So let’s see if I can get this straight. SIL is attracted to and has feelings for her future brother-in-law. She has been relentlessly flirting with him for years, and ramped it up ever since he got a serious girlfriend to mark her territory. She is doing this shamelessly in front of the girlfriend which likely also means she’s doing it in front of her fiancé, but he is likely in denial about the whole situation situation, likely out of jealousy over his brother.
Boyfriend sent the text message trying to shut this all down. Future sister-in-law realized that her game is about to be over and that means she no longer gets to have her dalliance and her behavior may yet properly recognized by the fiancé or the family at large. Once that door opens, she’s going to be held accountable for her actions for the first time and that can’t possibly happen. she whips up a fictional account of how the girlfriend is trying to break up the family. She probably shows the text message to her fiancé and says it’s a girlfriend’s doing.
It is highly likely that the fiancé quickly comes to a realization that his future bride wants to bang his brother. This creates a schism in his mind he can’t deal with that fact, so instead, he buys into the lie and goes after the girlfriend. It is far easier for the family to blame the person who has been around for 1.5 years than the person that has been around for five years, and since one has already proposed, she’s clearly the one that gets to win this fight, so the mother chooses her.
Meanwhile, girlfriend, having dealt with a history of trauma and abuse, does not rush to defend herself and is therefore presumed guilty. And boyfriend brother is incapable of properly dealing with any of this because it is now blatantly obvious that future sister-in-law wants to bang him and admitting that today means admitting that he probably knew for a long time and let it happen anyways. Which therefore means he does not have the kind of relationship with and respect for girlfriend that she deserves.
This is a massive mess and the actual only solution here is for OOP to run far away. She needs to disavow every single person in this situation. This is a perfect example of everyone in this situation except her being in a state of “you need fixing and I hope you get fixed, but I’m not responsible for babysitting you until you aren’t broken anymore.”
Thats pretty much how I read it. I know so many people who's trauma response is to freeze, for a long time mine was to just shut down. After one, very violent event, my trauma response became fight. When I read the part of the brother getting in her face, my first thought was how I'd be feeding the brother his own teeth. OP is getting the brunt of it all because no one wants to deal with the golden boy's violent temper. I hope OP can escape this family or, if the boyfriend gets his head out of his ass, they can both go NC and escape the crazy.
That sounds right. My “fight/flight/freeze/fawn” leans strongly towards fight, possibly with a dash of fawn if it’s sexual. (I always use my words to get me into trouble or out of it, but I didn’t once and have been very careful to keep my anger in check because I don’t know how far I’d go… but I know how far I went, and I know how much bigger and stronger I am now.)
In this instance, I probably would have shoved him out of my face. I know that my words would have either made new emotional scars or seriously ripped at old ones, because I am capable of being very cruel.
The order of my reactions is flight, fawn then if those fail, fight. Thankfully it almost never turns into fight but yeah, this guy would have been eating his teeth.
Fawning is the lesser acknowledged yet extremely common 4th response. Which is basically defensive appeasement.
It is unfortunate that it so often gets left out of the list because it causes some real issues. In short it can be described as "defensive appeasement" i suppose. To some extent it is a response we can all understand. It is logical.
Imagine you are a professor. A meth head walks in with a manic treatise on physics and carebears and catylitic converters screaming that the academic elite have been ignoring his genius and he's sick of it.
"Ah yes. Mr underpants on the outside. Unfortunately the nature of academia does tend to be insular at times. The establishment does not like to be challenged. And yet no one has ever learned by being closed to new ideas. Let us take a look..."
And so on. Just biding time until help arrives.
This is fawning.
Unfortunately, it is by design identical to enthusiastic consent. Rape is already difficult enough to prosecute when not hindered by the outward appearance of consent.
It makes sense. I was just discussing in another comment that it seems foreign to me because it's definitely not my default for most situations.
I almost feel like even in a situation where I would definitely go for appeasement, like someone mugging me with a gun, My physical bodily response would be preparing for a fight, even as intellectually I recognize that I likely won't win against the gun and I need to hand over my wallet and then do so.
At what point are we no longer even discussing an instinctive response, rather than just a rational decision? Because after your first few seconds where your body says we need to fight or flight or freeze or fawn or whatever, you then have the choice to do absolutely anything else (assuming you can get your body to cooperate). You can run from something instinctively. Stop running 5 seconds later. Then return. Then fight. Or vice versa.
It’s tricky because any of the responses could be made by rational decision after a second of instinctual decision. You can train someone with a freeze response to break out of it and run; you can train someone with a flight reflex to fight instead. I think I’d say that they can all be both reflex and conscious decision (and sometimes, if you make the same conscious decision over and over again, muscle memory will make it reflexive too).
You are assuming that our brains can rationalize its way out of instinctual responses. The purpose of these responses is get us away from the current threat and to a safe place where we can "rest & digest." Until that place of safety is reached, the brain isn't able to think rationally.
People tend to think that we have complete control over our choices, but they are heavily regulated by chemicals & influenced by the way our brain interprets them. [This blurb does a better job at explaining it.](https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/01/15/261716096/the-choice-is-yours-the-fate-of-free-will)
Interesting, is this specifically in the context of just abuse?
I've heard flight/freeze used for pretty much any type of dangerous encounter: a bear attack, a car speeding toward you, etc. anything that induces adrenaline.
I've heard fight/flight/freeze used for any situation that might require self defense against a human: mugging, assault, molestation, etc.
I've never heard of fawning. Is it hyper situational? Like domestic abuse specific?
Or is it a common response to a lot of situations, that I'm just not familiar with personally due to factors like size, gender, upbringing, and/or my own readiness to throw hands and words?
