TL:DR I’m recently NC with my family but my son, 18yrs is still in contact with my nephew,23yrs even after nephew has been abusive to me.
Growing up my family was really dysfunctional but I didn’t really see it. As an adult it became clear that my eldest sister had to centred in everything.
For example I had to leave family event after I had a panic attack when my anxiety was out of control. The whole narrative was the I had ruined the event for my sister and that I needed to apologise to her, no one showed any concern for me at all, no one even asked if I was ok.
So once we both had children I noticed the same patterns being played out. So many times I would go low contact only to be guilted into coming back.
Two years ago my eldest daughter was diagnosed with schizoaffective bipolar. Again it became all about my sister and her children, with us being chastised for not pushing aside everything we were dealing with to provide support for my sister and her daughter, who were apparently very upset by all my daughter had to deal with.
So after that, and with the help of Covid Lockdowns, we’ve had very little to do with my sister, her family or my mum. They have rarely contacted me, and haven’t once asked about my daughter, which has been fine by me.
We saw them all for Christmas, which went quite well, I was thinking maybe I could get to a point where I saw them a few times a year and make pleasant chit chat.
After Christmas I deactivated my Instagram account. I hadn’t posted on it for months and barely looked at it. My Mum posted about 3 things a year, my sister uses it for her business only, my nieces post selfies a couple of times a month and my nephew and I didn’t even follow each other.
The next day I received an awful text from my nephew. Saying I was paranoid, that I basically cut all ties with my nieces and nephew, that the family had long given up trying to work out what my problem is, it was nasty. My sister told me I deserved the message because I had hurt everyone. My Mum agreed that it was all my fault and that I should apologise to nephew. So that made everything easy and I went full no contact.
Since then though we’ve found out that nephew has been spreading lies about my younger son.
But nephew has been in contact with my oldest son, was worried that my son wouldn’t want to be friends with him. My son wanted to hear what he had to say. Nephew has shown no remorse for what he has done, but worse that that is no claiming it’s not his fault as he has bipolar, the same as my daughter. He doesn’t, he has never shown any signs and there is no way that in three days he managed to get an appointment with a psychiatrist to get a diagnosis, which is what he is saying happened.
I don’t think my son really believes this, but has been happy to message and play X-box with nephew again. I am so hurt. I know my son is an adult and can make his own decisions, but I don’t know how to get past what feels like a betrayal.
Sorry it’s so long.