Our 6th visit to the Stately Home.....

[oneplusone]

Hi all, took the liberty of starting a new thread. Keep on posting!

Thanks for you replies, Hana, attila. I do know it really. My therapist thinks I should maintain contact with them but I find this conflicts me greatly.It is the one thing that makes me feel unsure about him. I think he is right in as much that right now I would feel way too guilty if I cut them off completley. But the fact is that my brother and sister have effectively cut me off since I started setting boundaries with my mother and sis- manily because of my mother's intensive programme of disinformation. My father has never really given a shit about me anyway so at least he's being honest in not even attempting any contact. The only one I have left is the main protagonist- my mother. I have realised that she can drag members of my old family and old family friends into her army of emotional blackmail but thankfully she cannot touch the people that are actually good for me- namely DH, his parents, my own friends, my children. I worry that she may influence my children, especially my DS who she is a bit obsessed by.

The truth is she does not want to see me to chat- she just wants information about me, or to malign those around her to me and I am not interested. SHe does not like talking to me as I wont talk to her in the way she wants- namely joining in with her derision of her friends and our family. So what exactly is in it for her? Maybe she will get bored and leave me alone. And maybe by thaty time I will have the right level of emotional detachment from her not to care.

I can see I am just not ready to make this decision.

OPO that resonse you describe from your sisters is pretty much exactly what my sister has said to me when she tells me she is 'done with me'.

I have my second therapy session and I really really don't want to go.

I have no idea what her plan is for me other than to eventually join a group which I don't want to do and it is unnerving when she says nothing and waits for me to talk. I just don't want to go.

Fab all I can suggest is that you tell her these things.

I know what you mean, though. My therapist is quite chatty and I find this much easier, though it has taken me ages to trust him at all and I still have reservations. I don't know about you, but for me I think I find reasons not to like him becuase I still fear the guilt of talking about this stuff. I feell very guilty poting on here.

It is early days with this lady, yes? Maybe give her another go, tell her how you feel and she may be able to adjust her approach?

x

OPO, I sense this desperation to make your sisters understand and believe you about what happened and how bad it was for you. I used to feel that I just needed someone to understand and believe me before I would allow myself to really feel what happened and deal with it. I'd had it so drummed into me 'not to be a wimp' and 'not to cause a scene' that I was too worried about being crap in some way if I 'succumbed' to my feelings and allowed myself to feel it fully. I wonder if you felt that just one person really knew the details and understood and believed you, if the desperate feelings about your sisters not understanding would subside? Perhaps they are not the ones to look to for this as they aren't capable. Over time Therapist gave me so much reassurance that I eventually let myself feel the past things that still affected me and process them more. You do seem to hold back from really saying details of what happened but probably if you could force yourself to say them to a therapist it could be a turning point?

Bop, don't be angry with yourself for feeling needy as it isn't your fault, it is the fault of your upbringing. Any of the people around you who you consider to be 'normal', if they had gone through the same things as you, are likely to have reacted similarly to you. You are a normal person who has reacted in a normal way to abnormal childhood experiences. Your DS is fine if you have already given him a reasonable amount of attention. Compare what you have done for him with what your parents did for you. I'm sure you will find that you have done a lot more, so, your DS is NOT going to be affected by his childhood the same way you were. Too much attention would be bad as well as too little, but I'm sure you haven't given him as little as you received yourself.

Pinky, I recognise that awful feeling from childhood of the knowledge dawning on you that NOBODY is going to help you, and the alone feeling that follows and causes you to shut off. I'm really sorry you felt this. I also recognise that rule of - you must keep up the illusion that your childhood is ideal to make us (the parents) look good and you will not shatter our image of what we wanted it to be like and cause us to feel disillusioned and disappointed. They are so wrapped up in their own 'stuff' that they take it as a personal criticism of their parenting when their child says there are problems! But it is only something to criticise if the parents don't do their job and help the child with their problems and put effort into making their child's life live up to the ideal they had imagined before having children! It seems some parents are just too weak to take on the task that they 'signed up' (literally in my case by adopting me) for! I'm wondering if my parents felt deep down that they were inferior in importance to us compared to our natural parents but didn't want to face this feeling of inferiority and maybe this was part of the problem. So they were extra defensive and couldn't face the fact that they weren't doing such a fantastic job that their kids had no problems.

