Interpersonal Dynamics

What can you do if your husband’s sister is a bully?

This post is a response to a question initially posed on Quora, and can also be accessed via “https://murkywatersnarcissist.quora.com/What-can-you-do-if-your-husbands-sister-is-a-bully-4“

Thank you for the a2a, Jozefina.
I have to say, however, that I’m a little confused, not because Jenn wrote an excellent answer complete with all the steps to take in a strategic, deliberate, and rational process, but when I dug a little deeper beyond that, I found your answer to the question on the parent level.

“Cut all ties with her. Silence is the best revenge. Distance is the answer to disrespect.”

I have to say that’s a strategy that has worked but not worked for me. Creating distance between myself and those who cause me unnecessary or unwarranted stress has been my primary strategy in dealing with them.

I suspect the results of that strategy have been why you sought more answers from more people — to find some balance between the extreme of cutting contact and the often frustrating process endorsed by professionals who frequently fail to account for real-world dynamics.

Jenn’s answer is excellent from a strategic perspective. However, it’s a textbook approach that doesn’t adequately account for the extremes in behaviours that bullies can indulge in.

One of my complaints and why my strategy has echoed yours is due to my experience; not once has a bully made any effort to consider the impact of their toxic behaviours.

I have never asked anyone for anything beyond being treated fairly. I have used the following words verbatim, “Please just try to be a decent human being.” — “I’m just asking for fair treatment.” — “I just want the same thing everyone else gets and is entitled to.”

Whenever I appealed to a bully for fair treatment, it was interpreted as a challenge, followed by escalation. Not a single bully in my life has ever behaved in the manner that a counsellor anticipates in the scenarios they recommend.

I suspect you may have discovered something similar in your experience, and that’s why you answered this question the way you did. After reading some of the other responses and thinking about your experience, you may wonder if a different perspective can shed some light on this issue.

I don’t know if I can give you one that addresses your specific situation because I know nothing about it, but there certainly is a wide range of approaches that people can take. Some may work for them but not others because their dynamic is different. Their personalities are different. Their bullies are different.

There is no universal solution to addressing the issue of bullies, and I suspect that’s why it remains unresolved in society.

There are some common traits that bullies display, and it may be helpful to view one’s issue from the perspective of understanding bullies rather than from the perspective of a generic approach one should take.

For example, all bullies are cowards at heart. If one can strike fear into them, they will back off. Self-preservation is, ironically, one of the reasons they are bullies in the first place. They’re cowards because they’re afraid of everything. Finding someone they can intimidate helps them cope with their natural fears of everything.

The challenge, however, is to instil a genuine fear of repercussions they shudder to contemplate. It can’t be a temporary fear they experience that may or may not manifest but a guaranteed consequence that instills an intense fear that gives them chills.

That’s not always possible for some to accomplish and will never be feasible for many because they’re not built in a way or possess the character or leverage to do that. In many cases, the only real solution is distance. Use the grey rock method if one can’t avoid their bully. — (Essentially, this means avoiding conversations with them and giving them one-word answers while concocting an excuse for why you have to leave. Display no emotion whatsoever because bullies like to trigger emotions in their victims. Be utterly disinterested in what they have to say. If they’re upset by that, apologize for being distracted. You’ve got a lot on your mind. If they ask what it is, answer them that it’s private. Shut down any attempt at a conversation and try to display being bored rather than anxious.)

Distance is the best solution in many cases — emotional distance if you can’t succeed at maintaining physical distance.

That may not work in some situations, especially if it’s a work situation and the bully is the boss. The grey rock method, in that case, will work.

You may now see a pattern in that negotiation is only possible with some leverage in your favour.

If your situation is precisely like the question, then it is incumbent upon your husband to “run interference” with his sister. He needs to keep her away from you, put his foot down, and inform her that he doesn’t appreciate having his wife intimidated. Doing that is an implied marital obligation. He married you, and if his sister makes it a choice between you or her, then he had better choose you, or you know what your choices are then because he’s not much of a partner if he won’t defend you to his sister and shut her down.

She must treat you with respect if she has any respect for her brother, your husband.

This dynamic may not work if your husband is desperate to keep the peace in a dysfunctional family or is the family scapegoat. You may find yourself having to draw firm boundaries with your husband and put him in a position to choose between you, his sister, and his entire family.

