Aa
Family Alienation
This is such a long story and one that i've grown quiet tired of..but here goes. I moved to the city where i live now about 16 years ago with my husband and 3 children. My husband's family are all here and for the past several years we've gotten along just fine..until last Christmas Eve. There was a family get together for dinner at 5:30 that evening..my husband went ahead with the kids cause i was running late. I missed dinner but that was okay with me but not with my sister in law.
She met me when i walked in to give her a hug and proceeded to tear into me. She told me that she'd taken enough psychology classes to know that i did it on purpose and so on. It was embarrassing which she revealed later to be her intention so i wouldn't do it again. When i came home that nite i sent her an email asking why she felt the need to do that and she could have pulled me aside privately.
It turned into a back and forth conversation to which i apologized again and again in hopes of getting past this. Instead she forwarded my emails to everyone that was there that nite saying how abusive i was and how there would never be anymore family get togethers because of me.
My son sent her an email that told her of how abusive she has been to others in the family and how he has heard their stories and seen it. He pretty much told her off but in a very eloquent way..no profanity was used towards her.
Okay, so it's been almost 9 months now and i've pretty much been disowned by his family..i'm not allowed to come to family get togethers now. So i've just been sitting at home..i've allowed the rejection to just sit in here and haven't dealt with it cause i thought i'd forgiven all..until the other nite when i just exploded.
My son came for a visit about 2 weeks ago and the family was outa town..they've disowned him too because of his message to her. Anyway, he stopped by to see her ex-husband while he was here and their daughter just happened to be there. When she got back and found out my son had been there when her daughter was she immediately went off on her ex and threatened him..probably won't let him see his daughter.
Her ex contacted my son and asked if he could please write her an apology letter thinking it would fix the situation. I talked to him the other nite only to find out that she wanted another one cause she didn't like the first one. I just thought of the 4 that i sent 9 months ago to which she rejected. I could just see her making my son beg until he got it right for her own amusement. I snapped and sent her a message on facebook that i shouldn't have..i was so angry and upset over how long this has dragged on and didn't want her to keep this going.
I said ALOT of things that i shouldn't have and the next morning i had my mother and father in-law running down my hallway at 7am yelling and screaming at me and threatening to strangle me. My kids were getting ready for the 1st day back at school and the whole thing was upsetting. There is a funeral on Thurs. and i was told not to go..my husband won't go if i can't..or to other family get togethers. This is so messed up and i have hardly been able to eat or sleep and now it's affecting my husband and kids. I don't want that for him because they are really close.
This has been really hard and although i did what i did, it just didn't seem to matter cause she wasn't gonna let the first thing go. It's been really hard to live here and feel rejected. Now i'm afraid i've sealed the deal because i let it get to me. Now what?
She met me when i walked in to give her a hug and proceeded to tear into me. She told me that she'd taken enough psychology classes to know that i did it on purpose and so on. It was embarrassing which she revealed later to be her intention so i wouldn't do it again. When i came home that nite i sent her an email asking why she felt the need to do that and she could have pulled me aside privately.
It turned into a back and forth conversation to which i apologized again and again in hopes of getting past this. Instead she forwarded my emails to everyone that was there that nite saying how abusive i was and how there would never be anymore family get togethers because of me.
My son sent her an email that told her of how abusive she has been to others in the family and how he has heard their stories and seen it. He pretty much told her off but in a very eloquent way..no profanity was used towards her.
Okay, so it's been almost 9 months now and i've pretty much been disowned by his family..i'm not allowed to come to family get togethers now. So i've just been sitting at home..i've allowed the rejection to just sit in here and haven't dealt with it cause i thought i'd forgiven all..until the other nite when i just exploded.
My son came for a visit about 2 weeks ago and the family was outa town..they've disowned him too because of his message to her. Anyway, he stopped by to see her ex-husband while he was here and their daughter just happened to be there. When she got back and found out my son had been there when her daughter was she immediately went off on her ex and threatened him..probably won't let him see his daughter.
Her ex contacted my son and asked if he could please write her an apology letter thinking it would fix the situation. I talked to him the other nite only to find out that she wanted another one cause she didn't like the first one. I just thought of the 4 that i sent 9 months ago to which she rejected. I could just see her making my son beg until he got it right for her own amusement. I snapped and sent her a message on facebook that i shouldn't have..i was so angry and upset over how long this has dragged on and didn't want her to keep this going.