I also recognise the panic that your children might feel any of the same things that you did to the same extent as you did. You think that if your parents acted like it was normal not to notice bad things going on with their children then it is LIKELY that you won't either. But it WASN'T normal, they were just ACTING like it was to defend their own self esteem and feelings, but at the expense of yours. YOU are NOT likely to not notice your children's feelings, especially as your experiences will make you better able to recognise it if they feel anything like the feelings you felt.

I wonder if they didn't want you to speak because sometimes when you spoke, the things you said showed them up to be crap parents. They want to think, and for others to think, that they are great at their job as parents, so they can feel self esteem, and will not accept anything that sounds like criticism. But being a great parent takes lots of hard work and if they don't do the work they will not be 'great'. I think most people don't realise how hard parenting is going to be until they do it and unfortunately some people become discouraged very quickly and 'give up'! They need to know that - it is supposed to be hard and there are supposed to be problems for you to work through and that doesn't mean that you are crap parents it just means you have work to do. If you don't do that work to such an extent that your child is affected long term then you are crap.

You need to feel equal and important but your parents may not be the ones to look to, to make you feel like this, if they are incapable because they are too wrapped up in their own issues. The fact that you feel inferior and unimportant doesn't mean that you are, it is not your fault, it is due to their failings as parents. You might need to look for other people to give you something of what your parents should be giving you if your parents are never going to be capable of providing this.

OPO, deciding to disconnect from your sisters doesn't mean that you aren't 'allowed' to contact them in any tiny way at all does it? If it makes it easier for you to send a quick reply when your sister tells you she has had the baby, rather than a load of aggro being caused by you not responding, which would make your life difficult, then why not take the easy option? Most of the disconnecting can be done in your own head! Ie, disconnecting your thoughts about them enough to not care what they think of you or how much you get from them. Think about other people instead of them. (Easy to say I know.)

Sb9, would you be happy to see a therapist? At least you recognise that the anger isn't really about your DH but about his behaviours triggering feelings from past experiences that he reminds you of in some tiny way. If you can find a way to process the original things that made you feel bad, the anger with your DH will subside a bit. You could process the past stuff by therapy, writing about it on your own, writing about it on here, talking to friends, reading books on this type of thing, whatever way feels best for you.

FabBaker, do you think you would feel 'I don't want to go' with any therapist or just the one you've got? It is scary making yourself talk about things which stir up bad feelings, but if the way your therapist does things makes you feel uncomfortable around her then maybe she isn't suited to you? Could you say you feel under pressure when she is silent and just waits for you to speak and you would be more relaxed about talking if she asked you questions to get you started? The therapy probably will feel really upsetting for a time while you are reliving experiences so that you can process them but if she is a good therapist then it will be worth it in the end when it starts to get better. It will probably feel worse before it feels better though.

I am going to change my username to OrdinarySAHM or something like that - see you when I'm renamed!

Done it!

It isn't her. It is with any therapist though there was one I refused to go back to as he gave me the creeps.

I told her how I felt and she was very sweet about it and I feel a tiny bit more hopeful now.

I won't see her now for 3 weeks though.

sb9, PM and OSAHM, thank you for your responses and sb9 and PM, am sorry to hear you have had similar experiences with your sisters. I am glad I'm not the only one but sorry for you as well.

