Need some input & advice

They are by no means angels.  My sister developed some deep seated hate for his family since we got married 25 years ago, and refused to come to our house for anything if they were there.  As a result we could not have family birthday parties for our children, or we had to have two.

In the email letters, they poured on the guilt that if I did not agree to their exclusions, I would be the one abadoning the family.  And the one's who would suffer would be her 5 year old son, and my two children(14, 8).  I sought counceling for myself and shared the emails with my therapist.  He believes my sister has a personality disorder and those individuals are the hardest to work with because they only see black and white.  It was a very eye opening experience thinking back on how she talks about people, etc.  For the time being I did not cut them off from calling my kids. I left the door open to discussion when they were ready to discuss things without making war.

In April I tried to send my nephew (5) presents for his birthday.  That resulted in a how dare you email from my sister, that I am sending the wrong message to my nephew when I have abandonded my family. My counselor reviewed her response and indicated that the way she wrote it, still indicates she does not want healing, she wants war.

It is now a year later, and came a slew of Christmas gifts to my kids from them.  I sent her a birthday card in October, and nothing was said about it.

It appears to me know that they have poisoned the rest of my family as I did not get one card from any of my aunts and uncles, and they have not returned my calls.

This tells me it is time to cut ties I guess.  What advice is there for handling this with regard to my children.  They don't quite understand what happened, and don't understand why my sister and step mom will not give their dad a chance to apologize.

It is eating me up inside.  Of course I no longer have insurance that covers psychiatric care and am going to get more insurance cuts February when we change plans again. 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, since I have no one to turn to.

Karen your kind words and advice are very helpful.  It is good to talk it out and hear the advice as it comes.  You are right I am especially torn because of the effect this has on the kids.

I have left the door open for discussion, and have explained to my kids that she is not well.  I leave it up to them as to what communciations they want to have with them.  I have spoken with my oldest who will be 14 and let him know that both my sister and my step mom have spoken ill of me to my extended family and that hurts me.  I beleive she was looking for approval from them for her actions. 

It is an unfortunate situation.  I miss my nephew and do feel like I am in mourning.  I feel bad for him because I know again due to her illness, she HATES her husbands family, and he loved playing with mine since he doesn't see the other side often.

This has been a bad year for alot of people.  Having all this going on makes it worse since you are contantly reminded there is nothing better than spending time with family.

It is up to me to make new traditions I guess.

Big Big Hugs, and Happy Holidays.   SUe

I am so sorry about your uncle passing and that nobody notified you.  Maybe in the heat of things, they forgot.  Try to forgive them.  These things do happen.  And I am sure that it wasn't on purpose.  Please accept my condolences for his passing. 

I am sorry that you have a heavy heart today.  Hopefully soon you will feel better.  But allow yourself the time to grieve as need be.  And remember there is no set time limit or no set way of doing so.  This is all you.  And your way of doing it.  Like I say, no set way of grieving.  Go with the flow of it.  And let the tears out as they want to come.  Crying is a healthy way of releasing emotions. 

I hope that you are still able to have a happy holiday.  I have to work tomorrow and Christmas day, so I wont be on that much.  ONly in morning and after work.  Which is late.  But I will try to get here.  The only good thing about work is I will get holiday pay for both days.  That will be nice.  But wasn't expecting to have to work both days.  I guess everybody else requested them off.  Oh well, the paycheck will be nice. 

Please keep posting and know that we are here for you.  Take care my friend.

Hugs, Karen

I just wanted to say that I hope that your holidays went well.  Remember to give yourself time to grieve over the passing of your uncle.  It is sometihing very personal, we all do it differently and we all take our own amount of time.

Cassandra,

Thank you for what you said.  I care about all of you here.  And I appreciate your kind words.  HOpe that your Christmas went well too.  I had to work, but got today off.

Hugs, Karen