How to let go of anger after NC

[yellowdaisy]

My H and I have been NC with uPDMIL for months now and since doing so our lives have become tremendously more calm and peaceful. H is vvlc with enFIL and when they do have contact it's just brief "business talk" nothing personal. I feel it's important to mention that H is completely Out of the FOG. The thing I am struggling with now is letting go of the anger I feel. I feel I've done a decent job with coming to terms with having no closure and with having to forgive and forget the actions of people who are not sorry and will never get it. There is a particular event that I am having the most trouble with moving forward from, and it tends to pop into my head frequently. I think this one stands out because to me it felt like the worst they could have ever done as it involves our child. I've noticed I do well by just not thinking of them, but I don't know if that is a sustainable solution to fully healing and moving forward. The rare times H does have contact with FIL, I find myself physically trembling from anxiety. Since going NC, uPDMIL and enFIL have sent a few gifts to our home for our child and those times too, I find myself feeling a great amount of anxiety. They do not see our child and we do not respond to the gifts.

In a nutshell the particular event I am referring to having trouble with was when I was pregnant, H and I were not married yet, and uPDMIL and enFIL spoke to H without me around, suggesting H consider giving our child up for adoption. What was most terrifying is that this was while H was still in the FOG and they had a great deal of influence over his decisions. We have since asked why they did that back during our times of trying to "work it out" but the reason kept changing, and each reason they gave was more and more offensive to me and of course none of them rooted in reality. And of course, even with us explaining our feelings to them about how incredibly offensive it is to suggest someone give their child up for adoption (and from an emotional stand point, even dangerous to influence your adult child into doing so especially when there is no valid reason to do so), they never understood and even asked if this would "haunt them" from now on.

So my question is, how did you move on after an incredibly heinous thing your in laws did? Is there moving on from it or will I always feel this anger? Is the only way to move on is to forget? And how do I deal with the gifts being sent to our child? Each one seems to reopen this wound for me and I suppose that's why they send them, but I don't want them to be able to rattle me like this anymore. Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

[Poison Ivy]

I don't have any suggestions, yellowdaisy. My late father-in-law said things about my and my ex-husband's children that were much less offensive, and I had a hard time forgiving FIL.

[SweetTea]

So my question is, how did you move on after an incredibly heinous thing your in laws did? Is there moving on from it or will I always feel this anger? Is the only way to move on is to forget? And how do I deal with the gifts being sent to our child? Each one seems to reopen this wound for me and I suppose that's why they send them, but I don't want them to be able to rattle me like this anymore. Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

I am so sorry you are going through this. 

I went no contact with my in-laws a few years ago.  My husband and adult kids are low contact, seeing them about once a year.

My husband and I did couple's counseling. I did about a year of individual counseling then, as did my husband. I started up again a few months ago for a different reason and in the process realized I needed some "still recovering from my in-laws" maintenance work.

I sustained over 20 years of narcissistic abuse at my MIL and BIL's hands. I was VERY angry with my PDMIL and PDBIL for a very long time. After about a year of constant anger I thought, "I have no intention of reconciling... but I need them to stop living in my head." It took some time (and medication to treat my anxiety and depression, and work with my therapist, and reading, and meditating, and seeking advice here) but I finally did get to a point where I learned that reliving my trauma and anger with my in-laws over and over wasn't doing anything to them...it was only damaging me. (I kept thinking of the saying that resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies.) The anger is good in the beginning. It gives you strength and power to assert yourself, get to a safe place, motivates you to set boundaries. But setting up camp in the anger wasn't going to change my past and it wasn't moving me forward.

So, I got some good advice from a fellow member here who said something like ... when she found herself having intrusive thoughts, or ruminating, she'd ask herself if this thought was telling her anything new to contemplate or to work on. If not, she reminded herself, "I've already done this work, let's move onto something else." So I'd do that. And I'd work on a craft. Take a walk. Meditate. Play music. Scrub a toilet. ANYTHING was better than giving my abusers one more moment of my valuable time or one more millimeter of my headspace.