OSAHM, I really understand what you say about doing the disconnecting in my head and still maintaining some sort of relationship with my sisters. I agree that that is possible. The only problem is that for me, i think it is only possible for me have contact with them after I have managed to disconnect from them in my head. At the moment, there are still some ties there, and they therefore have the power to hurt and upset me and i just do not want to put myself in that position again, not until i am ready and feel sure i can be in contact with them without being hurt. Perhaps if the baby was not due for another 6 months, i would have had enough time to work on myself and fully disconnect and then be able to contact them but without being scared of being hurt by them. But as it is due any day now really, i simply am not ready. Of course my sister will have absolutely no understanding of what i am going through and will simply reinfoce for herself her existing image of me as selfish and thoughtless and inconsiderate. (She will conveniently forget how many times i have been there for her in the past, how thoughtful, considerate and unselfish i have been with her when she needed me, how generous i have been, not only with my time, but financially and practically eg I gave her all our old baby stuff that we no longer need. We could have sold it all and made a bit of money, but instead we gave it all to her and she now has everything she needs for her new baby, without having to spend any money nor go to the shops etc, but i know everything i have done will be forgotten if i don't go and see her after the baby is born).

As it is now, i haven't contacted either of them for nearly 2 months, neither of them has been in touch to see if i'm ok. For all they know i could be ill in hospital. They just do not care about me and i wish so much i could stop caring about them as it is a very unequal relationship; they hold all the power and the ability to hurt me and i want to break their hold over me.

sb9, i must just respond to your post about your marriage falling apart. Me too. I am constantly triggered by DH and i realise i have been triggered by him since we got married (9 years). I too blow up at him over minor things and he is fed up and i don't blame him. He knows he has done nothing to deserve to be treated in the way i have treated him and he is beginning to feel he just cannot continue like this. But at the same time, i am finding it very hard to change my behaviour.

To give something positive, OSAHM is right about trying to be aware that you are being triggered and actively trying to trace back to where in your childhood your feelings originated. This has definately worked for me and I definately blow up a lot less with DH than i used to.

My current problem with DH is about how i communicate with him. I grew up without learing how to talk about difficult feelings. Without learning about to tell somebody, without hurting their feelings, that they have done something wrong, or could do things better in some way. When i was growing up, we never really talked or discussed things as a family. We all kept things bottled up until it was the last straw for somebody, then there would be almighty row during which all the bottled up resentments would come out, in an aggressive, accusatory, hurtful and tit for tat way. Nothing would get resolved, we would feel a sense of relief that the bottled up tensions had been released, but there was never any resolution. There was no post row, calm, constructive, reparatory discussion.

DH is always complaining that whenever i want to tell him something i am tactless, undiplomatic and careless about his feelings. And he is right. I have got no idea how to approach him about something i feel emotional about, my emotions seem to drive me, i don't think about what to say and how to say it, i just bluntly blurt things out and of course it never has the desired effect. I don't get listened to, instead i get DH's back up as i am accusatory and agressive in my approach and he digs his heels in. I am beginning to realise that deep down, i want to hurt DH and am glad to be able to point out when he has done something wrong. And the reason for this is that over the years we have been together DH has been forever pointing out things that i am not good at, things i can't do and there has been very little i could say that he needs to get right or improve on. So when finally there is something i can genuinely say that he is not very good at i am quite pleased. I feel glad that for once I am good at something and better at it than him and i like being able to point out his inadequacies and mistakes. I realise that over the years we have been together and i realise more and more just how badly i have been damaged by my parents and just how much i need to learn i have felt very inferior and inadequate next to DH who, whilst not perfect, is one of those rare, relatively undamaged adults, with minimal issues, all due to the parenting he received as a child. He was loved, cared for, cherished, nurtured etc, he got pretty much all the things he needed as a child and so no wonder he is now a healthy adult. I meanwhile got none of my needs met and not only that, was also severely abused and totally neglected as a child. So DH cannot understand how i felt as a child nor how it has made me feel now and i cannot understand or imagine what it would have been to have a childhood like DH's, to be a child who was loved, wanted and cherished.

Writing all this makes me realise just how far apart me and DH are. I do sometimes think i would have got on far better with somebody who came from a similar childhood to me, but who had worked on resolving his issues and had insight and awareness into his behaviour. But then two damaged parents would not be good for the DC's, at least they have had one undamaged parent all this time whilst i worked on my issues and i feel glad that hopefully DH would have counteracted some of my problems during the DC's younger years when i had not really sorted myself out so in that respect i am glad i am with a far less damaged person than myself.

