Lost my family

[Lilsquish]

Not really sure why im writing this. Just feeling so down right now.
A brief overview...

Im married with a young baby. Last year my sister had her baby son (7 weeks old) removed by ss due to him having broken ribs. Sister and her husband took him to hospital as he was constantly unsettled and crying. The broken ribs were discovered via xray and it transpired that it had occurred on two seperate occasions.

Police and ss got involved. Both sis and bil deny doing it or knowing how it happened. Police couldnt find enough evidence to charge anyone so it was left in the hands of ss.

Since the injuries were discovered my nephew has been living with my parents and my sis and bil get supervised access.
6 months after this all kicked off i gave birth to my daughter. Initially my OH and I were trying to be supportive to sis and parents and the whole topic of how this happened was a massive elephant in the room.
But this just couldnt go on.

Due to various reasons my OH and i believe it was my bil (my parents also suspect this). As such OH and i decided that we didnt want him around our baby. My OH then however decided that my sis knows her OH harmed their son and is just covering for him as she doesnt want a failed marriage (i should add at this point that absolutely no one in my family/friends know about this - it has been kept secret to protect my sis and the lies etc that have been told is unreal)

So now my problem. Since iv told my parents and sis that she is not allowed to see my daughter, they have cut me out their life.

Im completely heartbroken and feek so helpless and lost.

My OH hates my sister and now barely tolerates my parents and my sister and parents hate my OH. My choice was between having a relationshiop with my OH or with my family. Iv obv chosen my OH but i feel so alone and sad about it at the same time.

Theres so much more to this but id literally be typing all day.

Guess im just looking for a hand hold......

I think you are teetering on a precipice re becoming a safeguarding risk yourself TBH re this;

Why do i want them in her life? Well i suppose because im struggling to get my head around what they are doing and how they are behaving.

They are also i suppose quite manipulative (well my mum is) and when i speak to them their arguments seem plausible etc and i get sucked in. But then i look at the facts again and think, no, something isnt right here.

I can completely understand why you feel the way you do but I can completely understand why, given the above, your OH has set the very firm boundaries he has too.

I believe SEF’s advice re counselling to come to terms with this situation is good.

What you need to be doing IMO is emotionally separating from all of these dangerous and toxic people; your BIL, DSIS and DParents. Also, you need to express your concerns re your parents’ ability to safeguard DN and the incident with the dog to SC for his safety.

And this is absolutely not true;

Its just that they werent always like this. Up until 18mths ago we were a normal loving happy family.

I think it is pretty clear that for a looooooong time you have had a family that likes to keep up the appearance of being a normal loving happy family but who, if you scratch the surface, are not actually this way.

I call this kind of thing ‘needing to bring yourself into reality’.

IMO your OH is living in reality. You are caught in the FOG. You will be able to make sense of this much better and protect you and your DC much better if you can come out of the FOG and into reality.

It will be extremely hard to do this if you are having contact with them and if you do not get professional therapeutic support with it.

Some links;

outofthefog.website/toolbox-1/2015/11/17/fog-fear-obligation-guilt

I found the book mentioned in this review helpful in dealing with all kinds of toxic relationships, not just with NPD/BPD traits because it focuses on caretaking behaviours. When you mentioned you were pushed into caretaking your sister as a child upthread I thought of this.

the stately homes thread

It's helpful to remember the three Cs of dealing with dysfunction, whether associated with addiction or coming from any other source:
You didn't cause this.
You can't control it.
You can't cure it.

Remembering this will help you to keep your DN front and centre as you try to disengage from the people who are at the middle of this dangerous situation for DN, and forge a new relationship with them (that may well be a relationship at arms length, or none at all).

Your OH seems to be able to stand back from them all in a healthy manner. Don't let this situation your parents and sister and her H have caused tear you and OH apart. It would be horrible if the two of you were to become another casualty of the dysfunction here. Ask your OH for support - even a simple hand-hold sometimes. Don't be adversaries.

You're not weak. This is a big thing you are grappling with. Try to identify your needs here wrt your family, and understand what is keeping you feeling so torn. Counselling would be a very wise move here for you.

I seriously wonder whether this man is a psychopath who has been threatening your sister and possibly your parents as well.

Some of these types can look very normal and even go overboard to show how great they are in public. In private, they're giving their victims extremely detailed accountings of how they will injure or kill them if they ever leave.

This happened to a friend of mine and no one could understand why she "stood by her man" so much, until it turned out he'd been threatening to stab her and her entire family if she ever revealed his abusive side or in any way compromised their relationship or their public show of happy families.

