Estranged (band) Puns

I am a thirty year old woman who lost my husband to cancer last year, we'd always wanted kids so we had some of his sperm frozen for a later date. Sadly he lost his battle and passed away.

I am now in a place where I feel capable mentally of taking care of a child myself and it was a success, I am expecting a little boy, my husbands parents somehow got wind of this and are constantly demanding that they be allowed in my sons life as he will be the last part of their son.

The thing is though, my husband had nothing to do with his parents, growing up they were emotionally abusive to him and he got out of there as soon as he could, he hadn't spoken to them in ten years and when it became clear things were taking a nosedive he made sure I knew he didn't want them at the funeral.

I do not think he'd want them in our sons life at all either so i'm trying to respect his wishes but family and friends are telling me I should give them a chance, that perhaps they have changed and how this could be a second chance for them, perhaps it's cruel but I don't want my son to be a guinea pig to trial run if they're better is it an asshole move to not give them the chance to prove themselves and deny them contact with my son? My own parents have said how if the positions were reversed it'd break their hearts to be kept from my child, they have suggested supervised visits but I am against even that. I'm feeling under so much stress about this as they're constantly messaging my social media and i've had to block them and they've even been coming to my Home to try and convince me.

I was fortunately sheltered for a number of years from a grandfather who was a truly vile person. Both sexually and physically abusive, I never knew why he wasn’t mentioned or talked about when I was young. As I grew older, I learned in addition to my grandfather, that my grandmother was equally vile - enabling, fundamentally dishonest, and mastermind to a ton of the abuse my mother and aunts/uncles endured. I would seldom say much when grandparents were discussed, but if pressed, occasionally I would just say “we don’t have a relationship.”

Every so often, people with good intentions would respond how I “really should reconnect with them. Life is short and you never know when someone might be here today and gone tomorrow.” Or some other variation to encourage reconnecting. Don’t do that. Don’t assume you know someone’s reasons for no longer associating with a blood relative. Often times there may be an unspeakable evil to the severance of the relationship that they just might not feel like divulging to you. If someone says they no longer have a relationship with someone, it’s best to acknowledge that and just move on in conversation. If they want to discuss it further, they will. Onward and upward !

** Edit to address a common response that maybe I didn’t acknowledge well enough in the initial post. Of course some relationships become strained or end for mundane reasons. That’s why I ended with “if they want to discuss it further, they will.” If they discuss further with you, fair game to interject your opinion. The purpose of the post was to highlight someone may be intentionally vague due to issues they don’t care to / have to / want to divulge to you. And to not misinterpret that limited information as an understanding of the full situation and start blindly making relationship recommendations.

It also warms my heart to see how many people have overcome bad situations and had the courage to share here. You should be extremely proud of yourselves!!**

So here's a lil backstory, I(36F) haven't been in contact with my extended family in years. Not for lack of trying but when I did use to reach out I was either ignored or blown off as an annoyance.

Well I got a new number last year and  it's been so long they never crossed my mind to inform.  Suddenly now, some of these extendeds decided to finally reach out and upon me not immediately answering their calls and texts decided to lose their flipping minds.

I'm currently out of state and yesterday evening I got a frantic call from my husband, saying some of my family members showed up at our house and left a note on our door while he was out.  One of our neighbors came over and told him they wandered all over the outside of our house banging on the windows and quickly left when she came out to question them.

The note they left was ridiculously long, but to summarize there was a "family emergency" and how I had better call them ASAP.  My husband tried to call and text them before calling me, but they hung up on him when he said he was my husband.

So I ended up calling to see what the hell was going on.  The second I answered my family lit into me calling me every name in the book.

Finally when I was able to get a word and ask the emergency was I almost had a conniption.  This 'grand emergency' was the day before one of my uncle's texted my old number that I was to come to his house for xmas and that he would take no excuses.  He texted this at 4am. And when I didn't answer he sent a barrage of texts, telling me I had no choice and that my cousins would come get me the following day whether I liked it or not. Amazing colorful language about what I am doing with my spare time included.

With no immediate answer to that, he apparently called everyone and had them mass call and text my old number cause I was obviously just being a witch and ignoring them...well apparently the person that now has my old number didn't like that everyone and their left sock was blowing up their phone.  Apparently they contacted several of the family members and they would be contacting the police about this harrassment.

I told them they brought it on themselves cause of their extreme overreaction.  They tried to talk over me and I cut them off pointing out their lack of communication for all these years was ok, but no reply from me at the ass crack of the morning is unacceptable apparently.  They then told me I was a selfish witch that ruined their xmas.