Going back to my issues about communicating with DH and being happy to point out when he has finally done something wrong instead of it always being me, i think a deeper cause of my behaviour must be from my childhood. Perhaps i am hurting DH by tactlessly telling him when he has made a mistake when i actually really want to hurt my dad but of course i can't so i am taking it out on DH. I remember my dad used to hurt me by always putting me down and pointing out things i had done wrong/badly and I am now taking revenge for this on DH. I haven't been doing it consciously, as i have only just realised this as a possibility, but perhaps subconsciously my experience with my dad has been behind my behaviour.

I also find it very hard to talk to DH about things that I am worried about. I tend to stew over things alone in my head until i get really worried and eventually burst out and tell DH about whatever it is, but by that time i am resentful that i have been worrying about this thing all by myself which is of course ridiculous as i have only been worrying alone because i haven't told DH. If i had told him he would have been happy to help me resolve whatever issue had been bothering me. But i seem to find it impossible to talk to him about a problem at the outset, i always take on the problem myself, i never seem to realise that where during childhood i had nobody to unburden myself to, now i do have somebody who is willing to listen and share my problems. I literally feel paralysed, my tongue feels paralysed, my mouth seems to clamp itself shut and whilst i can say what i want to say in my head, i can't seem to get the words out. I think i always have a fear of what DH's reaction might be if i did manage to say what i want to say, but i know this fear is irrational. There is no need to fear DH's reaction as he is not my mother or father. My mother's reaction to me talking about my worries/fears would be to either ignore me or become so worried/fearful herself that I would end up reassuring her instead of the other way around, meaning i was still alone with my fears as she had not taken them onto her shoulders, instead she had put her own fears onto my shoulders so as a result of telling her i felt even worse not better. With my dad i have no experience of talking about my problems as after he destroyed our previously close relationship by his abuse, i was wary and fearful and distrusting of him and so of course would never dream of going to him to talk about anything. So between the two of them, my parents left me with nobody to talk to and so i must have learnt just to keep everything inside and that is exactly what i am still doing now. Except that a lot of the things i worry about are to do with the DC's, and i end up feeling resentful of DH that I am the only one worrying about things to do with the DC's when we are both their parents. But of course DH is completely open to and willing to listen to and share my worries about the DC's, it is because of my childhood that i find it hard if not impossible to talk to him and open up.

OSAHM, you have picked up on something important I think. Like you say, i am reluctant to go into detail about what i went through with my dad, particularly to my sisters. I always talk in general terms to them and they really have no idea or any details about specific incidents. But if i imagine myself talking to them in this way i always see myself getting no further than a few initial sentences before breaking down in tears and not being able to stop crying. And then i feel scared about how my sisters would react to seeing me break down and cry like that. I have never sobbed like that in front of them, i feel too vulnerable to be able to do that as i am not sure whether they would be sympathetic and supportive and understanding. I have a feeling they would be cold and uncaring and i think this is why i haven't opened up to them.

But i haven't really opened up to many people and talked in detail about the single most horrific incident i experienced. I once or twice briefly talked about it to my counsellor and i remember wanting to get off that particular subject as quickly as possible and so i quickly told her what happened and then changed the subject. I have also only briefly mentioned it on here.

I think i am scared to go there really. I feel like if i do, i will cry and cry and never stop. And i don't feel like i have found somebody in RL i can trust enough to know they will look after me if i break down completely. I feel reluctant to post on here about it as whilst i am sure i will receive lots of support from all of you, i will be alone at home crying by myself and i really feel i need to be with somebody i trust completely who will listen and understand and be there for me.

But thank you for making me realise that there is still something quite significant that i need to talk about as i was feeling that i had pretty much resolved most of my issues.

OSAHM (well done on the new name, btw) thank you so much, such excellent advice there, and very accurate, I think.

I have been reading this book- 'Playful Parenting' and it has been helping me enorrmously,I really recommend it.