Don't assume that your sister is as happy as she looks in her pampered state. If I were you, I'd be trying to see her ALONE once in a while, to talk very seriously about what's going on and to let her know that if this man is threatening her or putting her in fear for her life or safety, you will move heaven and earth to make sure he can never reach her or contact her ever again.

Thank you for the links offred.

Mathanxiety-iv had some counselling already but didnt feel it helped :-(

This FOG that is mentioned def rings true

Womb- i did wonder this but i have spoken to her on her own and i really dont think its the case.

I could of course be wrong. Perhaps il never know.

Go and try a different counsellor, different counsellors and different techniques work for different people in different circumstances.

Why am i so upset by this? So weak.

No. No you are not.

You have been placed in an impossibly painful position.

I sometimes wonder why people are so unsympathetic to people who are having to go LC or NC. If your family dies, there's all the sympathy in the world. But if you are forced into an impossible position - go along with strongly suspected abuse OR lose your family - the understanding is often missing.

People who lose their loving families to death long for them and would do anything to have them back. It's not that much different when you are either rejected by them or have to reject them (I wish I didnt have personal experience of all 3 situations, but I do).

I do think you need to lean hard on your OH here because he is right. I hope he is the sort of man who can let you cry and cry when you need to.

It's never easy, this sort of painful situation. But you do adjust and life can be good again, in a different way from before. It's the people who deceive themselves, like your parents, who have to live with the worm of doubt and self-deceit, who live subtly tainted lives.

Thank you SeaEagle

Again you are so right. It is a bereavement, but instead of having the knowledge that they can absolutely never come back(as in real death) there is still that bit of hope :-(

Iv read on here often so many people simply saying 'cut them out', LTB, or go no contact as if its really simple.

Iv had a look at the stately homes thread, but again the majority of posters are from parents who have been abusive to them. I dont feel that i fit into this category.

Had a sad moment this morning, my fb time-hop posted a memory from a few years back where I had made a cake for my mums birthday. Id give anything to go back to then :'-(

You certainly do at the moment and I suspect there may be more to connect with from when you were a child too.

I don’t believe this level of dysfunction will have just sprung up overnight, even just from what you have said about feeling like you weren’t good enough in comparison to your sister.

It may be that you don’t really want to confront that there has been this dysfunction in your family all along and that recent events have just made it more obvious to you, but IMO you are expressing things in a way that makes me think there were some elements of scapegoating of you and that your sister was/is the golden child even when you were growing up.

This may be at the core of how you are feeling now. You desperately want to be loved and valued by them. This is usually a sign that you weren’t loved in the way you needed to be as a child.

You could be right offred.

I know iv always strived to have their approval and been desperate for them to be proud of me.

Iv always wanted them to approve of and love my OH too, which has unfortunately not always been the case. Certainly now anyway.

It’s very hard.

I think if you trust in your OH for now and you cut off all contact with them it may become clearer in time even if you do nothing other than that.

Therapy does sometimes take a few goes, you need to find a therapist and a therapeutic approach that you fit with. It’s also worth bearing in mind that you need to be in the right frame of mind for entering therapy too.

There have been times I have waited until some of the intensity has passed before I have been ready for starting therapy.

In the meantime you need to make yourself safe from more harm by going NC (doesn’t have to be forever in your mind, can just be taking a break) and practice good self care.

Your DH is utterly right. Be strong together.

Yeah perhaps i should try some more therapy.

I switch between anger and hatred to sobbing and desperate thoughts about how to fix this on a regular basis.

Miserable

Hopefully you will get to a place of acceptance soonish.

You can’t fix this. There is literally no way, short of making your family members into different people.

My dads on the children's panel. They most certainly will of been up by now. More than once likely within that time frame.

So what do you think will have happened *fucksake?

Try not to into analysing your childhood and looking for abuse or dysfunction that genuinely wasn't there.

That really won't help you. Your BIL is the one who sounds dodgy...your sister will obviously find it hard to believe.

I would find it almost impossible to cut my family off like this though....

I want to repeat what Offred said - you can't fix this.

Thank you Sandy.

Yes it does feel impossible.

But the way iv (and my lg and OH) been treated is so poor. I just dont see a way back to any kind of relationship.

Yet every time i hear a car door outside i yearn for it to be my mum n dad.

I know Mathsanxiety. I wish i could.

Just to clarify, when i say i yearn for it to be them. What i mean is a yearn for them to visit and tell me theyre sorry and that they would do anything to make this right

It’s not gone to panel yet so I don’t think you can do anything until a final decision has been made. You are In limbo so the situation can’t be resolved at the moment. You need to try and put it to one side. You could send things for nephew do they know you are thinking about him.