keep on keeping on

I am wondering about relationships. how different can core values be before they make connection impossible? How intolerant can someone be before it becomes harmful to talk to them? What happens when 2 very different value systems are present and why is it that the more traumatized person will submit and be silent. Or otherwise the friendship will end.
having to navigate a relationship where we depend on people who are extremely different and who celebrate things that would be a death sentence for us is becoming insanely painful. it translates to: we have no mercy. We would rather see you dead than live against our values. Coming from close long-term friends.

From the way you describe it, I'm not seeing any upside to these relationships for you. Having to submit and be silent means that there really isn't a friendship now, even if there used to be.

Have you spoken up about how their values make you feel? Sometimes two people can agree to not talk about an area about which they completely disagree, in order to keep the aspects of the relationship they both value, but it seems like that needs to be a mutual discussion and agreement, so they know not to talk about those things in front of you. Otherwise it sounds like you spend your time with them suffering in silence, and why do that to yourselves??

we have already agreed not to talk about so many subjects. pretty much all political views, everything about covid and how to manage it. there have been disagreements about mental health treatment and even my wording when I talk about my problems. Our T observed that these friends are simply excluding painful realities from conversation. talk about what is good and nothing else.
there is a financial dependency. these people own our website because we couldn't possibly pay for it ourselves. we cannot afford to break the friendship at this point. but you are right, it is a lot of being silent and being silenced. I am not sure time will solve this. we were hoping it would get easier without Trump being president but it didn't. they assume that we share the same 'christian' values and although we are both christians, my understanding differs so much. we don't share very much at this point. it is also painful to see that other christians have such a disregard for life, no mercy at all. It confuses me deeply. like, christianity used to be the big thing we had in common. now I don't know what is happening anymore.

Some people are christian because they are like Christ.

Some people are christian because they follow the toxic dogmas of their church and their church is labelled christian.

I have met many a self-labelled "satanist" who is more christian than most self-labelled "christians" I have met.

Labels do not always describe properly the nature of the person wearing said label. And it hurts. And it is confusing. And it is difficult. And I hear you. I share your pain. I know the struggle of what to do with all of that. I sincerely hope you will find a solution that will be healthy for you.

I hope you will find an alternative, free hosting for your blog, so you can feel safer about cutting ties if you want to cut ties. In the meantime, sending tons of moral support your way. I too hate "toxic positivity" people (people who deny bad things happen and only want to focus on the "positive", sometimes thinking that it will make the bad things disappear).

the problem about talking bad about my people is that I love them. And I don't respond well to judgement over them. Even when I know that they are saying bad things. these people specifically have given me more chances in life than my family ever wanted. They gave me a safe home for a while. And they are faithful believers. Its the way that religion gets mixed up with politics these days and the way people in these circles get brainwashed that is harmful. I will have to carefully see what is good and what is not. free hosting is not a path we would like to choose, otherwise we would have chosen it from the beginning. But we might soon earn enough money that we can set it aside, in addition to the donations we get and the ownership might eventually be moved to us. We need some more security to decide about that.
L&A

Honestly, them providing more than your family did is setting a very low bar. It was better than what you had at that moment in time, but is that still true?

It sounds like except for the financial dependency, you have outgrown everything else that was beneficial to you in knowing them.

I think carefully looking to see what is good and what is not is an idea that will be helpful for you.

I am waiting and observing. my friend is making a huge effort to have good conversations about other areas of life. trying to find common ground again. So we talk about cooking and artwork and my book and that is very supportive and interesting. She avoids political opinions and religious talk. for now it looks like we will just keep limiting our topics and do our best to be supportive for each other. they have been great supporters and they honestly want my best and I believe that. we get in trouble when it gets political. show me any americans who don't have trouble when there are hugely different political opinions right now... I stay wary. intolerance is a problem. but I see their effort. we might save something about the friendship.

Good luck! I wish you tons of good things and encouragement to re-built a healthy relationship.

I think it will end up being a themed friendship. like, we have friends where our only topic is baking and exchanging recipes or talking about books. this one might be good for more topics but vulnerability will be reduced.

I ended up reaching out to our clinic T, as I often do when our other Ts are on vacation or sick. We somehow get what he is saying. I swear, he said the same things our regular T has repeated a couple of times by now. But he has a way of combining a confrontation, blunt truth and encouragement that we are able to understand. he says things like This has become nonsense behavior in todays world, and suddenly Age looks at it from a way more grounded perspective and realizes he is right. it makes me think about fit even more. with him it is obvious that he is an excellent fit. but he is not an option for most of the year. we somehow need to find a way to work with what we have. I feel privileged to be allowed to reach out sometimes and get an response from such a busy man.

so, it looks like we had a small breakthrough with Age and partially with Danielle when it comes to learned behaviors. A new level of reality checking and noticing that there is no reason for behavior, that it actually prevents us from doing what we want or reaching our goals.

If at all possible, we want to finish the first draft of the book this month.