It won’t feel fair to him if he’s pushed into doing that, and giving him an ultimatum could very well backfire, making you look like the bully in the dynamic.

The challenging part of this situation is that you will find it increasingly difficult to maintain respect for your husband, and your relationship will fracture over time.

Perhaps you’ve discovered this and are seeking more input on this issue.

It will be vital for him to understand that you will feel undervalued if he doesn’t intervene in addressing his sister’s behaviour. That may or may not be sufficient to motivate him, but it might open his mind to the possibility that you two can work together to devise a solution that works for both of you.

The most crucial goal within such a dynamic is to have a partner you can work with and rely on for supportive advice and assistance without being dismissive or critical of you or your feelings. Your relationship with your husband matters, and by working together against “a common enemy,” you may strengthen your relationship. You will undoubtedly have a better chance of dealing with his toxic sister.

It may be necessary to work through your issues with the assistance of a counsellor, and it will be essential for him to understand if you offer to go to one as a suggestion, that it’s not to be critical of him but to find a way to work together to resolve the issues his sister creates.

I hope this helps.

Good luck with your challenge.

Bullies suck.

Big time.

Should we care about others’ feelings when being honest?

To be completely honest within this context, one must also be honest with one’s motivations for “being honest” in the first place.

“Being honest” does not necessitate conveying any messages to anyone else. There is always a motivation for the information one shares. To “be honest,” one must be aware of why they are compelled to share that information and what they seek to accomplish by sharing that information.

For example, to “be honest” about telling someone they’re fat and ugly isn’t actually “being honest” beyond informing the other person of what one’s personal biases are. Delivering information in a callously insensitive manner implies that the honesty of their intent is emotional manipulation.

To be completely and transparently honest within such a context, one should qualify their opinion by being honest about their biases. “I’m very biased toward a person’s aesthetics and react viscerally to the condition someone of being overweight due to unresolved personal issues, and because I’ve been conditioned to define beauty within a shallow, commercialized, sanitized, and two-dimensional context, therefore I interpret your physicality as fat and ugly.”

No one ever goes to such lengths to explain their biases. Most people who indulge in the “honest” expressions of their biases just cut to the conclusion, and that’s much more hurtful to the feelings of others. The consequence of “failing to care” about the emotions of others in such a context demonstrates one does care about the other person’s feelings, not in a productive or supportive way but rather in a destructive way. They intend to create harm deliberately, which implies “caring” about other’s feelings.

They are not sharing their honest opinion in such a context but conveying information to hurt the feelings of others. Within such a context, “being honest” necessitates being forthcoming about the nature of their opinion and why they share it. In either case, one does not escape “caring” about other’s feelings while implying they care more about escaping the consequences of their impact on that person’s feelings.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone declare, “I’ve got personal issues to resolve; therefore, I’m going to use you as my vessel for working them out to make myself feel better by making you feel worse about yourself.”

That would be an example of a bully “being honest” (for a change).

Cases outside the context of an abuser/victim dynamic can have a significant impact on the feelings of others, such as informing someone of the passing of a loved one. No matter how one delivers that information, the other person’s feelings will be impacted.

One’s intentions are just as crucial to sharing information within this context as in the previous example.

To be honest with one’s intentions, in this case, means understanding how one’s information is delivered impacts the receiver’s ability to parse that information fully and accurately. Ensuring the other party successfully understands the message conveyed within its complete context, some level of awareness and sensitivity to their emotions is crucial to the success of their information delivery efforts.

Failing to consider the emotional impact of the information conveyed implies that one’s intentions are less focused on knowledge transfer than on impacting the recipient’s emotional state.

In both cases, these are examples in which one does not escape the consequences of their regard toward the feelings of others in the information-sharing process.

Emotion is a component within an information-sharing context, even in benign situations such as small talk. “It’s a beautiful day today.” This may superficially seem like an unemotional example of innocuous small talk, but the reactions it can engender carry an emotional component within it. The emotions are not as pronounced as in the previous examples, but they exist. One feels better by being reminded of a pleasant experience, just as they would feel something if the day were not beautiful (which, in and of itself, is an emotionally charged word due to its subjective nature).

