Receiving cards from estranged family

[OverHung639]

Hello - looking for a solution to stop receiving birthday and Christmas cards from estranged relative.

Been estranged from sister nearly 10 years but she continues to send cards every year to my DDs. I have intercepted them all but now it's time to do something.

I don't want to contact them to ask them to stop because they don't respect boundaries.

I thought of returning to sender but then it still gets posted through my door.

Can they be stopped before they get to my house?

Now I've written this post I think there may be no solution.

How old are your daughters?

9 and 15

Just do return to sender.

I would keep the letters and give them to your dd’s when they are adults and let them decide whether to bin them or not. I didn’t find out I had another Aunt until
she died when I was 5. She was estranged from the family for doing something no one would blink twice at now. All my life I’ve been curious about her and the wrong that was done to her. When I was about 40 a cousin suddenly appeared born out of wedlock and adopted when my aunt died. She was a year older than me.

Your DDs may well feel different about this relative because of the generational differences. These family rifts have a habit of causing upset further down the line.

I don’t see how you can stop the cards coming but I do understand that you don’t want your young daughter caught up in this

Why are you blocking a relationship that has nothing to do with you. Your relationship with your sister is a seperate thing to her relationship with her nieces. I would never forgive my mum if she did this to me. I choose who I have a relationship with nobody else.

If they’ve done something objectively horrendous (So, something they have / could have gone to prison for, etc) I’d say just bin them.

But if this is the result of a family fallout, I don’t think you’re being fair on your DDs. They’re entitled to make up their own mind about their aunt, and (for the 15yo at least) have a relationship independent of you if they want.

As an aunt she may well feel sad that she no longer has contact with nieces and this is her attempt to show them she still thinks about them. As a pp has said, this is outside of the issues you both have.

Just to give a bit of perspective on the reasoning for the estrangement- it's been an issue of generational trauma, ill mental health going unresolved, whereby I suffered emotional neglect, emotional abuse and bullying as a child and then well into adulthood. I finally stood up one day when when dd2 was a baby and asked for the toxic behavior towards my family to stop. Sister couldn't handle that and went into Darvo mode so it's her choice were estranged. But after seeking counselling, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I've given age appropriate responses to dds when they have asked about it in the past. So they are well aware she exists but for aslong as they are children I will not share them with her when I've received nothing but contempt from her all my life.

Cards received go straight on the fire, or in the bin and I won't be keeping them going forward.

Having spoken to Dp, we think the best approach is to respectfully ask her to stop, and if they continue to come, return to sender.

Happyher, thanks for your post but this is not some romantic story of a long lost aunt. It's pushing boundaries with only one aim and that is to cause confusion and manipulate.

They’re your children, and I assume you are protecting them from a person who would potentially do them harm. You could get advice from a solicitor or the police but as it’s just cards I suspect they’d do nothing. Return to sender. Attempting to contact the children of someone who has set a clear boundary of no contact is a deliberate and calculated overstep.

Contacting an emotionally immature person directly will almost always be perceived as encouragement.

Can you elaborate?
Being honest the thought of reaching out scares me. Not sure I want this pain. But it seemed like the adult thing to do. But I'm not dealing with a reasonable person.
Possible borderline personality disorder. And or narcissism.

But I'm not dealing with a reasonable person. Possible borderline personality disorder. And or narcissism.

Then your best option is to carry on as you are - intercept the post and bin it.

Anything else (return to sender, any contact) is giving her attention and she will feed off it. Remember, attention is its own reward.

I'm estranged from my mother, she sends cards to DD (7) with passive aggressive notes in, she even sent one addressed to DH telling him to make me do xyz!! DH generally intercepts, and recycles, if he thinks i will find her latest passive agressive offering amusing he will keep it for me to read.

She also sends a box of christmas presents to MIL house (because she know that way i can't refuse to accept the delivery, i just let DD have it she soon forgets who things came from. Any gift for me (generally a fairly low value gift card) i give DD to spend.

I have been explaining why I'm NC to DD in an age appropriate way since she was tiny. DD has never shown any interest in meeting her.

