Feeling so stuck and trapped by my FOO due to having a young family

[SpiritedChange]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum although I have visited this website on numerous occasions over the past few years.

The issue I am having with fully disengaging from my disordered FOO because I have young kids. I would honestly love to just go NC and be done with the lot of them. but I feel like I have to remain in some amount of limited contact for the sake of my kids being able to feel like they have some connection to their extended family, although I will not self-sacrifice in order to achieve this. I am currently being subject to a multi-year silent treatment by multiple flying monkey siblings although I am trying to remain stoic about it and manage to succeed for the most part. Has anybody successfully navigated "cordial contact" with young children in the mix while still maintaining good boundaries?

I have been VLC with my disordered mother, who lives abroad, and saw her for the first time in four years at Christmas. Additionally, we also spent about two hours at Ikea with my kids, and that also went smoothly -- probably because I paid for her lunch as well as a small purchase. She literally ran off to the cafeteria in order to have a cup of tea just before we started walking to the check-out in order to put me into the position of having to pay for the item, and in the past I would have felt manipulated by that and would have become irritated and probably would not have paid for it, which would have caused drama. But this time I decided to pay and turn it around on her by saying "Merry Christmas" when I handed it to her -- a moment I am quite proud of. In other words, she did not succeed in manipulating me because I had chosen, voluntarily, to give it to her as a gift. 

So I think I can handle limited contact with my mother, but what I am struggling with is how to navigate some very limited contact with my wicked witch of a sister, who after shunning me for just shy of three years, has decided she wants to be part of my kids' lives and as such has decided that she will accept my "demands" and stop shunning me in order to see them, when what she really wanted was unsupervised visits. She has also, as the gatekeeper to my younger sisters, prevented me from being able to have close relationships with them and about two years ago succeeded in turning them against me and enlisting them as her flying monkeys, and they have been giving me the silent treatment ever since...

Now, make no mistake, the child part of me would love to retaliate and punish her by cutting her off both from me and my kids, but I would like to be an adult about this and at least attempt to have a tea-party relationship. I'm thinking of things like inviting her to birthday parties, recitals, pumpkin patch visits, etc., and limiting visits to about four per year.

If anybody has any experience with pulling of something like this, please let me know. Thanks!         

[bloomie]

SpiritedChange - Hi and welcome. Thank you for sharing some of the experiences and difficult relationships that bring you here. I am glad you have officially joined the community.

But this time I decided to pay and turn it around on her by saying "Merry Christmas" when I handed it to her -- a moment I am quite proud of. In other words, she did not succeed in manipulating me because I had chosen, voluntarily, to give it to her as a gift. 

Bravo!!  You handled this smoothly and in an empowered way!

I have had the experience of being LC with extended family and I would suggest that going from NC to an intimate type of invitation into bday parties and such is a big leap. Especially if you are dealing with a sibling who has proven themselves untrustworthy and unsafe.

Would it be reasonable to take smaller steps with your sister and see how it goes? It is easier to adjust to good behaviors and add more contact then to step it back once it has been reestablished I have found. Just my initial thinking in response to your question.

In the meantime, I look forward to supporting you in your time here! Again, welcome!

[SpiritedChange]

Thanks for your insightful comment about taking things slowly. I am going to do just that.