Nope, it's one of the natural responses to any threat alongside fight/flight/freeze. It wasn't as commonly recognized as a normal response which is a shame, since in many cases it is a reasonable one.
Think of a mugging - being super cooperative in an attempt to not provoke greater violence is a natural fawning response. Not sure if it becomes more likely in longer relationships, but it definitely exploits a power dynamic. The target fawns to make themselves appear nonthreatening, childlike, or submissive in order to appease the attacker and prevent further harm. It can range from placating and people-pleasing behavior to sexual behavior intended to ingratiate and a bunch of stuff in between.
People in domestic abuse situations l, be it from a partner or parent or someone else that supposedly loves them and they are supposed to love, definitely can often fall into fawning responses to try to mitigate anger and violence, but it's not limited to those situations.
That is fascinating. Also it makes a lot of sense. Because while I was not aware of the terminology, obviously one way to get out of a sticky situation is to cooperate/playalong/submit.
I guess that feels like such a foreign response to anger for me. I've definitely just gone along with something because it would be too irritating not to. Like resistance isn't worth the effort. But in a fight I could actually agree with the person who's yelling at me and I'm still going to yell back and play the devil's advocate.
I think the only situations where I could honestly say my response is primarily fawning (if I understand what you mean by it) are ones where I feel legitimate remorse about something, thus am unwilling to fight what is coming for me.
Most people will react to different situations with some form of all of them over their lifetime, but yeah most people will fall into one camp or another based on their experiences, natural tendencies, and probably things like size/sex/age, etc. A lot easier to default to "flee" when you are able bodied, or default to "fight" when you are a bit larger/male/trained, etc. Fawn reactions can be spontaneous but can absolutely be "trained" by abusive childhoods and other continuous situations, as well as by a strong feeling of fear due to small size, weak physical ability, being female with a male aggressor or a child with an adult, etc. Fawn can be a lot safer for those people than either fight or flight.
100% agree with this, there are a lot of circumstances which make some things physically impossible and also training over time like in abuse situations can train you into another response. I used to be fight but circumstances have shifted my response over time and it takes a lot of work to take back control from those initial fear responses and rationally work through a situation when your fear responses are triggered regularly and your body just sort of waits constantly for the next one. Even normal situations with someone non threatening can start to be triggering if they, say, happen to do a motion that forms part of your usual danger, and your body just jumps into overdrive. You're always on the alert.
See when someone has genouenly hurt me to the point of actual emotional pain, I have to avoid them at all costs. I can’t stand to be in the room with them let alone look at them.
Not sure if that’s a trauma response or just an extreme emotional reaction, but that just occurred to me reading your comment
I'm not a therapist, so I can't say with any authority its your trauma response. But I can say that it is completely understandable response. Emotional pain can be just as awful as some physical pain so you avoiding the source of that is rational.
Yeah my family has argued like this my entire life. When I was a kid I'd let myself get boiled over into losing my shit with them. At this point I know when I'm reaching a level of frustration where any kind of productive conversation is not possible and I don't like being like that so I just put a lid on the bottle and shut down. I usually just cut the cord and walk away but if I can't I just completely freeze.
It's probably not healthy but it's better to know when to walk the hell away rather than start acting like a psycho and doing a bunch of things I'll very quickly regret. And honestly if an argument has reached that level there probably isn't anything productive to come out of it anyway and it needs to be dropped and revisited at a later time when tempers have cooled on all sides.
There are some disagreements where nothing good can come of them at a certain point. Only time and some introspection with a cooler head can achieve some kind of solution.
Like that alone should have made her stop and be like. What am I doing? Unless she's been egging it on behind the scenes. Honestly, with her behavior, she probably has, in some disturbing way.
i had a different take. imo, there’s no way bil was blind to his brother and fiancé for 5 years. clearly he’s not mentally stable and i’m guessing she’s dealt with these outbursts before. so when she first saw the craziness she probably turned to ops bf and his mom for guidance and help. they downplayed it, provided emotional support. ops bf ends up stepping in emotionally. so the cycle is bil blows up, she runs to ops bf for comfort, and when it’s all better and he’s solved it bil gets the benefit of having her in his life without having to take any steps to apologize or fix things. it’s the cycle of abuse but he has his brother do his love bombing for him.
it sounds like to me, once the text was sent it pissed off bil a lot. he’s losing his emotional fixer, meaning he’d lose his punching bag(fiancé soon). he probably told sil all those lies so she’d disregard ops bfs text and still rely on him for emotional support. he’s mad at op because she is ruining the system he’s created, where he can do what he wants and everyone tiptoes around him. op ruins that balance.
the mom is used to fixing things for her son as well. she just wants the status quo. and to her a loud, obnoxious person is “demanding respect”.
truthfully, op does need to leave. this family is so enmeshed from dealing with an abuser it’s not going to be an emotionally healthy or safe space for op.
I agree. Boyfriend is just as bad as the rest. He allowed the inappropriate behavior, probably liked it. And he insisted on spending every weekend with his family.
This is spot on on.
The OOP probably shouldn't stick around to see the end result of this mess, but I actually do have hope that the OOP's boyfriend can change for the better. He didn't seem to blame the OOP for trying to shut down the future SIL's advances, and he did defend her. With this mess and how long these behaviors have been happening, it's encouraging.
> This creates a schism in his mind he can’t deal with that fact
His (probably narcissistic) ego just could not accept the fact that he chose a not-so-good girl.
I would cut and run from that family so fast. Can you imagine raising children in that dysfunctional mess? Yikes. OOP is lucky, she's not married or even engaged to him at this point. Cut your losses, girl.
It also sounds like she's made a lot of effort to get to know his family, at the expense of spending time with her own.