I ended it soo

UPDATE:

Sorry for the confusion caused by the term 'defacto husband'. My egg donor is not married to him legally, it's the Aussie term for a common law relationship. It is just very common here to call a long term partner a husband/wife even if not married legally. (Us Aussies aren't big on formality as a general rule!/j)

DB and I have discussed and researched the hell out of it, we can't find an easy way to contest it. She seems to still be legally entitled to it. We probably could contest it and get a better result but it would tie everything up for a very long time. We're thinking about just letting it go for the sake of getting our 1/3 of the super faster and we can actually use it to improve our lives and get her out faster. Operation Trash Out is go as soon as it is all done and dusted. I will not be doing any further work on dad's estate. I am going to type up all the info I have and hand her the file along with copies of documents that I have had to have re-issued (and paid for, also the bill for those documents).

Couple of things I already knew, but have really hit home, "When someone tells you who they are, believe them", "If these people were related to you would you have anything to do with them? Act accordingly."

Thank you all soooo much for your replies, support and very kind words!! I really wasn't sure if I was actually just being the greedy, selfish, entitled 'bad girl' I was brought up to believe I was. <3

So, backstory; (sorry, but necessary) About 35 years ago my dad finally had enough of my egg donor, the JustNoMum in this story, and just never came home from work. I can't blame him. She had systematically broken him as a person, screamed abuse at him constantly, literally screamed at him for hours about not cutting his toenails properly. Screamed at him for not coming home, screamed at him for being at home. I mean, he worked a full-time job and at least one part-time job as well, but literally nothing he ever did was acceptable. He finally left when I was about 10. Then mum started on me.

After surviving this and getting out with CPTSD, I've been trying to get on with my life through a lot of different things. Slowly, dad dropped out of contact, and as he seemed to want to disappear (he was a very broken person after all of this) I let him drift out of contact. I'm 45 now, and at the start of 2020 I decided to go to university to retrain for a new job after spending a few years on disability due to my mental health

Another logline. Feel free to critique. Thanks :)

My dad Jack remarried my stepmom Marina when I was around 6 years old. My relationship with Marina was in my eyes, absolutely terrible. She is the complete opposite of me in every way possible. She is extremely competitive, sporty, tough as nails, no nonsense and in my opinion, a bully. I was an extremely sensitive and quiet kid, I did really well academically and stayed out of trouble. I won't go into full detail of how I was treated, but what really set me over the edge was this: I attempted suicide when I was 15. Jack and Marina sent me to a bunch of different therapist and I was put on meds, but Marina would say that I was lying for attention. She would say that people who need to take medications to control how they feel must be crazy and belong in an institution. She said they don't deserve to have relationships or be friends with good people because I'd be a burden to them. I tried to talk to Jack about how Marina was treating me and he literally stood by and did nothing every time. It crushed me, as I always thought of my dad as the coolest person ever and it disappointed me so much that he never once stood up for me. He's one of those people who often uses arguments like, "there's kids in Africa that are starving, so you're problems are that bad". I ended up leaving home, dropping out of school and moving out of state to stay with my bio mom when I was 19. I haven't talked to my parents since.

Fast forward to now, I've worked on myself a lot. I've married my best friend and we have a great life. However, I've spent a long time hating myself for a bunch of things and it stems from things Marina has said to me. I stopped taking my meds and going to therapy for a while because I didn't want to be 'crazy', like Marina said. I kept thinking, 'maybe Marina wasn't that bad to me and I'm just too sensitive'. I thought maybe I really was a bad person and possibly delusional for leaving my family. My husband helped me get back on a better track with my mental health and I've started seeing doctors again and I've been taking meds regularly. I've reassured myself that I am a good person because the friends I have and the folks I surround myself with are good people. They, as well as my therapist have assured me that how Marina treated me growing up was wrong. I have learned how to set boundaries for myself and I've learned how to better express myself in arguments.

After new years, I received an e-mail from Marina saying that she imagined that by now I wo

My mom died 6 years ago and she left her estate to me, my sister and my brother. My sister was the executor of the estate and she stole a lot of money. My brother and I ended up with only $500 each and my sister took home something like $100,000.

My brother hired a lawyer to sort out the situation. He and my sister got in a big fight and he disowned her. He said that he couldn't deal with her anymore. He claimed that she abused him his whole life which is an exaggeration imo and this was the last straw for him.