OPo can I just say that I had never told anyone anything negative about my childhood until very recently. There are still things that I cannot bring myself to say out loud, but I am getting there gradually.

I've read a few of these threads and feel almost compelled to write this and post it where it has a chance of being understood. I feel as if I'm joining in with something I've always wanted to be a part of without understanding why. I've just has a bit of a moment where lots of fog has lifted and I can see my family clearly. Maybe I just need to share something with people who will understand.

Bear with me.

My family went through some traumas when I was a young child. My father died when I was very young. It's hard to explain the outside pressures at that time without going into loads of detail, but the atmosphere before he died was very dark and scary. After he died there was physical and sexual abuse from a family member which affected all of the siblings. We were emotionally neglected and when we annouced the abuse there was much shrugging and mum managed to make herself the biggest victim ("it always stays with you" - about her, not us).

I was too young to know what my mum was like before dad died, so I don't know if she was ever capable and not the self-absorbed person I knew. I've always known her as frightened and dishonest - that seems like a strong word, but she would always hint instead of ask for something or she would exaggerate - everything would be tinged with dishonesty.

My sister who is older than me was always the most talented, funniest, most artistic of the siblings. We used to endlessley discuss our upbringing. I know now how unhelpful this was, as we never used to try and make things better, we just used to go over and over how bad we felt and how we had been let down and hurt. I didn't want to feel so 'stuck', so I took myself off to a psychotherapist. It helped. I'm still an anxious person, but I don't find the trauma overwhelming any more. I have forgiven my parents and my family. I still think some of them were wrong and bad, but thinking that doesn't help me get better, so I forgave them. This must have hurt my sister as she immediately turned on me. She won't have anything to do with me. So now I can see her personality at a distance. She is never at fault for anything, someone else has caused every problem she has ever had. She has to be the centre of attention even if that means she is the centre of a storm. She can cut someone out of her life without a backward glance (including siblings and husbands). She is fantastic at projection - apparently I sulk a lot, this bemuses me, as I get cross, shout then calm down again; she sulks like mad then blames someone else for her not being able to voice her opinions. Arggh! It's all starting to sound a bit confusing. Are these NPD traits, or just the behaviour of someone who has been badly hurt? I can't see myself trying to contact her again, am I wrong to not be too bothered about this?

TryingToMakeSense, I would NEVER forgive someone who sexually abused me as a child. I thought I had forgiven someone who physically/mentally abused me but then realised it was denial of what happened because I found it too hard to face it. Since 'un'forgiving him I am feeling a lot 'saner'! I'm not holding onto the anger as I've been gradually processing it. Forcing yourself to forgive can be a way of blocking or masking anger which can then try to get out in other ways often without you knowing what caused it.

I can see that you wanted to get on with your life and not let what happened drag you down, but I can also see how your sister could be angry with someone who forgives someone who abused her!

Do you not want to see her because it would remind you of all the bad stuff that happened?

...And yes, I can see how abuse could make someone act NPDish because when you've got so much stuff you are trying to make sense of and emotions you can't deal with and you are desperately trying to find some way to feel self esteem because it has been damaged, it has the effect of locking you inside your own head where it is difficult to see other people fully or care about anyone other than yourself because you are so preoccupied with your own problems.

I think I used to be like this.

I think a lot of people's relatives on this thread are like this and that is a big part of why they have neglected/abused them.

On this thread people are trying to deal with their issues so that they will not also be 'locked inside their own heads' forever and emotionally unavailable to their own children.

I didn't say it right. It's the first time I've written this down and I've missed out so much. I'm also just starting to find my way saying any of this to other people.

My uncle was the abuser. I will never forgive him. He knew what he was doing was wrong and he still did it. He knew to hide what he was doing - I can't forgive that level of calculation.

My sister doesn't know how I feel about my parents. We haven't spoken for over 5 years and I had another year or so with the therapist where we talked through so much pain and anger. I could sit in the chair in the therapists room and burst into tears telling her about my day at work. But I kept talking and talking over and over until I stopped crying. My sister doesn't know any of this.