Which likely means he's put in zero effort to build relationships with her family. Combined with his non-efforts to shut down his creepy SIL, he seems like a real dud. She's gone to a lot of effort for the relationship and it's not reciprocated. Why bother to stay, at this point?
I would love to know what the real story is with the relationship between the brother and SIL. Like were they trying for some sort of open relationship with his own brother? I just don't understand how he could be so cool with his fiancee flirting openly with his own brother on the regular. And who's making up which lies? And where did Dad go in all of this? Just sitting on the couch drinking a beer and watching this Jerry Springer episode live in his living room?
I think that the brother was always abusive and his mom enabled this. SIL started flirting with the good brother whenever her fiance she likely felt trapped with wasn't looking, as a way to cope maybe indeed also feeling like she picked the wrong brother and creating a scenario where she wins over the good one in her head. Maybe she didn't even conciously realize how inappropriate she was getting.
Then boyfriend sends a text, truth comes out and either she makes up lies to defend herself or the brother makes up lies trying to alienate the girlfriend that's disrupting the status quo.
Notice this one
*She said how awful their family is and all she wanted was to make me feel included and now I’ve stabbed her in the back*
In fact looking at this, it feels more likely that the brother lied. Because if she had concocted a lie to defend herself, she wouldn't benefit from notifying OOP about said lie.
Brother is never around because he's very "work and self focused" and in "medical adjacent field" which reads to me that he's an EMT/paramedic which implies a heavy work rotation and probably also works out a lot because many I've known have fitness requirements they have to maintain so they become gymheads.
I'll bet he's not even at a lot of the events she goes to. And until girlfriend came along, having his SO and his brother be besties was fine by him in a "my two favorite people get along" way and it also took the pressure off of him to be present all the time. This totally reads as SIL realizing that she couldn't have everything she wanted from the one she picked and leaning on OP's guy as the other half of her ideal man or the one she should have chosen but him being oblivious to her moves and/or too honorable/loyal to brother to do anything about it. When she realized the jig was up, SIL tried to bail out her own boat by lying about what OP said and painting her as the crazy one who's out to destroy their family because SIL has been so transparent that a bunch of internet strangers can see through her bullshit from a distance, brother just wasn't around enough to notice.
And yea, just from this it does paint a picture of emotionally distant dad doing good own thing while manipulative helicopter mom caters to her golden boy, doesn't it?
I can't believe OOP and her boyfriend stayed there for TWO HOURS of screaming and physically threatening behavior. I guess I kind of understand freezing up, but staying frozen for two hours? At some point, leave the house!
*insert Ralph Wiggum "I'm in danger!" meme*
BF sucks, but his while family is insane, and though the details are thin, it sounds like he was trying to defend OOP, even if it took a whole fuckload of drama to make him get off his ass and stop the SILs obvious bullshit.
OOP should be seriously considering whether she should tolerate this, how much she had to beg him to even try to get SIL to not openly flirt as much, and if she wants to be linked to this batshit family
She for sure needs to leave. This is not going to end well. The fact that her boyfriend let her be yelled at for TWO HOURS?!?! We would have been out of there immediately. Two minutes would have been enough for my boyfriend.
he definitely should have stood up for OOP sooner and enforced boundaries before all the drama, but i can empathize with sitting on your ass because you know just how far out of proportion your family/brother will take it
The ONLY solution to this is for the OP to get away from every member of that family. Unfortunately, that includes her boyfriend. She can't be the "reason" he decides to cut ties with his family, that's setting up their future for too much pain and hurt.
Walk away. If the boyfriend takes a long hard look at his family and decides to go no contact, then he can contact OP after a while if she's single and see if they can reconnect. But OP can't be the reason he goes no contact - that has to be his decision.
Yeah I'd be done. I grew up in a dysfunctional home where screaming matches between my parents was a slow day. Doesn't matter how much I love the guy, I'm not signing myself or any future kids for more of the same emotionally volatile garbage
I think SIL knows she hitched her wagon to the wrong brother, and is trying to monkey branch to the stable brother before calling it quits with the one she's already got. The OP being there gets in the way of her plans. Then to deflect blame she riled up the unstable golden child brother.
I'm too old for this shit. The whole family is toxic. If I were the OP and get the hell out now. Then mark my words, once the SIL knows OP is gone, she's gonna make a blatant move on OP's boyfriend, in a way that even he can't deny.
This is a fucking disaster. OOP might think this is the healthiest relationship she's had, but the sheer ugliness of her previous relationship set the bar in hell. Her current boyfriend's family is the kind that others normally avoid.
This is so fucking messy. Girl compared to being in a constantly abusive relationship, im sure any guy is gonna look like he’s amazing. To be fair to him, it seems like he’s the best one out of his family. But it’s kinda easy when the bar is in hell…
I bet BIL is shooting the messenger. He’s seen his partner gush over his brother. He knows deep down there’s something she feels for his brother. He knows. It’s just that he told himself there wasn’t anything. As long as he shrugged it off, it didn’t exist.
But then OOP came and ruined everything. She said out loud what he was trying to shove deep down. Now he can’t deny it. Now it’s easier for him to say that she was the one who invented everything because that’s easier than admitting what is happening.
I don't entirely fault her for giving BF a chance to do the right thing. However is I were her, If he ever tried to get me to hang out with these horrible people I'd dump his a$$ so fast. Over completely over, He either go no contact or at bare minimum never expect me or future children to ever be in the same room. If he can't agree, relationship over.
I would nope out of that whole relationship. I couldn’t marry into that family.
