Have you ever been verbally bullied by an adult relative?

I have a hard gaze I use, and I’m not afraid to tell someone to fuck off. I’m not known for sublety.

Bullying is the use physical violence or the credible threat of it.

If one is being “verbally” bullied, it is not really being bullied, but it simply means one does not have what it takes to verbally defend a position, either because one cannot formulate a basic argument, or one is too passive to bother.

The answer to the question is, I have had people try to intimidate me with a bad argument and I try to respond with a better one.

@Adirondackwannabe good for you! Even if it may cause a family stir? Do you still use your disarming style?

@ZEPHYRA If you’re easy going with me you get the same back. I’m usually very gentle. Laughs, I got called a giant softy today. If you try to push me you get to see my nasty side. I don’t put up with any shit.

I was once yelled at until I passed out.

@talljasperman Dude, you are your own boss. Refuse to take any shit from anyone and you won’t get shit. Let them give you shit and you’ll live in shit.

@Adirondackwannabe I was a teenager at the time. Stuff like that only happens with my social workers.

@talljasperman I had to grow up in a hurry. But it didn’t hurt me, it made me stronger.

@talljasperman

Your social workers yell at you until you pass out?

@Darth_Algar My social workers double team me to accept their advice. They block the exit and rip me down. I tried to fire my social worker and she disagreed. They withheld my needle until I agreed to keep her as my worker. I’m trying passive aggression next. I am homesick. And want to go home to Jasper but they don’t let me and they hint that i can be put on a CTO (community treatment order).

Yes, my MIL. We were all visiting with family and as we traveled in the car she started an argument with me. Then she started to poke me with her fingers and I warned her not to do it again. I take it my voice and tone conveyed to her sister that I was on the verge of hitting her.so she told her not to do it. She then ask, “what you are going to hit me:, I believe I said no but that I would break her fingers. Something to that affect. It was so long ago. I had to kept reminding myself that she was my husbands mother. So she kept yelling, you going to hit me, you going to hit me. In a high shrilly voice. Her sister told her to shut up before I do because she would have it coming. She said, that she was going to tell my husband. I said go ahead but I would tell him first.

I did and although he warned me never to hit her, and I knew he would, he also talked to his mom about never starting a fight with me because he can guarantee that she will hit her next time and he will take my side. He knew his mom started all the fights between us and he knew I did my best to avoid them. Later that bought about another argument where he told her off and insulted her in front of her family and they all took his and my side. My husband loved his mom but he refused to have her push us around.

He pretty much told her, my wife, my kids , my business and you need to stay out of it or this is the last you see of any of us. She knew he had a temper and would stick with it.

Best thing to do with a bully is be the bigger bully. Most bullies are cowards and the ones that aren’t learn not to mess with you.

Just to let you know. Over the years we have come to an understanding and she has finally come to accept me as a daughter, only with more respect than she gives to her actual daughter.

In-laws can kiss my ass, if it’s something I believe in strongly.

The only leverage they have is your partner, and…

My dad can be a bully. I handle it by sometimes feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck, or raped (just to clarify this is all verbal, he has never been inappropriate in any sort of sexual way, or any physical way for that matter) or physically and mentally exhausted.

Sometimes I stop it in it’s tracks and then I have to feel badly about that. His bullying is from a place of fear and a sort of OCD behavior, along with his own empty feeling.

My SIL is a bit of a bully sometimes in that pretty, mean girl, kind of way. I handle it by finally getting to a place of not caring about her as much and letting her win in most conversations. Most of the time I am indifferent about it, so I let her feel she’s right and she won. Whatever. I really cared for years and then a switch flipped and I don’t give a damn usually now. It bothers me when she involves her now 20 year old daughter in it. They laugh under their breath, and feel superior to others all too often. I hope the daughter doesn’t follow too closely in her mom’s footsteps. She is gorgeous, smart, and interesting, and hopefully she winds up a little more humble than her mom. We’ll see.

Yes, my two asshole cousins, but they were too cowardly to bully me directly. They had to use their parents to bully me. For example, I talk to them (or even just mind my own business). They will try to find something in me that they can make fun of, or even try to exaggerate things, they don’t even hesitate to lie. Then they report what they “see” to their parents, then their parents report them to mine. And they finally come back to me in the form of “your aunt told me that your cousin saw you do that stupid thing the other day”. That degrades me and empower them (as some kind of angels who are so well-adjusted and care so much for me) as the same time.

I have an older brother who throws stones from his glass house all the time, but I haven’t felt physically threatened by him. He just tries to insult me all the time. To anyone who knows me, his insults sound very lame and incredibly uninformed. He also sounds like he is from the 19th century.

I had an inlaw that controlled his family a bit too much.
The very first time that I had Dinner at my inlaws was went my father in law come out with extreme ‘rules’ ...no one is to talk at the table?
I was talking to my husband and my mother in law unaware of my father in laws ‘rules”?
After realizing that both mother in law and my husband clammed up quickly? My motherl in law stated that the father in law had these rules?
I scoffed at him as he was sneering and rude at me for “not” following his orders.
I flately told him that he was controlling and that at the family table in most families was the exact “time” to have family discussions!
He got up and moved his plate into the living room to eat by himself.
I was pregnant with my first child and I told him that I want “my” child to be able to be comfortable sitting and enjoying a meal with the family in a congenial setting not a frightfull , and controlling scene by a scornfull person like him!
I was at that point really doubting my marriage into this family then!
I eventually divorced my husband and that family after 11 years of fighting it.
I had spent very little time in visiting them at their place.
I was glad to had stood up to him however my husband was too ingrained in that practice to change or challenge his family. Too bad money was the issue as the father had money to pass down and used that to control that family.