Hi NC,
Your DH is wrong here re the party, totally so. He unlike your good self likely comes from a family whereby such familial dysfunction is totally unknown thankfully so does not really get the facts about dealing with toxi relatives like your Dad. He needs to continue to back your original decision to go NC. The "normal" rules of dealing with familial relations do not apply to toxic relatives like your Dad. Going no contact is a decision that is never made at all lightly and often after much soul searching as well. You could well end up hating your DH for making you attend at all because this could all go so wrong so very quickly.
Your DH should also ignore any e-mails that your dad sends; your dad put your DH in an awkward position by doing that. It was done by your dad to reassert his own now limited power and control over you and your family, same with the gifts. Such are NEVER given without conditions attached. Also such behaviour is known as hoovering and is often done by those who want to cling on regardless and try and draw you back into their own dysfunctional world.
The toxic hooverer doesn’t truly care about you either — they just want to keep you around to feed on emotionally, and when you decide to go no contact, they don’t plan on letting you get away that easily.
Many hooverers have traits of borderline, narcissistic, antisocial or histrionic personality disorders. You can click the green & purple buttons to the lower right to find out if that may describe the person hoovering you. People with Dependent Personality Disorder may also hoover.
Hoovering is manipulation to gain control over your choice to distance yourself, and typically takes the following forms:
•Ignoring your requests to break off the relationship and attempting to continue on as if nothing has changed.
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•Asking you when you’re going to “get over it” and return to your past actions.
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•Sending you a fake apology to give you hope that things have changed.
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•Trying to trick you into contact by saying someone needs you, is sick, or in trouble.
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•Triangulating with others, communicating things to you through them.
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•Saying they’re worried about you, concerned about whether you’re okay, need to know where you are, etc.
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•Sending unwanted cards, messages and gifts, sometimes gifts for your children, as they know you are likely to feel guilty about keeping a gift from your kids. Don’t allow this – exposing your children to manipulation is far worse!!!!
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•Returning old items you left behind.
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•Baiting you with drama games.
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•Contacting you about “important” things they “forgot” and suddenly have to tell you.
Attempts to pull you back into a toxic relationship are not valid expressions of caring and concern — they are attempts to regain control over your behaviour. Beware — hoovering attempts are often disguised as caring, loneliness, hurt, desperation, fear, illness, and other things designed to play on your sympathies and pull you back. Abusers know that pulling on heartstrings works very well. (In the case of BPD, it may be simply out-of-control emotions and fear of abandonment more than an attempt to control you per se; however you will likely still feel that you are not being allowed to end a relationship you no longer want).
If your wish to end a relationship is not being honoured, whatever a toxic person thinks will work best on you will be what they try, so when one angle doesn’t work, they will try another, and another, ramping up their efforts until it seems they might never stop. Typically, hoovering DOES stop if the person being hoovered does not fall for the hooverer’s tricks.
The sooner the person being hoovered completely ignores everything and does not respond to anything at all in any way, the sooner the toxic person finally understands that they do not have the control. Some toxic people may still make the occasional attempt on holidays, anniversaries of events, etc. Don’t bite the bait. Simply ignore any attempts.
If you have already made it clear that you do not want a relationship (or if it’s obvious) then DON’T ever contact the person doing the hoovering to tell them to stop again, or how angry you are. That is a reward. They will be thrilled to receive your attention and pleased to know that their efforts have paid off by snagging you, so they’ll be contacting you even more!
Your Dad is not above pestering you (you've already had unwanted gifts for them; btw what happened to those?) and you think he's going to follow them around like a lost puppy and taking photos of them to boot. It is your job amongst many to protect your children from such malign influences like that of your Dad. You went no contact with the man so radio silence from you needs to be maintained. It's no good trying to be even more assertive in his presence because he could well cut you down with just a look or snide comment.
If he is too toxic for you to deal with its the same deal for both your vulnerable and defenceless children. He was and remains a toxic father to you and he is a toxic grandfather to his grandchildren.
It only takes a look, a snide comment or a pinch and the damage is already done right in front of your very eyes; its that quick. The two of you will not be able to stop your dad from taking photos for instance. You will be completely blindsided and you will not be left alone.
What is it with the men here in this scenario; your sister's DH did his own bit of messing up here by inviting Dad along to the party in the first place!.