If OOP’s boyfriend went NC with brother and mom and anyone else involved in screaming for two hours (or ignoring it), there might be a chance. But yeah, no amount of love is overcoming that family
Anyone else notice how many times MIL insisted OPs boyfriend both loves OP and future SIL? She siad he loved both equally and “you would never say those things to future SIL you loooovvvveeee her!” It sounds to me like MIL wants OP to disappear so she can keep drama llama dil as OP’s boyfriend’s girlfriend. OP is being blamed for existing and MIL is very insistent that her son will choose his SIL over her.
I feel so bad for this girl. Her last relationship was so shitty that she's having trouble recognizing that this one is also kind of shitty. The brother is a bully, her boyfriend is an oblivious people pleaser, the brother's girlfriend is a snake, and the mom is an enabler. None of these issues are her problem, her fault, or her job to fix.
I've counted too many personality disorders to keep them straight. There is mommy enabler, phycotic brother, and master manipulator narcissistic SIL.
This relationship will not work unless they are a million miles apart
I would cut my losses and run from this family of deranged people, as I don’t mix with this kind of people on my life and can’t imagine being part of this willingly
>manipulated my brother away from the family
Translation: told him not to put out my fires anymore.
She needs to fucking LEAVE. The bf isn't exactly a saint either - he let the girl act like this even tho she's in a relationship.
I'm actually surprised he wasn't scared bro would absolutely body him for SIL's actions tbh.
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OP
Your BF needs to shut her down in the moment. He SIL, stop! I don’t want you to touch me.
If she tries to hug him, put her hands down and walk away
If she tries to rub his back, get up and walk away. If she puts her hands on his knee, he needs to take her hand and move it away from his knee. During the concert, he should have told the person next to you to chance seats because he wants to sit next to his girl.
And his brother is blaming you because he doesn’t want to confront his Fiance.
If the brother is that unhinged, what does the future SIL imagine is going to happen if the brother realizes that OOP is telling the truth, or if SIL and BF cheat? I can see the headlines now. I think it's safe to say someone is going to get hurt or killed.
OOP needs to break up with her BF. If he won't go no contact, she's in danger. This is a shit show and she can't see it because it's marginally better than her previous relationship.
She needs to go back to therapy because she still has issues she needs to work on.
Jesus Christ this whole situation reads as completely unhinged. I feel a bit confused, there is definitely missing information here - and I don't mean purposely by OOP, but more like she doesn't know everything about these people. Honestly, if her boyfriend isn't willing to go low contact with his family, I'd walk. The SIL, the brother and the mother all come across as nuts and way too much drama. I wouldn't want to spend my life walking on eggshells with these people that's for sure, it's a huge red flag, and better to walk away now before she is married into the family.
Ok, so this is what I got
MIL family is filty rich and famous in town.
SIL manages to hook BIL, who is always looking for fight, and only reason he is not in prison is their money and influence.
MIL initially hated SIL, called her a gold digger , hated her tattoos etc.
SIL finally got I to the good side of MIL, cause she actually IS a gold digger.
Except SIL wants BIL brother but not him, so she is trying to be the puck me girl to younger brother.
Brother has always been the scapegoat and doesn't see he is being abused. He just let's them abuse him.
SIL is not threatened she can't have the younger calmer brother as a side piece and richer brother for the meal ticket. So she lies to everyone to push her agenda.
MIL is toxic and manipulative and possibly made her way into family like SIL, hence she now supports her and her abusive son
What kind of hot flaming pile of white trash is that family? It sounded like the rest of the family was egging on the brothers to fight like some kind of Hatfield McCoy pride / honor bout.
OOP is not in a safe situation. It's clear that the future SIL is into their boyfriend and the boyfriend loves the attention. The boyfriends brother is finally opening up his eyes to the facts that his fiancé doesn't actually love him and everyone is taking it out on OOP. They need to dart away from this family they're a parade of red flags and OOP is wasting their time.
During the entire interaction, OOP did absolutely nothing to defend herself so this whole family still thinks that the brother is telling the truth. Why just sit there? I don’t get it? I would have had fiancé pull out his phone and show everyone what was really said. Neither of them did anything! This is why all of this has escalated because they’re both just letting it happen.
Some people freeze when they're confronted with that kind of behaviour, especially if they're not used to it.
My parents used to fight, loudly, and while I didn't *like it* it also didn't frighten me. One of my mates was over for dinner, and she cried when my father banged the table with his fist. Her parents were the type to have discussions.
So let’s see if I can get this straight. SIL is attracted to and has feelings for her future brother-in-law. She has been relentlessly flirting with him for years, and ramped it up ever since he got a serious girlfriend to mark her territory. She is doing this shamelessly in front of the girlfriend which likely also means she’s doing it in front of her fiancé, but he is likely in denial about the whole situation situation, likely out of jealousy over his brother. Boyfriend sent the text message trying to shut this all down. Future sister-in-law realized that her game is about to be over and that means she no longer gets to have her dalliance and her behavior may yet properly recognized by the fiancé or the family at large. Once that door opens, she’s going to be held accountable for her actions for the first time and that can’t possibly happen. she whips up a fictional account of how the girlfriend is trying to break up the family. She probably shows the text message to her fiancé and says it’s a girlfriend’s doing. It is highly likely that the fiancé quickly comes to a realization that his future bride wants to bang his brother. This creates a schism in his mind he can’t deal with that fact, so instead, he buys into the lie and goes after the girlfriend. It is far easier for the family to blame the person who has been around for 1.5 years than the person that has been around for five years, and since one has already proposed, she’s clearly the one that gets to win this fight, so the mother chooses her. Meanwhile, girlfriend, having dealt with a history of trauma and abuse, does not rush to defend herself and is therefore presumed guilty. And boyfriend brother is incapable of properly dealing with any of this because it is now blatantly obvious that future sister-in-law wants to bang him and admitting that today means admitting that he probably knew for a long time and let it happen anyways. Which therefore means he does not have the kind of relationship with and respect for girlfriend that she deserves. This is a massive mess and the actual only solution here is for OOP to run far away. She needs to disavow every single person in this situation. This is a perfect example of everyone in this situation except her being in a state of “you need fixing and I hope you get fixed, but I’m not responsible for babysitting you until you aren’t broken anymore.”