That said, my new therapist has pointed out that forgiveness is not always a magic panacea for everyone. It's not healthy to force forgiveness. Sometimes it can be better to say to say "My anger is well placed. My anger is protecting me. I'm working through a lot of trauma." Forgiving someone who abused you, (and might be still be abusing you), can make some people feel re-victimized.

You may feel ready to forgive in a year, two years....or you may never feel ready. And that's ok too.

I don't think it's good to 'forget'. Everything that happens to us, good and bad, makes up who we are. We learn and grow from hard lessons. And when we decide not to cope with something now....it will surely rear its head later (I learned that the hard way.) So I say don't try to force forgiveness. Just try to keep a slow and steady pace toward healing and internal work, and know that it will get better.

It's been three years since I was last abused my my in-law family, over two since I last spoke to them. I am not longer actively angry with them. I have mentally forgiven the enablers. I don't know if I'll ever forgive my abusers. I'm okay with that. This is the happiest I've been and the healthiest our marriage has ever been.

As far as the gifts for you child...Might I suggest your DH set a boundary with them when he's having his next 'business' conversation with his dad that you guys are not accepting gifts, period. If they cross this boundary and continue to send gifts, figure out an arrangement where you husband can intercept them from the mailbox or porch and throw them away immediately, or toss them in his trunk and donate them to charity. These gifts aren't for/about the child. They are about manipulation and control.  If your husband doesn't want to confront them, just throw the gifts out as they come (or have your husband throw them out since seeing them understandably  retraumatizes you.)

P.S. I find it very telling (and unsurprising given the forum we're on!) that your in-laws are worried (for themselves!) that their own bad behavior will 'haunt them.' Like they are the victims here. Like you guys are the jerks for holding them accountable for their hideous behavior.   

[bloomie]

yellowdaisy - It is truly heartbreaking to think of you and your DH having faced such attempts to separate you from each other and your precious child.

Anger is an energizing emotion. I love the work of Karla McLaren around empathetically working with our anger and answering the questions... what needs to be protected and what needs to be restored? The work of anger is to be an honorable sentry over our lives and the lives of our vulnerable little ones.

The hypervigilence you describe... where your thoughts keep returning to this outrageous abuse and you are triggered by gifts coming to your home from people who it seems did not celebrate the conception of your child and actively sought to separate you from your child - makes perfect sense to me. That had to be incredibly unnerving and a very uncertain time as your DH was still deep in the FOG and you at your most vulnerable.

You have gone NC and ended a relationship with a mil that has proven herself unable or unwilling to take full and complete responsibility for a serious and deep offense against you all and manage her harmful behaviors differently. That is an incredibly powerful choice and one that is benefitting your family of choice (FOC).

Maybe it is time to close any opening - to the best of your ability - to your in laws? Starting with setting internal boundaries around what you consider and dwell on mentally.  Time to speak back some good hard truth to the dialog going on in your head. Your mil has no power over you. You do not have to accept anything into your home and sacred space that has anything negative attached to it. From anyone. Ever. You are equipped in every way to keep yourself and your child safe from a person who tried to remove them from you.

You are strong. You are capable. You are momma bear and a warrior woman who has your feet firmly planted in the center of your sphere of influence and you will not give way. You will put far away from you and your family anything that you discern brings even a whiff of harm. Look at what you have established with your DH in SPITE of the tearing down of people who were in a position to love, support, engage, celebrate you and your sweet little one and the love you share with your DH and who deliberately chose such destruction instead. 

It took me so long to stand tall in the center of my own beautiful life, in my truth, with my own in laws, and until I did... until I began to counter all of the toxic messages they had given me as to my worthiness and the worthiness of my union with their son, the lives of my beautiful children, I ruminated and kept shrinking and shaking and - forgive me if this is too graphic - but even my insides would melt and I would get so sick.

It is so easy to think it is unforgiveness when we are angry and ruminating. And, maybe it is sometimes if we let that grow into bitterness, but for me, what it really indicated was a need to fight back against a kind of orphaning that my in laws had attempted to enact over me as a human being and then over my children as well as a consequence of them labeling me as unwanted.

Keep working and pushing forward. You have already come a great journey and have made such good decisions and progress. And keep coming back and sharing! We are here for you!