I stayed out of it all because I didn't want any bad blood between me and my sister. My sister can be difficult but she's great with my children and she's a godsend when I need a babysitter. My children love her and I can't cut their auntie out of their lives. I hardly ever see my brother because he lives 5 hours away and he never comes around to see us. He used to come over once in a while but after he disowned my sister, he stopped coming around. My children don't know him.

Deep down I agree with my brother about the estate situation. My sister mismanaged the estate and stole a lot of money and my mom's valuables. It's not worth ending my relationship with my sister over, though. My brother feels differently and I respect that. My sister is heartbroken though. She misses our brother and she's very hurt that my brother disowned her.

My brother just won't quit though. His lawyer is still asking the estate lawyer for information regarding the estate. My sister doesn't have all the paperwork that his lawyer is asking for and she's very stressed out. I've had to listen to her complain about this for 3 years and counting. I want it to stop. I wish my brother would just take his $500 and move on like I did.

Last weekend my brother paid me an unexpected visit. He was in town and he wanted to stop by to "say hi" to me and my kids. I was busy but I let him in and offered him something to eat. Not even 10 minutes in he brought up my sister and the estate situation. He told me that he just found out that she forged papers to become the executor. Apparently my mom named someone else as the executor in her will and my sister forged that person's signature to sign the estate over to herself.

I sort of sighed and asked him to stop talking about it because I don't care about any of it. He became agitated and told me that I should care because she stole from me and my kids too. I said that I know but I made my peace with it and he should too. He raised h

His email to us:

“SophisticatedBitch and Sophisticatedbrother

Please forgive my intruding into your privacy. I’m a psychologist and your mother contacted me because of my expertise in parent-adult child conflict. She wanted to see if there was a way to heal the distance between you and her. Because of my specialization, I know that when adult children cut off contact with a parent, they have good reasons for doing so. To that end, my goal isn’t to encourage you to reconcile with her— it’s more to help me help her have a better understanding of what happened or what she might need to work on if there is a chance to improve things.

Would it be possible to touch base for a little bit over the phone or Zoom about her? I’ve only met with her once so I’m just consulting at this point.

All the best, Josh

Joshua Coleman, Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist/ Author/ Speaker Senior Fellow: Council on Contemporary Families”

kitty

He went into a coma and I made a mad dash to the hospital thinking it would be an in and out goodbye. Instead I spent 9 hours with my also-estranged mother and brother, which was OK, but now (because I’m considered the only one in the family who’s good with language, people, and emotion no surprise), I’m being asked to write obituaries and memorial cards and having them called “too technical and not poetic enough.”

I’m exhausted. The path of least resistance in my current level of trauma is to agree to small helpful tasks like this, and there are complicated but important for me estate-sorting reasons for having to maintain some semblance of positive relationships with these family members during this acute period, but I simply can’t write poetry about my abusive father and this pressure and reinstating of horrible relationships is traumatic enough.

It’s a small family because my father didn’t maintain any relationships with friends or extended family members or prepare anything even though he knew he was going to die so the burden is immense and my brother has resented me my whole life for being the golden child as a kid and for not taking on the caretaking role as an adult. Trying to do the perfect right thing or keep my distance or any boundaries is exhausting, taxing and threatening right now. I once again feel abandoned by my father.

Please help by sending me some sane thoughts because I feel really lost and numb and unsupported right now. I feel like I’m on fire.

I was sad she had no one to take care of her from her (or Big's) family after her operation.

I know her Dad was never in the picture, but what about her Mom? Is she deceased? (I know Carrie is old now and that this is likely, but it's just odd to me she's never been brought up).

Aunts? Uncles? Cousins? Half/Step siblings? Anyone?

It's been a while since I read the book so any 411 is helpful.

Is she one of those people who moved to New York to reinvent or discover themselves and kind of just turned their backs on their old lives and never looked back?

Was her pre-city life especially painful or abusive?

I can't recall and didn't watch/read The Carrie Diaries.

My father called me on a different number the other day. I had not intended to go NC with him—just my mom. But he kept asking me to go visit them. I said I could meet with him along with my son, buthe said it just wouldn’t be as fun just going out and having a meal with my son, and he preferred having him come over and play at their house.

I finally got tired of the guilt tripping, especially when it happened on my birthday, and blocked his number too.

But well, I finally spoke to him I guess. Asked how we were doing, if I could meet them, and whether I even wanted to. I said I didn’t want to see my mother, but I’d be okay with meeting him. He said he’d call me again, and I said alright.

My sibling, who’s still in contact with me, told me that my dad told my mother everything. My sib mentioned that my mom said there was no point trying to go see me since my response to my dad was so lukewarm and reluctant.

