It's not healthy to never argue with a relative

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This is more of a realisation I've come to than a request for advice but I think it might help someone, especially because this is a site for autistic people and we struggle with things like breaking the rules and knowing how to navigate interpersonal relationships.

It isn't healthy to have a family member you've had for years, especially immediate family, and never argue.

My dad - the guy who disowned me when I tried to set boundaries - is the only relative with whom I never argued. Because I was scared of how he'd react. Equally, I am the only person he hasn't argued with until now.

What is healthy is occasional, low level, 'you're annoying me' types of quarrels. You have them then you have a break from each other, then you come back together again and say sorry. My parents (mum and stepdad) were having those sorts of things today with each other as mum was scared of traffic and stepdad didn't want to be nagged while driving. That's normal. They forgave each other almost immediately after, they were just a bit winding each other up.

If that had been dad, he would have completely kicked off. He can never be wrong.

So what I'm trying to say is - with every immediate family member you have, everyone you have known for years, you ought to be able to say 'sure we argue sometimes but we never go to bed on an argument, we never really mean it and it's just a result of being close'.

It shouldn't be 'no I wouldn't argue with him/her because if I did the consequences could be anything'. You're dealing with another human being, not with a German Shepherd (using this eg because I fear dogs).

adding perspective, its not healthy to argue with any person, who is not willing to hear u. take a look at ur point of view. and tell theirs as "their PoV" and not "the only truth". ignore is a solution.

Ignoring isn't a solution which can last a lifetime, bottling up is unhealthy.

I'm not saying everything ought to be an argument. What I'm saying is, you ought to feel safe enough that if it does come to disagreement, you know the other person is safe enough to disagree with.

He wasn't.

What I'm saying is if someone else is in that situation, whether immediate family or a spouse or a long term partner (nowadays a lot of people are in marriage type situations where they just haven't tied the knot but they've lived together for years), they ought to be able to feel safe enough to bicker sometimes.

I'm not saying this about acquaintances or even friends or dating type situations. I'm certainly not saying this in the way my dad did it which was to argue with strangers - don't do that unless the situation really warrants it, you'll never see them again so rise above it.

But just do a test of the people who are important in your life and think 'if we had a bit of a quarrel, would they be safe to be around'. If not then they're probably not good people for you to be around.

i have family members i simply refuse to talk to. because they are toxic. very close family members. i dont bottle it up, i just gave up on giving a f**k.

That's basically the stalemate me and dad are at. We're not family anymore after a few days ago. In anything but biology.

What I'm trying to make people see is that if you're at that point I'm at (and you seem to be at) it isn't healthy. Not on your part or mine but on the relative for being that toxic that you feel unsafe with them.

Healthy family relationships don't look like that. That's a sign of something toxic.

I'm trying to say that if someone makes you feel like you can't disagree with them, don't be around them. Whether you call them family or not. Whether there's official disowning or not. Those aren't good people even if 'well they never hurt me personally' which was my excuse over the years. I was scared of him but I kept telling myself 'he wouldn't hurt me because I don't give him a reason to'.

Ignoring is fine with distance. I thought what you meant was just keep quiet and let them get on with being toxic.

And I'm not saying it's bad on the part of the ignoring party to ignore, what I'm saying is it's bad of the person to be that type who can never be argued against and it's a red flag.

Maybe even on WP that's obvious but I never understood that until about a few hours ago when it dawned on me. So I'm trying to help people out to see it so they can do something about it.

It’s inevitable that you will disagree with someone you love.

You can discuss things with your loved ones without screaming/being violent with each other.

It’s much better to discuss, rather than ignore.

TUF’s dad and her have not been able to disagree healthily. They were afraid to disagree with each other.

Now, her dad had an extreme reaction when she expressed disagreement.

She doesn’t want anybody else to get to that point with their loved ones.

That's pretty much it, Kraftie, although I think it was one sided. I don't think he'd ever care about arguing with anyone, it's just that I was so careful to never give him a reason to that he thought I always agreed with him.

I want people to know that if they're in the situation I was in, they should get out of it before the other person seriously hurts them. Because it's abusive. And as it's sometimes in exclusively emotional abusive situations like ours, people might not realise it's abusive.

I really seriously had to ask mum if she was ever physically hurt by him. She said no but he would break things which were hers and threaten her with violence and one time he tried to physically hurt me as a toddler because I was crying too loudly so she had to grab me and move out for a few days. That's the type of person I'm talking about.

Of course, I only found that out two days ago, the relationship I remember having with him was 'just' emotionally abusive and mostly consisted of having to listen to him pick arguments with strangers who had typically done nothing wrong or nothing out of the ordinary whilst pretending I agreed with him. And then there's the not being able to tell him I wanted space (like to walk down a different aisle of a shop with him as an adult) or that adult women don't sit on their father's laps. A normal dad would have listened. A normal dad, I would have been able to say something without fearing consequences.

You're right, but you're also not right. You could foster a relationship with someone in which, for whatever reason, neither party ever feels a need to argue with the other because they get along so well and that wouldn't be unhealthy. It would be very rare, but not impossible.

The factor that makes a relationship unhealthy in the context you're talking about isn't never arguing in and of itself, but feeling like you must refrain from asserting your own will and preferences and comply to the other person's (in this case your dad's) will and preferences for fear of them flipping out if you dare ask something of them or disagree with them in a way they don't appreciate. It's not the arguing itself that is necessary, what's important is feeling free to disagree and discuss your own needs and preferences where appropriate and as they're pertinent. A relationship in which there is zero room for you to have a preference is generally a toxic one.