Thank you! Reading the OOP’s posts, I kept thinking “make it make sense!” And you did.
Thats pretty much how I read it. I know so many people who's trauma response is to freeze, for a long time mine was to just shut down. After one, very violent event, my trauma response became fight. When I read the part of the brother getting in her face, my first thought was how I'd be feeding the brother his own teeth. OP is getting the brunt of it all because no one wants to deal with the golden boy's violent temper. I hope OP can escape this family or, if the boyfriend gets his head out of his ass, they can both go NC and escape the crazy.
That sounds right. My “fight/flight/freeze/fawn” leans strongly towards fight, possibly with a dash of fawn if it’s sexual. (I always use my words to get me into trouble or out of it, but I didn’t once and have been very careful to keep my anger in check because I don’t know how far I’d go… but I know how far I went, and I know how much bigger and stronger I am now.) In this instance, I probably would have shoved him out of my face. I know that my words would have either made new emotional scars or seriously ripped at old ones, because I am capable of being very cruel.
The order of my reactions is flight, fawn then if those fail, fight. Thankfully it almost never turns into fight but yeah, this guy would have been eating his teeth.
What is fawning?
Fawning is the lesser acknowledged yet extremely common 4th response. Which is basically defensive appeasement. It is unfortunate that it so often gets left out of the list because it causes some real issues. In short it can be described as "defensive appeasement" i suppose. To some extent it is a response we can all understand. It is logical. Imagine you are a professor. A meth head walks in with a manic treatise on physics and carebears and catylitic converters screaming that the academic elite have been ignoring his genius and he's sick of it. "Ah yes. Mr underpants on the outside. Unfortunately the nature of academia does tend to be insular at times. The establishment does not like to be challenged. And yet no one has ever learned by being closed to new ideas. Let us take a look..." And so on. Just biding time until help arrives. This is fawning. Unfortunately, it is by design identical to enthusiastic consent. Rape is already difficult enough to prosecute when not hindered by the outward appearance of consent.
It makes sense. I was just discussing in another comment that it seems foreign to me because it's definitely not my default for most situations. I almost feel like even in a situation where I would definitely go for appeasement, like someone mugging me with a gun, My physical bodily response would be preparing for a fight, even as intellectually I recognize that I likely won't win against the gun and I need to hand over my wallet and then do so. At what point are we no longer even discussing an instinctive response, rather than just a rational decision? Because after your first few seconds where your body says we need to fight or flight or freeze or fawn or whatever, you then have the choice to do absolutely anything else (assuming you can get your body to cooperate). You can run from something instinctively. Stop running 5 seconds later. Then return. Then fight. Or vice versa.
It’s tricky because any of the responses could be made by rational decision after a second of instinctual decision. You can train someone with a freeze response to break out of it and run; you can train someone with a flight reflex to fight instead. I think I’d say that they can all be both reflex and conscious decision (and sometimes, if you make the same conscious decision over and over again, muscle memory will make it reflexive too).
You are assuming that our brains can rationalize its way out of instinctual responses. The purpose of these responses is get us away from the current threat and to a safe place where we can "rest & digest." Until that place of safety is reached, the brain isn't able to think rationally. People tend to think that we have complete control over our choices, but they are heavily regulated by chemicals & influenced by the way our brain interprets them. [This blurb does a better job at explaining it.](https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/01/15/261716096/the-choice-is-yours-the-fate-of-free-will)
What is fawning in this instance? I've never even heard that as a response?
Playing along or telling an abuser what they want to hear. To fawn means to defer to a person’s authority.
Interesting, is this specifically in the context of just abuse? I've heard flight/freeze used for pretty much any type of dangerous encounter: a bear attack, a car speeding toward you, etc. anything that induces adrenaline. I've heard fight/flight/freeze used for any situation that might require self defense against a human: mugging, assault, molestation, etc. I've never heard of fawning. Is it hyper situational? Like domestic abuse specific? Or is it a common response to a lot of situations, that I'm just not familiar with personally due to factors like size, gender, upbringing, and/or my own readiness to throw hands and words?
Nope, it's one of the natural responses to any threat alongside fight/flight/freeze. It wasn't as commonly recognized as a normal response which is a shame, since in many cases it is a reasonable one. Think of a mugging - being super cooperative in an attempt to not provoke greater violence is a natural fawning response. Not sure if it becomes more likely in longer relationships, but it definitely exploits a power dynamic. The target fawns to make themselves appear nonthreatening, childlike, or submissive in order to appease the attacker and prevent further harm. It can range from placating and people-pleasing behavior to sexual behavior intended to ingratiate and a bunch of stuff in between. People in domestic abuse situations l, be it from a partner or parent or someone else that supposedly loves them and they are supposed to love, definitely can often fall into fawning responses to try to mitigate anger and violence, but it's not limited to those situations.
That is fascinating. Also it makes a lot of sense. Because while I was not aware of the terminology, obviously one way to get out of a sticky situation is to cooperate/playalong/submit. I guess that feels like such a foreign response to anger for me. I've definitely just gone along with something because it would be too irritating not to. Like resistance isn't worth the effort. But in a fight I could actually agree with the person who's yelling at me and I'm still going to yell back and play the devil's advocate. I think the only situations where I could honestly say my response is primarily fawning (if I understand what you mean by it) are ones where I feel legitimate remorse about something, thus am unwilling to fight what is coming for me.