At the end of the day, it’s his choice, I think. I opened up the possibility to him, only him, but if he wants my mother to be part of it or nothing at all… I don’t think it is my burden to bear if he continues not seeing me or my son. He has always enabled her, and always will.

All the same, the guilt eats at me. I wanted my son to have a relationship with a grandfather who, though problematic in his own way, isn’t horribly toxic and mean like my mother.

Maybe that will never be. When my father passes, what will I feel? I am afraid.

My father (58M) has never really been part of my life (32M) He was there sporadically throughout the years but all he ever brought was chaos. He held a deep hatred of my grandmother (who helped my mom raise my sister and I) and was emotionally and was physically abusive to my little sister and has never even gave a penny to help us finish school. Our mom did everything for us, his side of the family are nice to us.

They helped pay for my college for a few years but stopped because our dad told them that I wasn't appreciative enough of their help, (this is not true at all) and they believed him. Anyway I finished college even without their help and now I have a high paying job and going to get married soon. I invited my aunt (49F) (my dad's sister) because she did still help us and we wanted her to be there. She told us she wasn't sure she could go, because of covid. We understood but a few days ago she called and told me I should invite my dad, because he still was my father. My mom and sister are especially against this and I am too, but I don't know how to tell this to my aunt without causing a family rift. His name is on the invitation card because that's what is traditionally done. I personally think that having his name on the invitation is more than enough respect than he actually deserves.

TL;DR: My aunt wants me to invite my estranged father to my wedding, his name is already on the invitation. I don't want him there.

TW: mentions of death, abuse, suicide

At 19, I ran away, and took on caretaking for my paternal grandpa. I know it sounds silly to say I ran away as an adult, but my mom sheltered me incredibly. I wasn’t allowed to drive, to work, to even leave the house. I lived out of a suitcase, and slept on the floor of our living room in a one bedroom apartment. The bedroom was hers. Before that, we were homeless, so I never complained.

Every day, I watched her drink herself to death. Every day, I expected to find her one of these days not just passed out, but dead. When I got the call two and a half years later, after I’d left, that she was in the hospital on life support, that her kidneys and liver had failed and she has severe sepsis, I wasn’t surprised, but I wasn’t sad, either.

Three days later, they failed to put her on dialysis due to her low blood pressure. They said in 48 hours, they’d know if it were to get better or worse. Two hours later, she went into cardiac arrest, but was revived. That’s when I knew that I wanted to see her again, even if her abuse had left me years and years, decades of pain to heal from. Her heart stopped an hour later, and I didn’t get to her in time.

She lived with her boyfriend at the time, an equally as questionable person, but now wasn’t a time to place judgement, I just have no idea what to do now. My moms family I hadn’t heard from since I had been 9 or 10, but they all reached out at once. Offered to pay for her expenses, helped me through the process, but I have no idea how to approach her boyfriend, how to ask about assets, how to ask about a family pet my mom held on to, how to ask about any of it. My father commit suicide, and I found him in 2015. Everything feels like it’s falling apart. I’ve lost both of my parents and I feel like it’s all my fault. Both of them. I failed both of them. They left me, they must have hated me, to have made me find him, to have chosen alcohol over me, and both of them died deaths I could have stopped. I just lost the grandfather I moved in with, too, and I just don’t know what to do.

I feel like, though I came to terms with my decision in leaving my mom before, if I had stayed maybe I could have fixed all of this. Maybe I could have made her love me, or be proud of me. Maybe I’d have at least been there when it happened. Did she die thinking I hated her for everything she’d done? Did I? I abandon her. Why did my parents, the only people who were supposed to love me, why didn’t

I (27F) have a mother (47) who I blocked from contacting me a while ago. We never had any good relationship to begin with, after I moved out at 22 it was maximum one call per month with her screaming at me. Before I moved out it was hell. Just hell. Years of beating, degrading me, every kind of abuse you can imagine.

