parenting

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.

What do people benefit from being cyberbullies?

It’s a toxic coping mechanism for them, like an addiction. It is less a benefit than it is a salve.

Making others feel bad makes them feel less bad about themselves.

For a bully, bullying someone is like having their arm go numb, and they bang it against a wall to ‘wake it up” and restore circulation.

Without that outlet, their inner tensions build up and explode randomly. This exposes their weakness to whoever may have bullied them, resulting in them being bullied further by their bullies.

Bullying is learned behaviour, and it’s reinforced until it sticks and takes over one’s mindset.

When that happens, that person struggles with anger management issues as they learn to cope with their emotional fragility while alienating themselves from others until they learn self-control.

It’s easy to hate bullies, but it’s also easy to see how they became bullies just by looking at whoever bullied them.

(I have an example in mind of a homicidal police officer who contributed to the death of a person suffering from a mental health condition. I want to talk about it but can’t at the moment, but I intend to do so in a more appropriate manner. At any rate, I mention it here now because I saw a photo of him with his father, and his father had “bully written all over his face and demeanour” that most would not notice unless they have been victims of bullying themselves.

This is part of a more significant societal issue that has led to the “defund the police” movement.)

Bullying happens everywhere and at every level in society. Most bullying doesn’t involve any form of physical violence. Most bullying is just verbal intimidation, while a lot of it is a consequence of a power dynamic in a workplace.

Many low-level supervisors are toxic bullies promoted to their Peter Principle peak and stay there for life because they are viewed as effective at that level while incapable of handling higher levels of responsibility.

Bullies who manage to get higher in an organization tend to because the organization itself is entirely toxic from top to bottom, and people are selected for favouritism on their ability to capitulate to the pecking order.

These are environments rife with sycophants, high turnover rates, and senior executives who refer to their staff as family while they rip them off of value for their labour.

Cyberbullying is just more accessible for a bully because they don’t have to risk direct consequences from a reactionary response. They can take their time planning their attacks while knowing their victim can do nothing to harm them.

Cyberbullying is probably the most cowardly form of bullying because of it. In some ways, it may also be the easiest to deal with because many sites and systems have blocking mechanisms that prohibit bullying, and that’s why we often see people on Quora complaining about “cowards” turning off their comments.

The more serious versions of cyberbullying are more complicated to deal with because they often involve kids from a common and relatively small social circle where they share personal details with classmates, for example, that they cannot get away from or block in ways that prevent another avenue of bullying by their bully.

Until we can acknowledge the full scope of the problem of bullying in society, victims are essentially left to their own devices to develop coping strategies for themselves, and that’s the greatest shame in our failure to address bullying in society.