[yellowdaisy]

Poison Ivy, SweetTea, and Bloomie Thank you for your support and advice. I have read through your responses several times and will no doubt be back to read them through again as I continue healing. I am so grateful to be able to connect with such beautiful people. I will be keeping your words in my mind and heart. Thank you.

[Hilltop]

I was so angry when I went NC with my MIL, white hot fury at times.  It lasted a good couple of years, perhaps that is too long, then the anger dimmed but was still around on occasion and now no, it feels done although plenty of time has passed.  As they say time is a great healer.

I found journaling my feelings helped heaps.  Exercise, walking off the emotion.  Letting myself cry and really feeling the emotion because for me I was more angry at myself than anyone for not protecting myself sooner.  I also found I was angry at DH for not stepping in and helping me.

Underneath that anger was a mountain of hurt.

To heal I really had to fully cut her out of my life for a good couple of years, I didn't even talk about her at all, she wasn't mentioned in our house.  I do think the gifts would be triggering for you and I wonder if at this point, you say no to the gifts.  I would not talk about your FIL with your DH.  Give yourself time to heal without triggers.  Your MIL and FIL probably just send gifts so I would throw them in the trash, throw them out.  If your FIL is giving them to your DH then get him to throw them out before you see them. Having that in your house is a constant reminder, it's negative energy.  The act of taking those items and throwing it in the bin can be very therapeutic, well it was for me.  I would even think as I threw it that I was throwing away MIL's control,  her lack of boundaries or whatever you need it to be.  Work out what you want and then put those boundaries in place.

It's unlikely they will apologise and you are right you probably won't ever get closure, however I found the whole thing of forgiveness and forgetting a little hard.  You don't need to forget, trying to make something not happen in your mind is not useful, IMO.  Forgiving I am still out on that one, I don't see it as forgiving the person, I more found it helpful to forgive myself and find compassion for myself.  What I mean by that is that I had a lot of anger at myself for not speaking up for myself, for not handling things better etc, I really needed to give myself some kindness. I don't think I have forgiven MIL as such.  I feel I have moved on however dealing with issues with my parents has brought up the past and I find myself thinking back sometimes now although not in anger.  This forum brings it back a little but I don't mind a little self reflection.

I think once you have done the healing work then ruminating on it isn't much help.  I don't think for me  it will entirely go away though, for me going through that was one of the more profound experiences in my life.  It had such an impact on me emotionally.  In saying that it doesn't define me and as more years pass I think it will lessen even more.  Keep in mind that anger that goes on will eventually turn into bitterness.  That's why you don't want to forget, you want to feel it, get it out, really feel those emotions because if you stuff them inside they will fester.  For me its a work in progress.  To be honest if I had a loving FOO I think I would be much further along however having a PD FOO has set me back as I am dealing with a lot of the same issues again.

Find what work for you though because it's such a personal thing and what works for one may not work for another.

[Adria]

So much great advice here.

I have been NC from MIL for four years now after twenty five years of putting up with her dismissive  and nasty treatment of me and my goodwill towards her. I think I was so desperate to have a loving family, I put up with a lot from dh's family. Once I really let myself see them for who they are, like my own family, and have gone NC, their is much relief, but like you, I still struggle with letting all of it go.

I guess I would say to you, don't confuse forgiveness with forgetting or reconciling.  If you can find it in your heart to forgive, that always helps with the healing process. However, I don't think you just flip a switch. It is more like a journey and sometimes a loooong journey depending on the abuse served up to you. I don't feel it is ever wise to forget. We have been given a memory for a reason. That is so we do not allow someone to further abuse us after we have come Out of the FOG and can see them for who they are and what they do to us. Also, just because we finally come to a place of forgiveness, that doesn't mean we must reconcile. That could most likely put us back in the danger zone. IMHO, there can only be reconciliation if there is true repentance (meaning they acknowledge what they have done and change their ways).  Even then it would be wise to take things slowly.

It is truly unimaginable that they would suggest you give up your child for adoption and then ask if it would haunt them for the rest of their life.  I'm not sure if I'm even reading that right? But, if I am, I totally believe you, and am so sorry. 

These people sound totally off the wall. You are right in deciding to protect yourself and your family.  Please take care. Hugs, Adria