Further stripping emotion from the dynamic of information-sharing by limiting interaction to a functional level, such as a transaction, still contains an emotional element because humans are emotional beings. For example, “Your McSappy Meal is $5.99” can engender an emotion in the recipient who feels overcharged.

“One plus one equals two.” — “Can you prove that?” or “Do you think I’m too stupid to know that?” or “I’m not a friggin’ child in elementary school. Can’t you provide a better analogy?”

Being honest means being honest about the nature of the care demonstrated toward the feelings of the person with whom they share their information. To care about the feelings of others often implies enough sensitivity toward their emotional state to minimize a potential disturbance, but that’s not the complete spectrum of caring about the feelings of others. Far too many people “care” so much about how others feel that they devote significant energy toward ensuring others feel worse than they do.

Some people “care” so much about other’s feelings that they make a point of being utterly dishonest with themselves while sharing information intended to create harm or incite conflict while escaping the consequences of doing so through a mask of innocence they can declare as “being honest.”

All information shared between people implies an emotional dynamic within its conveyance, either strictly by the content or when augmented by the messenger’s intentions. There is no escape from feelings in communication, while “being honest” includes acknowledging the emotional component of their messages and the impact on the receiver.

Are “mansplaining” and “femsplaining” valid examples of misogyny and misandry?

This post is a response to a question initially posed on Quora, and can also be accessed via my profile there: https://www.quora.com/profile/Antonio-Amaral-1/

I’ve never encountered “femsplaining” before this question. It sounds like it was made up for this question to make it appear more egalitarian.

“Mansplaining” became a prominent description of misogynistic behaviours and attitudes in situations where men behaved in condescending ways toward women.

Misogyny is widespread in our patriarchy because men often have no clue how to handle equality. Men have been conditioned from a young age to view themselves as superior to women. Men are also subjected to conditioning, which causes them to interpret life as a power game.

Combining those two characteristics of a typical male upbringing with toxic competitiveness breeding fragile egos results in a prevalence of poisonous masculinity throughout society that we’ve grown to know and love.

The consequence of their conditioning has resulted in a high frequency of example scenarios where men condescend toward women on a wide variety of levels in a diversity of conditions.

One of the most stereotypical examples is an auto repair shop where the statistics show that women are often overcharged for repairs while being condescended to when discussing those repairs.

The standing bias of a significant proportion of men is that they understand automotives better than women and often resort to condescension as a means of gaslighting a victim to get away with taking advantage of their perceived naivety.

This dynamic of condescension isn’t limited to gender interactions and occurs everywhere a power game exists.

Everyone experiences it repeatedly throughout their lives, usually when someone attempts to convince them of nonsense.

At any rate, since men have been conditioned to think of themselves as superior within a gender power dynamic, they more often resort to condescension when manipulating women. It happens so frequently while men victimize women that the term mansplaining was invented to introduce humour into a problematic situation of discrimination as a means of raising awareness of the problem in society.

We employ similar awareness-raising tactics in situations where power dynamics are statistically significant.

I just answered another question before this about the slogan “Black Lives Matter.”

It’s not quite as humorous as “mansplaining,” The goal of the expression is the same: to raise awareness of a severe issue of discrimination in a society that renders an entire demographic as victims so often that it can’t be ignored and must be addressed.

This strategy for raising awareness is why gay pride parades exist.

It’s a way of restoring balance to an unequal power dynamic.

The term “femsplaining” is a reaction to the effectiveness of “mansplaining” and is a defensive reaction to that success. This is how “All Lives Matter” was conceived as well.

Those who are used to being in a dominant position of power begin to feel insecure enough about equality that they interpret it as oppression. Since they struggle with admitting to the abuse they condone, they react defensively by appropriating an effective strategy to convert it into a counter-weapon against the strategy responsible for their disempowerment.

There is no such thing as “femsplaining” for that reason, and misandry may exist but only as a reaction to extensive abuse by men.

Men become misogynistic by conditioning that teaches them to adopt socially acceptable aggression toward women, while women become misandrist by being victimized.

Even though the terms are intended to reflect equal and opposite conditions, they are not the same.

When a woman condescends toward someone, and they happen to be male, that’s a coincidence, not a stereotype.

Mansplaining is a stereotype.