I understand why she felt betrayed by me. We used to be so united in our pain until I wanted to try and move my thoughts on. But I couldn't help her - we covered the same ground so many times and nothing changed, I felt so stuck.

I don't want to say anything that would hurt another poster. I'm just one more person who doesn't want this stuff rattling away in my brain - I want it out.

I don't think seeing her would remind me of bad things. She was mentioned a lot in therapy as her life was so much of mine.

Maybe forgiving was too strong a word - it should be "I can't forgive, but I need to create a distance or draw a line, behind which I feel safe".

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. It's made me feel more real, if that makes sense.

TryingToMakeSense, sorry if I came across as getting at you and I admire you for having the courage to even talk/write about it! And I can understand that you want to just 'fix it' and get on with it, and that it must be frustrating to see your sister not seeming to get anywhere, and painful because you care about her and want her to make progress.

I can imagine if it was me, wanting to force her to see a therapist, but knowing that you can't force people. Can you tell her how good your therapist was for you and how much progress you made and suggest that it could benefit her too? (I guess you've probably said all this.) I think there is definitely a limit to what an 'untrained' person can do to help someone else who has been abused. (My DH used to be so frustrated with me for never seeming to get over the past and nothing he did or said was making a lasting difference.) I realised I was expecting too much of him (too fix me), and maybe you are expecting too much of yourself if you think you can 'fix' your sister? Is she reluctant to see a therapist?

Just like I probably used slightly wrong wording in my reply to you and came across as being a bit of a bitch, maybe you could modify the language you use with your sister without using the word 'forgive' in relation to the person who abused her and use words like 'deal with your feelings about it with a professional trained in these issues so that you can start to leave the past behind and live a nice life'. Forgiving without dealing with the feelings properly is like trying to do a quick fix. Try to be patient with your sister even though it hurts to see her not progressing fast x

Maybe she could benefit from posting on this thread?

...and I just feel the need to say, again:

I don't forgive your uncle for abusing you or any family members who let it happen if they had any inkling what was happening, and I don't forgive your relatives for neglecting you, or your mum for not giving you enough support when you talked to her about it, making it more about herself than about her child.

I'm very sorry these things happened to you.

No - not a bitch at all. I bounced in throwing very strong words around, you just reminded me how loaded those words are.

I need another word "decided not to hate because I did that for 35 years and it wore me out".

I can't use any language with my sister, she cut off all contact 5 years ago. I'm think I'm trying to work out what I feel about her.

Do you have her address and would writing a letter be an option if you wanted to get back in contact?

Compare what other relatives did compared to what your sister did in getting 'arsy' when you talked about moving on and there were probably a load of misunderstandings because it is so hard to find the right words for things. Does this make her seem not so bad?

She has probably done/said things that have made you angry and you have a right to be angry, but you can still love/like her and feel angered by her at times, unless she has done/said things that you can't forgive. Just like, for example, our children make us angry often but we still love them. Stuff that is 'smaller' than what your other relatives did is surely more forgivable. Has she done anything that you consider unforgiveable that you maybe haven't written about here?

Thank you for not forgiving my family. The thought that healthy-minded people despise their actions is surprisingly helpful.

There's some very useful food for thought in your post. Am I punishing her more than any other member of my family, even when others committed real crimes? It's a good question.

Maybe one small part is that she is so like my mum - lots of exaggerating and demanding attention. When I was an administrator she told people I was a 'manager'; to me she said 'you're just a secretary' - that is so insignificant in some ways, but it also shows that things had to look good for other people but I had to be put in my place (it says something that she thinks 'secretary' is a put-down). It's so hard to say what the point is - loads of memories and thoughts are swirling around and nothing is clear. I'd be reading this thinking "she called her sister a manager, what a bitch" .

Years ago, she would have been in her early 20s, I told her that a friend had said something about my difficult childhood and my sister said "yours was fine, what's she talking about?", then when I reminded her of the 5 years abuse and the same dead father she thought and said "hmm. yes, I suppose it wasn't very nice for you". She then went through a phase of feeling sorry for me, but it hadn't occured to her before. There's another 20 years of this leading up to her cutting me off. How could I start to approach her? She doesn't want me to.