I said ALOT of things that i shouldn't have and the next morning i had my mother and father in-law running down my hallway at 7am yelling and screaming at me and threatening to strangle me. My kids were getting ready for the 1st day back at school and the whole thing was upsetting. There is a funeral on Thurs. and i was told not to go..my husband won't go if i can't..or to other family get togethers. This is so messed up and i have hardly been able to eat or sleep and now it's affecting my husband and kids. I don't want that for him because they are really close.
This has been really hard and although i did what i did, it just didn't seem to matter cause she wasn't gonna let the first thing go. It's been really hard to live here and feel rejected. Now i'm afraid i've sealed the deal because i let it get to me. Now what?
Well, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. I'm so over this whole situation. I had a busy Christmas Eve day as my husband had an early work related Christmas party to go to, i shopped for it and wrapped the gifts, and off he went. He came home that afternoon and decided to change the oil in both of our cars, and i have teenage twins getting ready, laundry to do, etc. By the time they all finished getting ready it was 5:00pm and we were supposed to be there at 5:30. I went to get my clothes outa the dryer and they were wet because my dryer suddenly wasn't working. i just told them to go on without me and i'd get there as quick as i could.
When i walked in she totally attacked me..my husband was in the other room but my mother-in-law heard it along with others and my daughter was standing there with a disgusted look and kinda mouthed quietly "let's GO!! I didn't want to cause a further scene by taking my family home so i just sucked it up.
My sister-in-law then started demanding her 15 year old daughter to start singing acapella (sp?) with no music or whatever for the guests. I watched her stand there in the middle of the room and say she felt uncomfortable and didn't want to, but her mom kept insisting that she was gonna see whether her music lessons were paying off. Her daughter ran from the room crying and went to one of the bathrooms, to which me and the other grandma followed to console her. She said she was afraid for us all to leave because she knew she was gonna get it for not performing. Maybe it was not my business to comfort her but i did.
The nite was a mess and i think she wanted it to be perfect and she looked at me like i ruined it. I did come home and send off an email asking if she was alright cause she didn't seem like it..i apologized along with the fact that she could've handled my sistuation in a better way. She reminded me of "mommy dearest" that nite! She is an attorney in our city and is very controlling and manipulative. She is remarried and her new husband works with her, and so does my mother-in-law (so she controls them). She would not accept my several attempts to apologize. I did call her the next morning to see if we could talk this out and she said she wouldn't talk to me and that her dad was the "Marshall" over the situation! SaY wHaT..i thought..are we in court? Anyway, it never happened and now here we are.
This whole thing is so much more than i have the energy to put out here. I have apologized. I've still been rejected for almost a year now. It's now trickling down to the cousins, my kids, and her daughter, and now they are arguing. The whole thing is sad and pathetic..i can't hardly stand it and i snapped and just told her how i really felt about her being a selfish, bratty, B****. Now my husband is upset with me cause he's not going where i'm not wanted but i told him that's not necessary..that's not my style.
Anyway, thanks AHP cause i really think you get what's going on here.
When i walked in she totally attacked me..my husband was in the other room but my mother-in-law heard it along with others and my daughter was standing there with a disgusted look and kinda mouthed quietly "let's GO!! I didn't want to cause a further scene by taking my family home so i just sucked it up.
My sister-in-law then started demanding her 15 year old daughter to start singing acapella (sp?) with no music or whatever for the guests. I watched her stand there in the middle of the room and say she felt uncomfortable and didn't want to, but her mom kept insisting that she was gonna see whether her music lessons were paying off. Her daughter ran from the room crying and went to one of the bathrooms, to which me and the other grandma followed to console her. She said she was afraid for us all to leave because she knew she was gonna get it for not performing. Maybe it was not my business to comfort her but i did.
The nite was a mess and i think she wanted it to be perfect and she looked at me like i ruined it. I did come home and send off an email asking if she was alright cause she didn't seem like it..i apologized along with the fact that she could've handled my sistuation in a better way. She reminded me of "mommy dearest" that nite! She is an attorney in our city and is very controlling and manipulative. She is remarried and her new husband works with her, and so does my mother-in-law (so she controls them). She would not accept my several attempts to apologize. I did call her the next morning to see if we could talk this out and she said she wouldn't talk to me and that her dad was the "Marshall" over the situation! SaY wHaT..i thought..are we in court? Anyway, it never happened and now here we are.
