Blackbeard

Now to say that you cut family off because of how they vote

But cutting family off because they share a different political viewpoint

Again, that’s not what’s happening here. Stop misrepresenting what people are saying to you.

People who snivel about sensitive feelings when they have absolutely no idea

This you?

The way people are writing off family instead of just talking to them is awful.

This is the most circular argument I’ve ever been a part of. Can’t say I didn’t try.

I have friends who were abandoned by their parents and subsequently adopted. I lost a half-sibling with mental illness after their religious paternal family subjected them to actual exorcisms and other emotional trauma which eventually led to their suicide. My wife has a new 60-year old biological sister that she discovered 2 years ago via DNA. I have friends who cut ties with physically and sexually abusive parents. Family is quite mutable, we are under no obligation to hold fast to toxic blood relatives, and in many cases what we consider “reprehensible” depends entirely on how “reprehensible” the blood relative’s committed offenses are.

I’m going to assume you’re just arguing from extremely limited personal experience and save the long list of expletives I want to hurl at you on behalf of my friends and family because I’d prefer not to be banned from this community. Good day to you.

Trust me, most of us have tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried. Some certainly may have preemptively cut people out without discussion, but most of us have beaten our heads against a wall for almost a decade now, trying to convince them that we’re human beings with dignity who deserve respect. We just withdraw from engagement, piece by piece, until there’s nothing lost by just giving up. Cutting them off is usually the last and most consequential move, rather than the first.

The way people are writing off family instead of just talking to them is awful.

What makes you think we haven’t tried talking to them?