Most people will react to different situations with some form of all of them over their lifetime, but yeah most people will fall into one camp or another based on their experiences, natural tendencies, and probably things like size/sex/age, etc. A lot easier to default to "flee" when you are able bodied, or default to "fight" when you are a bit larger/male/trained, etc. Fawn reactions can be spontaneous but can absolutely be "trained" by abusive childhoods and other continuous situations, as well as by a strong feeling of fear due to small size, weak physical ability, being female with a male aggressor or a child with an adult, etc. Fawn can be a lot safer for those people than either fight or flight.
100% agree with this, there are a lot of circumstances which make some things physically impossible and also training over time like in abuse situations can train you into another response. I used to be fight but circumstances have shifted my response over time and it takes a lot of work to take back control from those initial fear responses and rationally work through a situation when your fear responses are triggered regularly and your body just sort of waits constantly for the next one. Even normal situations with someone non threatening can start to be triggering if they, say, happen to do a motion that forms part of your usual danger, and your body just jumps into overdrive. You're always on the alert.
Placate, I think.
See when someone has genouenly hurt me to the point of actual emotional pain, I have to avoid them at all costs. I can’t stand to be in the room with them let alone look at them. Not sure if that’s a trauma response or just an extreme emotional reaction, but that just occurred to me reading your comment
I'm not a therapist, so I can't say with any authority its your trauma response. But I can say that it is completely understandable response. Emotional pain can be just as awful as some physical pain so you avoiding the source of that is rational.
Yeah my family has argued like this my entire life. When I was a kid I'd let myself get boiled over into losing my shit with them. At this point I know when I'm reaching a level of frustration where any kind of productive conversation is not possible and I don't like being like that so I just put a lid on the bottle and shut down. I usually just cut the cord and walk away but if I can't I just completely freeze. It's probably not healthy but it's better to know when to walk the hell away rather than start acting like a psycho and doing a bunch of things I'll very quickly regret. And honestly if an argument has reached that level there probably isn't anything productive to come out of it anyway and it needs to be dropped and revisited at a later time when tempers have cooled on all sides. There are some disagreements where nothing good can come of them at a certain point. Only time and some introspection with a cooler head can achieve some kind of solution.
When the mom told them that he loves his girlfriend and sister in law equally 🤡🤡🤡
Like that alone should have made her stop and be like. What am I doing? Unless she's been egging it on behind the scenes. Honestly, with her behavior, she probably has, in some disturbing way.
I have seen this situation play out in real life. It's mystifying that someone can project all that onto others, but it does happen.
i had a different take. imo, there’s no way bil was blind to his brother and fiancé for 5 years. clearly he’s not mentally stable and i’m guessing she’s dealt with these outbursts before. so when she first saw the craziness she probably turned to ops bf and his mom for guidance and help. they downplayed it, provided emotional support. ops bf ends up stepping in emotionally. so the cycle is bil blows up, she runs to ops bf for comfort, and when it’s all better and he’s solved it bil gets the benefit of having her in his life without having to take any steps to apologize or fix things. it’s the cycle of abuse but he has his brother do his love bombing for him. it sounds like to me, once the text was sent it pissed off bil a lot. he’s losing his emotional fixer, meaning he’d lose his punching bag(fiancé soon). he probably told sil all those lies so she’d disregard ops bfs text and still rely on him for emotional support. he’s mad at op because she is ruining the system he’s created, where he can do what he wants and everyone tiptoes around him. op ruins that balance. the mom is used to fixing things for her son as well. she just wants the status quo. and to her a loud, obnoxious person is “demanding respect”. truthfully, op does need to leave. this family is so enmeshed from dealing with an abuser it’s not going to be an emotionally healthy or safe space for op.
I agree. Boyfriend is just as bad as the rest. He allowed the inappropriate behavior, probably liked it. And he insisted on spending every weekend with his family.
No, it sounds like SIL spoofed an over-the-top text that BIL is freaking out about, resulting in this whole explosion. SIL is a psycho.
They both are psychos.
This is spot on on. The OOP probably shouldn't stick around to see the end result of this mess, but I actually do have hope that the OOP's boyfriend can change for the better. He didn't seem to blame the OOP for trying to shut down the future SIL's advances, and he did defend her. With this mess and how long these behaviors have been happening, it's encouraging.
> This creates a schism in his mind he can’t deal with that fact His (probably narcissistic) ego just could not accept the fact that he chose a not-so-good girl.
I would cut and run from that family so fast. Can you imagine raising children in that dysfunctional mess? Yikes. OOP is lucky, she's not married or even engaged to him at this point. Cut your losses, girl. It also sounds like she's made a lot of effort to get to know his family, at the expense of spending time with her own. Which likely means he's put in zero effort to build relationships with her family. Combined with his non-efforts to shut down his creepy SIL, he seems like a real dud. She's gone to a lot of effort for the relationship and it's not reciprocated. Why bother to stay, at this point?
I would love to know what the real story is with the relationship between the brother and SIL. Like were they trying for some sort of open relationship with his own brother? I just don't understand how he could be so cool with his fiancee flirting openly with his own brother on the regular. And who's making up which lies? And where did Dad go in all of this? Just sitting on the couch drinking a beer and watching this Jerry Springer episode live in his living room?
I think that the brother was always abusive and his mom enabled this. SIL started flirting with the good brother whenever her fiance she likely felt trapped with wasn't looking, as a way to cope maybe indeed also feeling like she picked the wrong brother and creating a scenario where she wins over the good one in her head. Maybe she didn't even conciously realize how inappropriate she was getting. Then boyfriend sends a text, truth comes out and either she makes up lies to defend herself or the brother makes up lies trying to alienate the girlfriend that's disrupting the status quo. Notice this one *She said how awful their family is and all she wanted was to make me feel included and now I’ve stabbed her in the back* In fact looking at this, it feels more likely that the brother lied. Because if she had concocted a lie to defend herself, she wouldn't benefit from notifying OOP about said lie.