This whole thing is so much more than i have the energy to put out here. I have apologized. I've still been rejected for almost a year now. It's now trickling down to the cousins, my kids, and her daughter, and now they are arguing. The whole thing is sad and pathetic..i can't hardly stand it and i snapped and just told her how i really felt about her being a selfish, bratty, B****. Now my husband is upset with me cause he's not going where i'm not wanted but i told him that's not necessary..that's not my style.
Anyway, thanks AHP cause i really think you get what's going on here.
I agree with Gotmoxy. This family sounds dysfunctional and completely manipulated and controlled by your sister in law, and the way they all handle it is completely immature.
She confronts you like a know-it-all with psychology classes, then procedes to forward all your electronic conversations to the rest of the family. Good grief, what should you expect next--her to get a recorder for telephone calls and personal conversations with you to share with everyone?
Then about the apologies. She doesn't sound like the type to accept an apology, no matter how sincere it may be. Like you said, I think she wants to use people for her amusement.
The fact that she has such control even over her ex husband is pathetic. So your son can't even visit with his uncle and cousin because the uncle's ex wife will get mad that her EX HUSBAND is talking to the son of her sister in law with whom she has some unknown, hostile issue. Then your sister in law possibly threatens to not let her ex husband see his child anymore because he fraternized with the enemy's son. So your son's uncle requests that your son send an apology letter to his ex wife for visiting with him and his daughter. To which he does and she doesn't like it and demands another.
Unbelievable!
Why the heck does this woman have so much control over the family?! It's not even real control, it's pathetic! All her ex husband has to do if his visitation with his daughter is threatened because, God forbid, he visited with his nephew, is take it to court, because that is NOT grounds for losing visitation. Good grief! And if his visitation was not threatened, why the heck does he even care what his ex wife thinks? And why the heck does she care who he visits with in the family? They're divorced for a reason, are they not?
Then for your mother and father in laws to intrude into your home in the early morning to chew you out because you sent an argumentative letter to your sister in law...oh my gosh...so this woman needs mommy and daddy to rescue her because you wrote her a letter that "hurt her feelings." What hogwash! Grow up already, people!
And just out of curiosity, where does your husband stand in all this? Sounds like he's on your side as far as not attending family functions if you are not welcome to go, but where has he been when you've been going through all this drama? What was it that he had to say to the sister in law on Christmas Eve as to why you were running late? What did he have to say when his parents showed up in your home in the early morning, following you up and down the house yelling at you and threatening to strangle you? Does your husband not defend you against all this nonsense?
Personally, I can't see why you care to have a relationship with this family, but if it's that important to you, I guess just make another apology (or three or four, however many it takes to please your manipulative, controlling sister in law) and attempt to make things "normal" between you all somehow.
Good luck, and sorry you went through all that craziness. I would've snapped, too.
She confronts you like a know-it-all with psychology classes, then procedes to forward all your electronic conversations to the rest of the family. Good grief, what should you expect next--her to get a recorder for telephone calls and personal conversations with you to share with everyone?
Then about the apologies. She doesn't sound like the type to accept an apology, no matter how sincere it may be. Like you said, I think she wants to use people for her amusement.
The fact that she has such control even over her ex husband is pathetic. So your son can't even visit with his uncle and cousin because the uncle's ex wife will get mad that her EX HUSBAND is talking to the son of her sister in law with whom she has some unknown, hostile issue. Then your sister in law possibly threatens to not let her ex husband see his child anymore because he fraternized with the enemy's son. So your son's uncle requests that your son send an apology letter to his ex wife for visiting with him and his daughter. To which he does and she doesn't like it and demands another.
Unbelievable!
Why the heck does this woman have so much control over the family?! It's not even real control, it's pathetic! All her ex husband has to do if his visitation with his daughter is threatened because, God forbid, he visited with his nephew, is take it to court, because that is NOT grounds for losing visitation. Good grief! And if his visitation was not threatened, why the heck does he even care what his ex wife thinks? And why the heck does she care who he visits with in the family? They're divorced for a reason, are they not?
Then for your mother and father in laws to intrude into your home in the early morning to chew you out because you sent an argumentative letter to your sister in law...oh my gosh...so this woman needs mommy and daddy to rescue her because you wrote her a letter that "hurt her feelings." What hogwash! Grow up already, people!
