My mother has sent me "the" letter - can I tell her I don't want to read it?

[javotte]

My mother was mildly toxic when I grew up. She was completely unavailable emotionally during my teens and early adulthood, and said things that still hurt today.

We see each other regularly, mainly so that she can spend time with her grandchildren. We talk about the children, clothes, the weather, but we have never had a meaningful conversation.

A few years ago she started to see an alternative counsellor. Since then, she has started divorce proceedings (fair enough) and cut off from her life all the people who dared disagree with her, including her favourite sister, and sometimes one of my siblings. There have been horrible moments where she dramatically apologised to my siblings and me for being such a bad mother and ruining our childhoods, but it was still all about her and she was obviously waiting for us to tell her that of course not, she was a perfect mother.

Three years ago she hinted to the fact that she had written a letter to me. It arrived in my e-mail box this morning.
I feel that the past is the past and nothing will change it. I have put most of it behind me, but I know I will never have a close relationship with her. It is too late for that. I am also 99% sure that the letter will, once again, be all about her. To sum it up, I don't want to read it, but I don't feel strong enough to tell her I don't want to read it.

Can anyone offer advice? Just seing the letter in my e-mail has sent my heartrate through the roof.

I would delete this communique/demand that your mother has sent you.

If she is too toxic for you to deal with (and even one letter has caused you and still causes you a huge amount of stress and worry) she is certainly too toxic for your children to have any sort of relationship with. They having any sort of relationship with her (out of perhaps societal convention or the forlorn hope that she will behave towards your children better this time around than she has ever done with yourself) will neither do you or they any favours in the long run.

It is NOT your fault your mother acts in the dysfunctional ways that she does; you did not make her that way.

It is not your fault your mother may well be narcissistic in terms of personality; this is precisely how such people operate. She's held this bloody letter over you for the last 3 years; her cruelty knows no bounds.

Would you countenance now going no contact with your mother or is that too frightening for you to really contemplate?.

javotte how are you feeling about it all now? Has anger kicked in yet?

It's your absolute right to feel anything and everything you want to over this.

You don't have to submit to her in any way. She has no right to inflict this on you.

Delete it. It's your right.