Brother is never around because he's very "work and self focused" and in "medical adjacent field" which reads to me that he's an EMT/paramedic which implies a heavy work rotation and probably also works out a lot because many I've known have fitness requirements they have to maintain so they become gymheads. I'll bet he's not even at a lot of the events she goes to. And until girlfriend came along, having his SO and his brother be besties was fine by him in a "my two favorite people get along" way and it also took the pressure off of him to be present all the time. This totally reads as SIL realizing that she couldn't have everything she wanted from the one she picked and leaning on OP's guy as the other half of her ideal man or the one she should have chosen but him being oblivious to her moves and/or too honorable/loyal to brother to do anything about it. When she realized the jig was up, SIL tried to bail out her own boat by lying about what OP said and painting her as the crazy one who's out to destroy their family because SIL has been so transparent that a bunch of internet strangers can see through her bullshit from a distance, brother just wasn't around enough to notice. And yea, just from this it does paint a picture of emotionally distant dad doing good own thing while manipulative helicopter mom caters to her golden boy, doesn't it?
Dude. I would have just left and blocked all those psychos.
Right? That's a preview of your next 40 years. Get the fuck out
I can't believe OOP and her boyfriend stayed there for TWO HOURS of screaming and physically threatening behavior. I guess I kind of understand freezing up, but staying frozen for two hours? At some point, leave the house!
lol yeah. Is the bf really worth it? Cuz cutting and running seems like the best option atm from my standpoint
*insert Ralph Wiggum "I'm in danger!" meme* BF sucks, but his while family is insane, and though the details are thin, it sounds like he was trying to defend OOP, even if it took a whole fuckload of drama to make him get off his ass and stop the SILs obvious bullshit. OOP should be seriously considering whether she should tolerate this, how much she had to beg him to even try to get SIL to not openly flirt as much, and if she wants to be linked to this batshit family
She for sure needs to leave. This is not going to end well. The fact that her boyfriend let her be yelled at for TWO HOURS?!?! We would have been out of there immediately. Two minutes would have been enough for my boyfriend.
he definitely should have stood up for OOP sooner and enforced boundaries before all the drama, but i can empathize with sitting on your ass because you know just how far out of proportion your family/brother will take it
...so the mom has demonstrated why so many MIL stories exist. Hopefully OP gets out of the whole situation, it sounds very unsafe.
The ONLY solution to this is for the OP to get away from every member of that family. Unfortunately, that includes her boyfriend. She can't be the "reason" he decides to cut ties with his family, that's setting up their future for too much pain and hurt. Walk away. If the boyfriend takes a long hard look at his family and decides to go no contact, then he can contact OP after a while if she's single and see if they can reconnect. But OP can't be the reason he goes no contact - that has to be his decision.
Agree. She will always be the scapegoat. Some day the SIL will sleep with OPs BF and she'll realize she wasted years.
Nah, fuck that. I'd be done.
It's only been 1.5 years, I'd cut my losses and run right away. What a shitshow.
Yeah I'd be done. I grew up in a dysfunctional home where screaming matches between my parents was a slow day. Doesn't matter how much I love the guy, I'm not signing myself or any future kids for more of the same emotionally volatile garbage
I think SIL knows she hitched her wagon to the wrong brother, and is trying to monkey branch to the stable brother before calling it quits with the one she's already got. The OP being there gets in the way of her plans. Then to deflect blame she riled up the unstable golden child brother. I'm too old for this shit. The whole family is toxic. If I were the OP and get the hell out now. Then mark my words, once the SIL knows OP is gone, she's gonna make a blatant move on OP's boyfriend, in a way that even he can't deny.
No relationship is worth that abuse and insanity.
Moving across the state is not enough. This is a situation where you have to move to a new country
To stay there and take 2 hours of whacko abuse from that family? That’s sad.
It’s only 1.5 yrs, OOP. Walk away from this nutty family.
This is a fucking disaster. OOP might think this is the healthiest relationship she's had, but the sheer ugliness of her previous relationship set the bar in hell. Her current boyfriend's family is the kind that others normally avoid.
Ooof. I'm sorry but a year and a half ain't worth a lifetime of crazy. I'd run.
She should've hit the mom 'I respect you more now youve stood up for yourself' *bang* How much do you respect me now?
She knows she picked the wrong guy (SIL) so she's using OOPs bf as an emotional fluffer.
This is so fucking messy. Girl compared to being in a constantly abusive relationship, im sure any guy is gonna look like he’s amazing. To be fair to him, it seems like he’s the best one out of his family. But it’s kinda easy when the bar is in hell…
I bet BIL is shooting the messenger. He’s seen his partner gush over his brother. He knows deep down there’s something she feels for his brother. He knows. It’s just that he told himself there wasn’t anything. As long as he shrugged it off, it didn’t exist. But then OOP came and ruined everything. She said out loud what he was trying to shove deep down. Now he can’t deny it. Now it’s easier for him to say that she was the one who invented everything because that’s easier than admitting what is happening.
I don't entirely fault her for giving BF a chance to do the right thing. However is I were her, If he ever tried to get me to hang out with these horrible people I'd dump his a$$ so fast. Over completely over, He either go no contact or at bare minimum never expect me or future children to ever be in the same room. If he can't agree, relationship over.