And just out of curiosity, where does your husband stand in all this? Sounds like he's on your side as far as not attending family functions if you are not welcome to go, but where has he been when you've been going through all this drama? What was it that he had to say to the sister in law on Christmas Eve as to why you were running late? What did he have to say when his parents showed up in your home in the early morning, following you up and down the house yelling at you and threatening to strangle you? Does your husband not defend you against all this nonsense?
Personally, I can't see why you care to have a relationship with this family, but if it's that important to you, I guess just make another apology (or three or four, however many it takes to please your manipulative, controlling sister in law) and attempt to make things "normal" between you all somehow.
Good luck, and sorry you went through all that craziness. I would've snapped, too.
Ok, it wasn't your own mother that was angry with you. It was your mother-in-law and father-in-law, correct? The fact that they came to your house in the early morning hours, having a temper tantrum and threatening to strangle you, is just absolutely ridiculous, and immature to say the least. What exactly did you say in that last message to their daughter? Even so, being adults, they should not have carried on the way they did. To me, the relationship between you and his family is a total write-off. Going back, it seems to me that your sister-in-law already had some hostility towards you even before that fateful Christmas Eve dinner. She was just looking for an excuse to go off on you and get the family involved. Being late for dinner? You still showed and opened your arms to hug her when you arrived. Without knowing anything about the past, I would guess that maybe your sister-in-law is jealous of you and her brother's relationship, seeing that she is divorced. Maybe it's one of those, "If I can't be happy, why should anyone else be?" Also,the fact that a family would disown their own grandson, much less their daughter-in-law, is not a healthy family. They are all being manipulated by this one *****, excuse my language but that's the anger I would feel, even though your son had mentioned that she has been abusive to some of them too. She basically has total control over this family. There is no use trying to apologize any further to any of them, because she intends on never letting there be any reunion anytime soon. The fact that she has taken psychology classes, is so ironic to me! LOL She really needs to take a good hard look at herself, and find out why she feels the need to control, and to make others feel her pain (her divorce?).
COMMUNITY LEADER
Ha. I wrote out a long answer and then read perch's and realized she said what I was saying in a nicer way than I was. Good advice perch. That is exactly what you need to do. I think that you were wrong in the first place and then you met her head to head for each infraction therafter. It would be ideal for you to go to her (no more email) and ask to talk and tell her you are so terribly sorry. You love her and the family and would like her to forgive you and all to move on. Tell her that you are so sorry your son ever got involved and that he was just sticking up for you but that you should have stopped it. If she softens, then YOU host a family get together and invite all.
Sometimes when we are caught up in the emotion of a situation, we don't realize how it sounds to an unbiased person. Your story sounds to me like you should apologize to move this family forward. Even though you must swallow pride (which is hard) and your sister in law was wrong too--------- your apology in person is called for here.
Good luck and may things get better.
Sometimes when we are caught up in the emotion of a situation, we don't realize how it sounds to an unbiased person. Your story sounds to me like you should apologize to move this family forward. Even though you must swallow pride (which is hard) and your sister in law was wrong too--------- your apology in person is called for here.
Good luck and may things get better.
I think that this whole thing has gotton way out of hand - as you said this issue is affecting your husband and child negatively.
I think that for the sake of peace in your life and for the sake of your family you are going to have to eat humble pie on this one - you mentioned that you regret the facebook message and your own mother was mad at you for it.
I'm not saying that you are exclusively in the wrong and they are angels who have no part in it - but I also think it's gotton to the stage where you are going to have to s uck this one up, be the bigger person and say something like - 'I'm sorry for the hurtful things I've said, and I'm sorry for all the negativety that has gone down between us - can we start again with no hard feelings?'
You mentioned you cannot eat or sleep over this - and your husband and child are suffering over it - so yep I think its come to you having to do that. Imagine how nice it will be to have peace within you all.
Good luck!!
I think that for the sake of peace in your life and for the sake of your family you are going to have to eat humble pie on this one - you mentioned that you regret the facebook message and your own mother was mad at you for it.
I'm not saying that you are exclusively in the wrong and they are angels who have no part in it - but I also think it's gotton to the stage where you are going to have to s uck this one up, be the bigger person and say something like - 'I'm sorry for the hurtful things I've said, and I'm sorry for all the negativety that has gone down between us - can we start again with no hard feelings?'
You mentioned you cannot eat or sleep over this - and your husband and child are suffering over it - so yep I think its come to you having to do that. Imagine how nice it will be to have peace within you all.
Good luck!!
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