Line Drawing

I had an interesting conversation with my mom yesterday surrounding what I consider tough love. Basically, a common acquaintence of ours is having to make some tough decisions and draw some lines in the sand relating to her mentally ill mother-in-law. Essentially, they've set some boundaries and the MIL doesn't want to have them and so they've cut off contact. The discussion that ensued pertained to the "justness" or "rightness" of doing so. And honestly, I guess I can see both sides.

On the one hand is the fact that this is family. And even if she wasn't family - don't we to some degree have a responsibility to love everyone - even the truly unloveable? On the other hand, this woman has taken control issues to a new height that borders on - if not traipses right over the border of - mental abuse. For how long do you subject yourself and your family to that? Especially when there is no willingness to get help and work toward compromise. If the person is willing to work with you, then I agree that cutting them off is terribly harsh. But if the person feels that they are 100% justified and shouldn't have to change anything to be loved? And for that matter - it's not that they've stopped loving her, it's just that they're refusing to allow her to control them. And while she may certainly equate the two, they are two very different things. Does loving someone necessitate allowing interaction? I guess I lean toward no -- but it's a hard distinction to make.

We didn't get too far into the discussion, but the idea that cutting off interaction doesn't mean stopping loving someone is one that just came to me now. I will have to bounce it off mom - she always has an interesting perspective.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting.