What sort of cycle is this?

[Starboard Song]

We are now, oh, I guess it is pushing 6 1/2 years of NC with my in-laws.

They write false things about us in their Christmas letter to family, but that's about it. We are well shut of them. And yet every now and them I get fired up and think waaaaayyy too much about them.

This morning I opened ye olde file of email nastygrams, and I was just now reaching for the compose button. I was going to send a note to my FIL with the subject line "Good Morning" and a body that said "Fuck right off." Really. If y'all knew how mild and deferential I am you'd know that is way beyond normal Starboard. But I was really about to do it.

Why didn't I? Because I know that does zero good. As annoying as their memory is, any real engagement would be worse. And I'd be dragging my wife into the mud with me. And that is the low road: I want everyone -- even my in-laws -- to have a better day because of their engagement with me, not a worse one.

For all y'all who struggle sometimes, who maybe fall back in times of stress on their NC-dispute as a safe form of anger, I'm with you. I am glad this community has been here to teach me, back me up, and give me strength.

[Call Me Cordelia]

I think, even after doing lots of healing and acceptance work and moving on and building a good life without the PD person(s)… a very human part of us still wants justice. It’s still not right, not fair, and doesn’t make sense. The resolution is always going to be somewhat unsatisfactory.

I think you are right too, that’s it’s a safe form of anger where you justified and in the right. Most problems in life are not so clear. So it’s perhaps a more satisfying form of anger in some ways. It has a clear object. And since you are NC, and are angry mostly at a memory, they can no longer hit back. You can be angry as long as you feel like it with relatively little consequence. A strange form of scapegoating in abstentia. I completely do it too.

Actually hitting that button is a bad idea for all the reasons you say… but also you’d turn your safe punching bags back into real nasty people.

My T would probably say it’s another cycle of grief, to answer your question.

[square]

SS, we know that's not your usual way, yeah.

There are two approaches to life, on a continuum. One is cooperative. The goal is for everybody to be better off: win/win. You feel good because you helped someone. You laugh because you shared a connection with someone. You feel satisfaction because your solution worked for everyone.

On the other side is - I don't want to say competition. Let's say, zero sum, win/lose, eat or get eaten, winner takes all. You feel good because you won. You laugh because you owned someone. You feel satisfaction because you demonstrated power over someone else.

When people cooperate, it feels great, amazing things can happen. But the cooperation is detroyed the minute someone changes the rules. Introducing zero sum tactics into a cooperative endeavor is fundamentally cheating.

We are wired for justice. Since cooperation only works insofar as everyone is at least somewhat cooperating (playing reasonably fair, even if not taking cooperation to its highest extent) we must punish those who will cheat. We must exclude them from the game.

To a fair degree, this works - many people aren't necessarily that committed to a higher moral level but they do not want to be jailed, lose their jobs, be shunned by their friend group, have their spouses be angry, get a nasty look from the store clerk, or get a huffy greeting from a neighbor.

Some people are so disordered, this doesn't work at all.

And because we are wired for justice, and because it seems so foreign to us that somebody could possibly not care at all, sometimes we feel overwhelmed by the urge to restore sanity and balance by punishing those who transgress. Not because we are bad people, but because that's how social animals work.

But if it worked on these people, it would have worked already.

The wolves may turn on the one who does not fit. But since we are no longer innocent we are called upon to do better. But we are not bad for having these feelings. We just keep working to knock them back down.

[moglow]

I tend to think it's part of the grieving cycle too, inasmuch as one may hold on to hope of resolution as long as they are still living. With actual physical death it's different - I have regrets over my relationship with Daddy, things I did or didn't do, could have done etc but that's softened and eased over time. He never gave up no matter how hard headed or prideful I was and there's not a doubt in my mind that I was loved.


With pd mother it's very different - I know I've exhausted all possible avenues of a viable relationship with her. Were she interested, where being respectful and considerate of others [even following the golden rule when all else fails] were possibilities ... but no. For all her complaints of being alone, no one visiting and few calls, there's not even a glimpse of warmth or softening. But she's still living so it feels unfinished to me.

Unfortunately I see your ILs in much the same frame: plenty of room for possibilities had they been willing to bend or even attempted to see the other side, your efforts and trying to make it work for YEARS only for them to have continued with the ugliness and accusations. And the entitlement! I wonder at the Christmas letters they distribute, surely they realize that at least some others see it's nothing more than posturing??

I feel ya with the anger. Even knowing how futile it is, sometimes I want so badly to just clap back and call her on the bullshit it truly is.

[Starboard Song]

The wolves may turn on the one who does not fit. But since we are no longer innocent we are called upon to do better. But we are not bad for having these feelings. We just keep working to knock them back down.

Your whole post is very well stated, Square. Thank you!!

[Starboard Song]

I feel ya with the anger. Even knowing how futile it is, sometimes I want so badly to just clap back.

Oh, I know you do. Through the years your raw expressions of frustration -- more honest than I myself usually do -- have been helpful to me. I am extremely averse to hostility and judgment. That's why my most judgmental writing here sounds a bit professorial and stodgy. Your more candid expressions help: I can vicariously experience the satisfaction of calling a spade a spade.

And I know two rusty, short-handled spades.

[moglow]

Unfortunately I'm afraid I came by the hostility honestly, and deeply dislike it in myself. I recognize and continue to do what I can where I can to tamp down and obliterate it. You seem much better at not allowing it to consume the good in you. I'm getting better but as you're too aware, it ain't an easy chore.

[Starboard Song]

Unfortunately I'm afraid I came by the hostility honestly, and deeply dislike it in myself.

[Fuzzydog]

OMG OMG OMG, thank you so much for this thread. I am also six and a half years out, and so frustrated by this cycle. So many triggers! I am baking bread this morning, triggers.  I had a glass of wine last night, triggers. And damn, the extra time to overthink and brood because of the pandemic just makes it so hard to distract myself from a lot of this stuff.

I have no helpful advice here, but I am grateful to you guys because I now feel that I am not failing miserably at NC, but experiencing normal cycles and setbacks.

This is freeing, thank you.

[bloomie]

I want everyone -- even my in-laws -- to have a better day because of their engagement with me, not a worse one.

This brought me to tears. There is honest frustration and anger in your thoughtful post, but there is also compassion and dignity as well.  It is a complicated  mixture when applied to people who bring such harm and seem to be remorseless and relentless in it. You are a person of valor, wisdom, and innate kindness. All of this toxic dysfunction is impossible to reconcile within ourselves. 

Agree with you all this is a familiar cycle I have gone through with my own in laws. I don't know if it is grief for me. I am mostly at peace with the vvvLC my life circumstances require. I have strategies and tools and limits and I use them fairly well. Not perfectly, but most of the time I stay the course.

This instinct often rises from a desire to protect. That sentinel position that I have taken over my precious family as we continue to be the target of blame and there are still direct and indirect attacks. Even very recently. Just an awful attack and sly maneuvers that navigating is like stepping out onto a slip and slide.

These usually come during times of great joy or deep sorrow in our family's life. Which amplifies the brokenness of it all for me and can be destabilizing if I am not careful. I just want all of our family to be left alone. The relationship is broken and the tools to fix it are missing.

At this point in the journey, as long as I revisit the 'evidence', it has become an important marker for where I am in disengaging and trusting myself to wisely handle anything that comes my way. It has been helpful to me to stop going down that rabbit hole unless absolutely necessary.

The hardest bit currently is the continued 'contact' - through triggers, through old/new correspondence and texts, through current triangulation through other family members or through holiday newsletters, objects in our home or sent to our home, or holidays. In our case, when faced with outrageous behaviors that put an elderly family member we 'share custody' with at risk forcing contact. So, though we have shut down as many openings to our lives as possible, there will be these things we have to learn to move through.  This is when I find myself like the Sentinel attempting to ward off what may be on the horizon.

[footprint33]

I think, even after doing lots of healing and acceptance work and moving on and building a good life without the PD person(s)... a very human part of us still wants justice. It's still not right, not fair, and doesn't make sense. The resolution is always going to be somewhat unsatisfactory.

Thanks for saying that and this is what I deal with on a regular basis--the injustice of it all. I saw an interesting video about adult children of narcissistic parents the other day and it helped me reframe things a bit. The woman talked about how we can and should have feelings about the injustices we've been through. However, we shouldn't share any of those feelings or emotions with the NPD parent. The biggest sense of justice with them is served when we move on from them and either no longer contact them or no longer engage in any of their provocations. They want us to engage and want to see that our lives have been tattered or that we're angry by what they've done.

