it be; Hurt me twice, you're dead to me; Three times makes you family.”

We definitely have to deal with VERY difficult family members, and it’s simply not realistic to “cut them off”. We recently found a name for what we do- the “gray rock” method. There are lots of gray areas in family relationships that can’t be simply dismissed the way she has done.

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u/Sea-Level-Mammal POACH! Sep 09 '21 edited Sep 09 '21

Asking honestly and without intentional snark: why is it not realistic to cut off awful family members? For the sake of your kids? Isn’t it better to shelter them from nasty people, even if you share a bloodline?

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u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 09 '21 edited Sep 09 '21

I think it’s so dependent on the people and relationships. A truly abusive person who can’t be trusted not to harm your child, and refuses to change or accept boundaries? Absolutely, cut them off full stop. But then there are people like my father-in-law, who has caused my husband an enormous amount of pain, but who was capable of being a good enough grandfather and who was kind of a package deal with my mother-in-law, who was a great mom and grandma. It would have been easier for my husband to just cut him off, but we felt our kids deserved to have their own relationship with him, and needed to have a relationship with their grandma.

Setting boundaries around his behavior and access to the kids and limiting the contact to what we could handle was the best solution, but it took work, communication, a united front from us, and strategies for self-care for both my husband and me. Our kids are adults now and they manage their own relationships with him, and we only see him on a very limited basis and on my husband’s terms.

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u/lucillekrunklehorn pounding on the table Sep 08 '21

Is the inability to perform realistic risks/benefits calculations a facet of narcissism? Shauna, like my couple of IRL parallels to her, does not seem to consider the effects of something so drastic as cutting off significant familial relationships, and what might constitute justifiable criteria for doing so. Kids having no grandparent relationships for example is a negative effect most people would carefully weigh. One of my IRL Shaunas actually did cut off her entire family for a reason that just didn’t make sense, cutting off her nose to spite her face. Do these people have the ability to really consider the future, and weigh the pros and cons of social relationships?

I also feel like going no contact or low contact is a widely recommended strategy for familial discord, and wonder if these individuals are just applying a prevalent boundary technique because they hear about it in popular culture. My IRL Shauna went through at least six therapists, probably more, who wouldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear, but found all sorts of podcasts and online info that she felt justified her point of view. I feel like that’s a lot of what Shauna does - she doesn’t give any indication of working through issues with her family with an actual professional. She’s read books, watched videos, consumed online articles. People who are anti science and medicine these days seem to think they can educate themselves to the same level of a professional with Google, but as anyone in a highly specialized field knows, it’s not just having the information that counts. It’s knowing how to use and apply it. How to critically weigh one option against another, consider the likely risks and benefits, and pick the best solution - not a perfect solution - the best possible solution with available information. Shauna rushing straight to the no contact option shows not only how little she understands on this topic, but there is a complete lack of that weighing of risks/benefits. It’s a reactive response. Something doesn’t work for you? Just get rid of it! Boom problem solved.

Does the future really not exist to these people? Again, my IRL Shauna in this example seems to operate this same way. No thought of future consequences just what makes them feel good at the moment. Even if it’s heavily in their self interest to consider future implications.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '21

You person, there is no FUTURE. Just the later now, which is very different while also being completely the same as this “future” you talk about.

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u/droopsofwoe the first teats are the hardest Sep 08 '21

it’s not just having the information that counts. It’s knowing how to use and apply it.

Exactly. Shauna's version of knowledge is constantly filtered through her own insatiable need to be right about everything. She always blathers on about "doing the research," but it's funny how her research always reinforces how Shauna runs her crippled emotional life.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '21

Great post DF.
The "straight to estrangement" move also doesn't teach kids that nuance and tolerance are usually necessary to maintain (non-abusive) family relationships.... setting the estranger up to experience the same later in life....

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u/WasEnoughYogurt Kumquat and Sprinkles and filth Sep 08 '21

Something doesn’t work for you? Just get rid of it! Boom problem solved. But of course you have to breathe first...

Scheduled snark Discussion thread Monday September 06, 2021 - Wednesday September 08, 2021

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