Today, out of the blue, she called me via my fiance's phone, and it went like this:

NM*: [my name], I am being treated by a psychiatrist, i am on antidepressants, I need you to meet with me in person so we can talk"*

Me*: What about? Tell me on the phone.*

NM*: No, we need to meet in person, alone, i just need to talk. I will pick you up and drive to my place.*

Note: I was never at her place before, its quite far from mine, i dont have a car and there's no public transport from her place to mine

Me*: I don't feel comfortable with this, if you need to meet with me we can do it in a public place.*

NM*: What!? Are you afraid of me!? How can you say this, oh my god! I would never (blah, blah). And I'm avoiding public places right now.*

Me*: Okay, as I said I won't go to your place, if you must you can come to ours.*

NM*: But I want us to be ALONE*

Me*: My fiance is upstairs, in his room and won't listen, why is this a problem*

NM*: [some more ranting, eventually agreed and said she would call me back in a couple days and announce when she would come to my place]*

Okay. So after the call ended, I was very emotional. A while passed and I realized I don't feel okay with her coming here either- I am very nervous about meeting her in person, and on top of that I am anxious about why she kept pressing on us "meeting ALONE", she repeated this a couple times. I called back, said I don't want to meet after all, and she can talk on the phone with me. She went on another rant with crying and then said Okay, I will call you on the weekend.

Do you think I did the right thing? Or should I rather give her a chance and meet her in person? My friends and fiance are divised on this, some of them tell me to meet with her for closure/to hear her out, some say i shouldn't meet her because a) there's nothing she could say/do that would fix this relationship b) she could harm me. And frankly, I am feeling a bit paranoid here but I really am scared she could harm me physically in her insane state.

I am literally shaking right now, I feel so awful after hearing her voice, please he

The bard is a genasi and as a backstory - her Genie mother gave her up for an unknown reason at birth.

Now she's heading to the Amber Temple in CoS for some answers.

Frankly, I've got no idea what's story to make up of this? Usually I'm given a bit more to work with.

Anyone have any ideas on roping together a story here?

When I was growing up I used to spend the summers at my dad's who lived far away because my parents divorced when I was 6. I didn't know I had aspergers until my 30s. I didn't get along with my step mom or step siblings. I think they saw my aspie traits and anxiety being in their home as me just being a jerk. Every summer there was like hell for me and my step family and dad seemed to blame me for it. My step mom would badmouth me to my father as well and he seemed to buy-in.

I stopped spending summers there after I turned 18 and lived even further away so slowly lost contact and haven't been in contact with my dad since my late 20s. They still don't know I have aspergers and I am sure still view me as the a-hole.

One of my most vivid memories was when my step mom, who was a serious B said to me one morning when we walked by each other that "it doesn't hurt to smile" and asked me "do you act like this at home too?" Part of me wants them to know I have aspergers so they could see how horrible their behavior was to me and how much pain it caused me over my life. But part of me feels like it's pointless too because they are just rotten immature people.

I felt like one year he got depressed and hasn't recovered since. Maybe he lives a peaceful life away from the limelight but drama always seems to follow him. His weight issues clearly show how much of a struggle he's battling. There's some sort of unresolved issue that hasn't been fixed yet.

Long background: I’ve been estranged from my mother since mid 20s and now I’m 40, married with two kids. Besides all the childhood abuse, and alcoholic dysfunction family of origin, my mother often triangulated, played victim then would act like I did something wrong and offended her. She would act like I didn’t exist and ignored me until I apologized for what I did wrong/offended her. This pattern happened all through my teenage years and in my 20s where we would go 2-3months of not talking then I would “give in” and apologize. Honestly, it was super stressful of always being the “good daughter” trying to make her happy by appeasing her.

In my mid-20s, I got into therapy and realized I was done playing this stupid game of hers and never apologized and it’s been well over a decade since. I don’t have any animosity towards her and during the 2-3 times I encountered her (when my father died, brother’s graduation, etc) I’ve always been upbeat and said hello cordially. She continued to ignore me as if she was still angry with me.

Fast-forward to Christmas this year and she piggy-backed on a Xmas card from my brother saying something like “looks like kids have grown, happy new year, hope you are healthy, etc” with a gift card. I brought this up to my therapist and she said that my mother is probably trying to send an olive branch for repair and people can change as they age. I do believe my therapist is right but I honestly feel so indifferent about it, I’m not happy or sad about it. Therapist believes that I now have strong boundaries and is encouraging me me to have a relationship with her, but I’m just not interested. I’m more fearful of the stress it can bring. Am I missing something here?

I’ve adjusted my life for so long without her and I don’t feel like I miss her. I’m quite content with my immediate family and my husband’s side of family treats me so well and lovingly. I don’t feel like I have voids because of my estrangement. would love to hear other people’s perspectives!

I wrote my family member a letter in the hopes of engaging in a reasonable discussion with them about why they should get the vaccine and their response was to double down on everything. I don't know what I was hoping for but now I'm pretty miserable and I don't know how to communicate with my kids about why they can't see this person this Christmas.

What have others experiences been like? Have you tried to meet these people halfway? Have you talked about compromises etc?