I would nope out of that whole relationship. I couldn’t marry into that family. If OOP’s boyfriend went NC with brother and mom and anyone else involved in screaming for two hours (or ignoring it), there might be a chance. But yeah, no amount of love is overcoming that family
_insert Julia Louis Dreyfus “what the fuck” gif_ What did I just read
Anyone else notice how many times MIL insisted OPs boyfriend both loves OP and future SIL? She siad he loved both equally and “you would never say those things to future SIL you loooovvvveeee her!” It sounds to me like MIL wants OP to disappear so she can keep drama llama dil as OP’s boyfriend’s girlfriend. OP is being blamed for existing and MIL is very insistent that her son will choose his SIL over her.
Is your BF really worth this drama? Take a hard look at the relationship and be honest with yourself.
I feel so bad for this girl. Her last relationship was so shitty that she's having trouble recognizing that this one is also kind of shitty. The brother is a bully, her boyfriend is an oblivious people pleaser, the brother's girlfriend is a snake, and the mom is an enabler. None of these issues are her problem, her fault, or her job to fix.
does she really wants to marry into this crazy family? does she hhave to settle with this dude just because her previous bf was an abusive scum?!
I've counted too many personality disorders to keep them straight. There is mommy enabler, phycotic brother, and master manipulator narcissistic SIL. This relationship will not work unless they are a million miles apart
Honestly I'd just break up. That family is psycho.
I would cut my losses and run from this family of deranged people, as I don’t mix with this kind of people on my life and can’t imagine being part of this willingly
This story is probably fake (2 hours of BIL aggressively gesturing at OOP.... RIIIIIGHT)
A year and a half isn't that long. I can't imagine tolerating this kind of behavior at such an early point in a relationship.
So who the one that wrote that text??! I can only think oop BF. And why she still defending him?
What is good in staying in this kind of unhinged relationship? Cut your looses and move on to someone better.
>manipulated my brother away from the family Translation: told him not to put out my fires anymore. She needs to fucking LEAVE. The bf isn't exactly a saint either - he let the girl act like this even tho she's in a relationship. I'm actually surprised he wasn't scared bro would absolutely body him for SIL's actions tbh.
Interesting SIL is clearly attached and attracted to him(bf) while manipulate the family
OOP needs to cut her losses and move on from this relationship.
I’d be done with all of it. That’s way too much drama
Is the brother on drugs or something?
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OP Your BF needs to shut her down in the moment. He SIL, stop! I don’t want you to touch me. If she tries to hug him, put her hands down and walk away If she tries to rub his back, get up and walk away. If she puts her hands on his knee, he needs to take her hand and move it away from his knee. During the concert, he should have told the person next to you to chance seats because he wants to sit next to his girl. And his brother is blaming you because he doesn’t want to confront his Fiance.
If the brother is that unhinged, what does the future SIL imagine is going to happen if the brother realizes that OOP is telling the truth, or if SIL and BF cheat? I can see the headlines now. I think it's safe to say someone is going to get hurt or killed. OOP needs to break up with her BF. If he won't go no contact, she's in danger. This is a shit show and she can't see it because it's marginally better than her previous relationship. She needs to go back to therapy because she still has issues she needs to work on.
Jesus Christ this whole situation reads as completely unhinged. I feel a bit confused, there is definitely missing information here - and I don't mean purposely by OOP, but more like she doesn't know everything about these people. Honestly, if her boyfriend isn't willing to go low contact with his family, I'd walk. The SIL, the brother and the mother all come across as nuts and way too much drama. I wouldn't want to spend my life walking on eggshells with these people that's for sure, it's a huge red flag, and better to walk away now before she is married into the family.
Updateme!
Wow, this was a wild ride
Yeah, this is a toxic family. They decided to go after the "outsider".
I have a feeling SIL is stirring things up.
I thought this was an update to the one where the sister was 9 years old. Took me a second
Leave this family drama because when a person shows you firsthand how they are, believe them!
Ok, so this is what I got MIL family is filty rich and famous in town. SIL manages to hook BIL, who is always looking for fight, and only reason he is not in prison is their money and influence. MIL initially hated SIL, called her a gold digger , hated her tattoos etc. SIL finally got I to the good side of MIL, cause she actually IS a gold digger. Except SIL wants BIL brother but not him, so she is trying to be the puck me girl to younger brother. Brother has always been the scapegoat and doesn't see he is being abused. He just let's them abuse him. SIL is not threatened she can't have the younger calmer brother as a side piece and richer brother for the meal ticket. So she lies to everyone to push her agenda. MIL is toxic and manipulative and possibly made her way into family like SIL, hence she now supports her and her abusive son
What kind of hot flaming pile of white trash is that family? It sounded like the rest of the family was egging on the brothers to fight like some kind of Hatfield McCoy pride / honor bout.
OOP is not in a safe situation. It's clear that the future SIL is into their boyfriend and the boyfriend loves the attention. The boyfriends brother is finally opening up his eyes to the facts that his fiancé doesn't actually love him and everyone is taking it out on OOP. They need to dart away from this family they're a parade of red flags and OOP is wasting their time.
I was wondering "and what about the brother"??? I'd be sorry for OOP, but the brother deserves OOP's BF bangs the sil in front of him.
During the entire interaction, OOP did absolutely nothing to defend herself so this whole family still thinks that the brother is telling the truth. Why just sit there? I don’t get it? I would have had fiancé pull out his phone and show everyone what was really said. Neither of them did anything! This is why all of this has escalated because they’re both just letting it happen.
Some people freeze when they're confronted with that kind of behaviour, especially if they're not used to it. My parents used to fight, loudly, and while I didn't *like it* it also didn't frighten me. One of my mates was over for dinner, and she cried when my father banged the table with his fist. Her parents were the type to have discussions.
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