Family Gatherings Marred By Hate Speech
DEAR ABBY: All members of my family are white. When my children were smaller, an incident occurred at a family holiday. One relative has a history of making racist comments, so this time we told everyone that if it happened again, we would leave. He did, and we left. My husband raised his voice at that person and made polite excuses to everyone else about leaving early. Then we all stood up from the table, packed our things and drove two hours home instead of spending the night as originally planned.
I will not repeat to you the comments that were made, but they were not microaggressions or subtle remarks. They were disgusting and violent, and I refuse to tolerate it. However, everyone else who was there disagreed with us. They said my husband ruined a perfectly nice family dinner and should apologize to keep the peace. I have told them repeatedly that they should apologize to us for making us stand up alone. They keep calling intervention-style family meetings to confront us about our behavior and say we need to repair the rift my husband caused. Were we out of line? -- FAMILY FRICTION
DEAR FAMILY FRICTION: That dinner was far from "perfectly nice." Your husband was not out of line, and I applaud you for taking a stand. It's too easy to downplay this kind of behavior for the sake of family harmony. By acting as a willing audience, your extended family became complicit in the hate speech. Unless they promise it will never happen again, I see no reason for you to attend any future gatherings with this questionable crowd.
DEAR ABBY: My siblings and I have a niece and nephew, our late sister's children, both in their 40s. The niece is grounded, level-headed, and emotionally and intellectually strong. The nephew used to be like that but now can be a lot more sensitive and overly emotional and has a somewhat controlling wife.
Our problem is that months and months, sometimes years, go by without hearing anything from them. Our nephew doesn't return phone calls in general, but if we reach out when there's a death or a hospitalization in the family, the niece processes things normally. Our nephew turns into a bowl of emotional jelly. He cries and is emotionally draining when we all need to pull together for someone else. When we explain that we can make time for him but that he needs to answer our calls or return them, he promises to do so but never follows through. His mental health is not good (and perhaps his wife isolates him), but we are at our wits' end. How do we deal with this behavior? -- EXASPERATED UNCLE IN OHIO
DEAR UNCLE: This is the pattern your troubled nephew has established, and it isn't likely to change. Deal with his emotionally draining behavior by making sure your niece is the one who gives him the news he needs to have. If he calls you for one of those draining conversations, limit the length and do not allow him to sap you.
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