OP be open with your DDs about why you are NC, I'm pretty sure if you have raised them well and have a good relationship they will trust your judgement and wouldn't want someone who bullied their mum in their life. Trust your parenting!

Thanks all for your insight. It's much appreciated.
Nothing good will come from contact I know this. Honestly dreading the time when a parent passes away. Might be back on here asking for advice! I hope that such matters can be dealt with at a distance.

Hard disagree. The relationship with her sister is entirely up her while her children are still children. Once they are adults they can decide for themselves. Otherwise, you are asking her to facilitate and therefore maintain a relationship that she does not want.

Why exactly would it be OK to cut off/not forgive your mum, but it wouldn't be OK for your mum to do the same to her sister?

I’d carry on with the burning and binning. She’ll read whatever she wants to in ‘return to sender’, or a message from you.

I’m also non contact with a sibling. My children have witnessed their behaviour first hand, don’t like them & don’t want to see them. I too will have to deal with them on the death of our parents. I could write the script already of how it will go.

Nobody truly understands unless they’ve been through it. You know your sister, you know your children, you know what’s best.

I would not advise contacting her as any contact can be seen as positive and a way in.

When my children were young I threw away cards and donated money and gifts to a children’s charity. Once my children were old enough to fully understand the situation, I gave them the option of what to do with cards, money and gifts sent. They have chosen to continue to donate it to charity. They remember certain bad treatment, trust our accounts of what happened and want no contact with them.

Keep binning and burning. Toxic family members crave attention, good or bad - you just have to starve them of it, and keep starving them of it.

With the ages of your daughters, it's possible to have a conversation with them and see how they'd want you to handle it. We did the same with DD; she was 8 when we went LC and 10 when we went NC with my mother (and that was leaving it too long; unfortunately the toxic behaviour had started to impact her). We made the decision to cut contact but gave her the choice of whether to read cards, accept gifts etc. She bins the cards without reading but accepts any money / gift cards in them (we call it reparations 😂).

Reparations. Love that. 🤣

You really should think and find out the situation before you type such nonsense.

I don't agree her dd is 15 and is old enough to make her own decisions. This is just another form of parental alienation. Using your children and turning them again relatives you don't like is wrong. Nobody should be throwing a 15 years olds post away no matter what it is

I grew up in a family where we didn't discuss difficult things or if we had a disagreement more often or not my sister would go nc with us all. So this behaviour was expected.

There was a stage in my life where I thought if we ever fell out again I'd still let her have contact with my kids. This was before I realised I was always pleasing others and not putting myself first. So the posters that say mine and my sisters relationship is a separate issue from my sisters and dd's- I thought like this once until I had counselling.

As a parent you 100% get to decide who you will let in your children's life. You and you dp, and dc are your primary. Every other family member is secondary. Put your primary family members first.

So those of us who are NC with our parents should facilitate contact between them and our kids? We should allow people who are emotionally abusive to continue that abuse indirectly. No thank you.

Parents make decisions for their children all the time and that is their right. For most parents, ime, those decisions are made with their children’s best interest at heart. Importantly here, you didn’t bother to find out what the situation was before you went on a crusade in favour of the sister seeing OPs children. Unsurprisingly, when OP has elaborated on the reasons for estrangement, it sounds like OP is protecting her children from harm.

When OPs children are older, they will get to make their own decision on this. I would be very surprised if they choose to see an aunt that has caused so much harm and distress to OP, who I presume is a loving mother to them.

My own children couldn’t be less interested in my abusive family and also understand that the sending of cards and gifts is an extension of their abuse and manipulation tactics, as is so often the case.

You can’t block them unfortunately, like on WhatsApp. I would just mark not at this address and return to sender.

My NC family sends me crazy shit. I just bin it personally because I do not want to acknowledge my address in anyway with them. I moved and they couldn’t find me for years. It’s only been in the past year or two that they’ve sorta worked out an address that will get things to me. It’s not my address, but it’s the right village and my name, so unfortunately our post man kindly makes sure it gets to me. 😩

I completely ignore so they don’t think anything is making it through. But if I knew they knew where I lived, I’d return it all to sender just to piss them off.