My younger sister has texted me again, just a general "Hello how are you" text. I haven't replied to her previous texts and I just don't know what to do. I know the advice on here was to just not reply and that in itself would send out a strong message. But i am finding it very hard. It's just not me. I am not really one to ignore people without at least telling them why I am unhappy first and giving them a chance to respond/change. If they do not give me the response i am looking for then i am quite happy to ignore.

Wrt my sisters, i feel i haven't really told them all the reasons i am unhappy with them. I know if i tell them i will probably get a bitchy response back, or they will fail to take responsibility for their actions and try and blame me and tell me i deserved to be treated badly by them. But even if i am risking a nasty response, i still feel i want them to know why i am unhappy. I do not expect a healthy response from them as i know they are unhealthy and damaged (although they don't know it themselves), but i feel i have this need to tell them why i am ignoring them.

Should i just hang on and keep ignoring and not responding? Or should i give in to my need to respond and explain why i am ignoring them? I really don't know what to do. It seems so mean to just ignore them, but otoh, i doubt if they spend much time wondering why i haven't replied. They probably think i am in a mood about something and that it's just me because i was born moody and grumpy and it's nothing to do with them and they should probably just ignore me til i get over it.

My middle sister's baby is due next week and i haven't heard anything from her for quite a while so that makes it a bit easier as i don't feel i am ignoring her as such. But i have no idea what to do once she has had her baby and i recieve a text from her or her DH. I thought i would just say something like "Congrats on the baby. Glad all went well (assuming it does). OPO" I don't want to mention about visiting as i don't want to visit her but would like to see the baby.

I would really appreciate some advice and opinions here, it's really bothering me.

OPO, wouldn't the easiest option be just to send a very short reply eg "fine thanks, hope you are well" and then forget it?

In a previous post you talked about wanting your sisters to understand why you feel the way you do about your parents and about them and they don't understand so far. You also said that you hadn't ever really told them exactly what happened. Well, if you wrote them a letter and you did write exactly what happened, in detail, would they be much more likely to understand then? Could you write down details about things your sisters have done as well and explain why it has had the effect it has on you? It seems like you really want them to understand and can't 'rest' until they do?

At the moment it sounds like you are saying to them - bad things happened, I'm not going to explain, but you just have to believe me, and then you feel upset because they don't believe you. People will probably do anything not to believe that their parents are bad because this is hard to handle. And if they didn't experience the same things as you then they probably want to believe it was the same for you as it was for them.

OSAHM, hello and thank you so much for your response. You are right in that they have no real idea of what i went through, nor the effect it has had on me. But I suppose i just don't feel ready to open up so much to them, it's like baring my soul to them and i just don't trust them enough to do that. Makes me feel very vulnerable and they have never been considerate of my feelings or ever shown they really care about me.

I have been thinking today of sending them a short text saying something like "Our relationship is not working out as i had hoped. I would like to take a break. Good luck with house move/baby. OPO" And just leave it at that for the time being.

The thing is although they don't know all the details of what i went through, this is partly because they didn't bother to read the letter i sent to them and my parents years ago. That letter did have some of the basic details about my father's abuse but my younger sister told me that she hadn't read it all, only skimmed through it. So, i get the distinct impression that they don't want to know, even if i were to write them a detailed letter about it all, including the things they (my sisters) have done to hurt and upset me over the years. If i got the impression from them that they were open and willing to listen to me and would be understanding and sympathetic, then i think i would be more willing to open up. But they do not give that impression at all and so i don't feel comfortable telling them.

I feel they want and are only happy with a purely superficial relationship where we meet occasionally, pretend all is ok, pretend my parents didn't really do anything that bad and i have just decided to cut them off for my own reasons which they do not agree with or accept as justification, but purely for the sake of appearances and out of a sense of duty, obligation and habit they are willing to maintain our relationship.