Often, the fact that I'm NC bothers me in a way because I feel as if my NPD parents got away with so much and that I need to state more publicly what they've done. As many here know, there's the injustice of the abuse we go through and then the subsequent abuse when they lie to others, smear us, turn things around on us and self-victimize. When I went NC, a part of me has felt enraged that they got away with it. But the reality is that my sharing any of those feelings with them is only going to open me up to more of their abuse. It will also give them pleasure they so sickly crave. The biggest F-U is to move on, enjoy my life, be happy and then deal with those emotions in therapy and places like this board.

The woman on that video also said that we will constantly be seeking validation from those on the outside about what we've been through. She said that while healthy external validation is important, we ultimately must learn to validate ourselves. This is something we didn't learn in childhood because our parents never validated us, beginning with things like falling down and hurting ourselves during our toddler years. When a toddler's parents don't validate the child's pain, the child learns to dissociate from his/her feelings and emotions. We need to reconnect with those feelings and emotions and validate for ourselves that we were wronged. We need to know that even if NPD parents refuse to show remorse or acknowledge what they've done, we were still wronged and the pain we feel is valid. Many of us deal with self-doubt and learning to self-validate is the most powerful way to stop doubting what we've been through.

footprint

[Starboard Song]

I am grateful to you guys because I now feel that I am not failing miserably at NC, but experiencing normal cycles and setbacks.

This is freeing, thank you.

If you are maintaining a peaceful space for yourself to thrive, you are not failing. Just as a person scarred forever by childhood polio is not failing because they continue to have pain some days, you are doing great work with whatever scars you carry.

Thanks for this note. I sometimes feel I've gotten to a point where my experiences are maybe no longer relevant here. But while our struggles get less kinetic over the years, they do remain quite real.

[moglow]

I sometimes feel I've gotten to a point where my experiences are maybe no longer relevant here. But while our struggles get less kinetic over the years, they do remain quite real.

I understand feeling this way at times, but believe me, it's relevant! I've watched you not just backing, but standing up and in for your whole family. That MATTERS and is something we see far too little of. It's a reminder for me that we have an obligation to do that for ourselves and those around us, that "turning the other cheek" isn't always helpful. Sharing the anger and frustration you feel, that I never even had the courage to admit to? RELEVANT! You helped me put names to feelings I'd swept under the rug for way too long.

Anyway, Yeah. You stop that silliness right this minute. We're all in it, albeit in different caves on other levels.

[Hilltop]

I can't help but think that you are NC for 6 1/2 years and there is probably a part of you that is simply done with it.  However they still write false things about you in a Christmas letter.  And so every now and again such as with the letter you are left once again to move past your frustrations.  It doesn't matter if you shrug your shoulders at it, underneath it still sits there and in some way you have to once again deal with that emotional energy of moving on from that frustration.

I think it's simply the drip impact.  It may be small but that drip, drip, drip, eventually gets to you.  I would say it would be normal to be frustrated by anyone writing falsehoods about your family.  I think it's a normal response.

They are removed but they can still get to you and so perhaps your "F you" is simply that you really want it to be done with and yet once a year you are left getting over the falsehoods in the letter.  I mean there is a point that perhaps we reach where we just feel enough is enough.  We spent so much time and energy moving past these hurts and the emotional energy it took to heal.  It makes sense that eventually perhaps it would be nice to not have to deal with this at all.

Is there any way to not read these letters?  Is there any way to close that door for good?  If you are NC in every other way, do you need this reminder in your life?

[Call Me Cordelia]

Writing about your family in their Christmas letter is really pathetic. They aren't going to move on from you, but neither will they do the things that have a prayer of restoring their relationship with you, so they just... make stuff up to pretend to other people. 

It's so understandable that that would anger you! No matter how long it's been! Really, the passage of time makes their behavior all the more ridiculous. Perhaps now that the holidays are safely past your emotions can catch up. I agree it would be nice if you could just be blissfully unaware of those antics.

[olivegirl]

Husband and I are both completely NC from his parents for a solid 10 years.

The N-in-laws continue to smear husband and me as well, saying that we are withholding their grandchildren from them and that I (the dil) am guilty of parental alienation of a grown man.

The N-in-laws lie a lot and I am comforted with the knowledge that they do not fool everyone.

Maybe it's because we have so many receipts.

Maybe it's because we know they will display their pettiness and entitlement to others since my husband and I are not around to take their abuse.

Maybe it's because they are entering their 80s and their charm is wearing off and they are likely not as quick to remember their lies or able to keep their stories straight.

Or maybe—and this is admittedly rather petty of me—I know that they will die alone without their only son and only grandchildren and that is punishment enough.