Feeling very down.
I am 7 months PP and cut off my sister in law (who had a second baby last week) after things built up for a while, but there was one moment a few weeks ago during a family function where she said some very unkind things about my birth that really tipped me over. I felt belittled and dismissed in a way that stuck with me more than I expected. At the time, it didn’t feel like a small thing, it felt like a pattern, and like I was always the one swallowing it.
So I pulled back to protect myself, and it turned into fully cutting contact. I told ber I was doing so and she accepted it. At first it felt like relief, like I was finally not putting myself in situations where I’d feel small or upset.
But now… I just feel a lot of regret and sadness about how final it’s become. It’s affected the whole family dynamic, and I hate that. I keep thinking maybe I should’ve handled it differently, or at least left the door open instead of shutting it completely.
The hard part is I still don’t feel like what hurt me was “nothing.” I’m not suddenly okay with how I was made to feel. But I also don’t know if cutting her off entirely was the right call long-term.
I don’t know if reaching out would actually help or just make things worse, especially after such little time. And I don’t even know what I’d say without either downplaying my feelings or making it into a bigger thing again.
Has anyone managed to rebuild something after it got to this point? Or figured out how to sit with the regret if you chose not to?