I went along with it for a while and it was ok, but i soon started feeling uncomfortable with it all, like it was just a continuation of our old family dynamic but minus our parents and that's exactly what it was. But they are not open to creating a 'new' dynamic and admitting into that new dynamic the truth about me and my childhood. So they want to continue in the old way and i don't. And i can't force them to change their thinking, even if i told them everthing i went through in minute detail, i still don't think it would make any difference, they would still find some way to ignore it and pretend it didn't happen, because they simply do not want to face the ugly truth. And for themselves they can do that as their own particular experiences weren't that bad, and so they would rather just stay in their world which includes my parents who were probably just about good enough parents to my sisters.

The more i write the more i can see that my sisters and i exist in two different worlds and until and unless they cross over into my world we will always be so far apart, there is really no point in having any sort of relationship, other than one purely out of duty/obligation because we share the same DNA. And i want more than that but with them that's all there will ever be. So all i can do is either continue on their terms or walk away.

OPO
I don't know if this will help you, but the way my therapist has advised me wrt my siblings is not to do any more than step back from the relationship -in a way revealing the 'gap'that you have been struggling to fill. It's not banishing them from your life so much as putting the relationship in perspective- giving it the weight/time/emotional investment that it is worth- which is basically not much, becuase anything more is detrimental to your own life and happiness.
I can only speak wrt to my siblings, and I know for a fact that there would be no point trying to discuss it all with them- for one it would all go straight to my mother, and TBH I think my siblings know well enough how crap my childhood was and how shabbily they have treated me, they just don't want to acknopwledge it, so I see no point exposing myself in that way.

I just respond politely to friendly messages and ignore rude/bullying ones, but I'm not doing any of the running in these relationships now.

I don't know if that helps at all.x

I agree with Pinky. I think all of that makes a lot of sense.

Don't say something they could all use as ammunition back against you by telling them you want to cut off.

Is it that you want them to know what you are doing so you can feel some revenge? (which I don't disapprove of, I just think it could end up making things more difficult for you though).

I think it will be better revenge as they get a growing sense of you just being polite but having a 'take it or leave it' approach to the relationship and not needing them anymore because your life is fine without them. They haven't made you feel included in the past when you've really wanted to be and maybe that gave them a sense of power and superiority, but you aren't going to give them that anymore by 'chasing' them. You have now decided they aren't good enough for you to make any effort to include them in your great life!

PM, thank you. You are spot on. Especially about stepping back and revealing the gap i had been wanting them to fill.

And yes, i think you and OSAHM are both right about not giving them any ammunition to fire at me. I think the distant but polite approach may work.

PM, your therapist has given you good advice. About only giving them and the relationship the time and energy it deserves and stopping from doing all the running and chasing. I suppose right now i have gone to the other extreme, completely ignoring, which i do not feel comfortable with. Before i was doing alll the running and chasing which left me feeling hurt and upset as it was obvious my enthusiasm for the relationship was not reciprocated by them.

I was about to send a text today saying the relationship was not working out and that i wanted to take a break. But i didn't send it as it didn't feel quite right. I think i will just reply to my sister's recent text with a short, polite reply, as the ignoring was making me feel very uncomfortable.

I had thought about the distant but polite approach but wasn't sure if it was a good idea as it still meant there would be some contact. But i think i can handle a bit of contact, this time i will not be getting drawn in like i was before and hoping for something from them that they will never give me.

Thank you so much PM and OSAHM for your time and effort with my problem. I really appreciate it and I am glad i have pondered over it for so long. I feel comfortable with your suggestion PM, it feels right and appropriate for this situation so i am going to go with it.

Thanks again. Hopefully i will sleep better tonight, i was up most of last night and the night before; am sure this was playing on my mind as my sister texted me 2 days ago now.

Have just sent her a text. Short, polite, very little detail but not unfriendly. "We're all fine thanks. Busy as usual. Good luck with the house move." It was quite hard but not as hard as ignoring and definately better than the fake friendliness and enthusiasm and familiarity i have been using until now. I guess it's about pitching my response to match the depth of the relationship. The real depth as I know it, not the fake depth we have been kidding ourselves with all this time.