Some things we'd like to say

It'll be 6 years this Fall that we cut my in-laws out of our life.  6.years.y'all! Unfortunately, 6 years has not improved their thoughts and feelings regarding me (and my family), and their terrible actions towards my husband, my family, and me continue.  So, here are just some of the things we'd like to say but can't because any response to them is always changed in some way (and sometimes totally made up).

1.  My husband chose to cut y'all off.  Well, he chose to cut his parents and brother off, and then threats and other terrible stuff made it to where we couldn't associate with anyone in his family, including sisters and extended family.  I didn't force him to cut y'all off, although I assume that is easier for y'all to go with than actually look to yourselves and what y'all have done to make your own son want nothing to do with y'all.  My family didn't force him to choose either, although it is easy to put the blame on them too because of the same reason  I stated before.  (Insert sarcasm here) I mean, how could y'all have possibly done anything that would make your son not want anything to do with you, so it must be my family and me forcing him to not have anything to do with y'all.  Yeah, that must be it.  It is honestly harder for me to deal with-he has no problem with not having anything to do with y'all; his attitude is good riddance.  He dealt with y'alls ways much longer than I ever had to, and he is happy to be away from it all.  He has no hope that y'all will change; I still have that hope and am continually let down.  Again, let me emphasize that my husband chose on his own to cut y'all off because of what y'all have done to us.  It wasn't me, and it wasn't my family; it was his choice because y'all have done awful things to us and beaten us to the ground, to put it lightly.  As long as you keep avoiding that, you'll never have any connection with us.  You can't just ignore what you've done and continue to do.

2.  Stop lying, specifically about me.  Seriously, when we have had people that I don't even know and some people that even my husband doesn't know saying stuff to us about me or treating me terribly, then you know you have gone too far with your lies.  You should have never even started lying about me in the first place.  That was a mistake, and it continues to be a mistake today - do you really think your son would want anything to do with you when you constantly lie about and attack his wife?  Stop putting everything y'all do on me.  It is frustrating for us both how much you lie about me.  You completely make stuff up, and for what?  What are y'all accomplishing by doing this?  Does it save y'alls pride and ego?  For the life of me, we'll never understand them making up everything as much as they have.  It is sickening and disgusting, and it infuriates my husband.  We honestly believe y'all have lied so much that you actually believe your lies-y'all have a serious problem.

3.  As long as you disconnect me from my husband, you'll never get anywhere.  They want a relationship with my husband but without me.  They want to know our baby, but how does that work when you don't acknowledge the baby's mother?  After all, they refer to our child as my husband's baby; not our baby.  It doesn't work that way.  We are a package deal; we are a family.  You can't just say you want only my husband back and think we don't know what you mean-you want us to divorce.  You tried before to get us to divorce by being sneaky and even tried telling people that's what we wanted.  It wasn't, and it was never mentioned by us, but y'all were sure trying to make it happen without us knowing until a friend of y'alls told us.  And y'all wonder why you don't know our baby's birth date or name?  Honestly...y'all found out we had a baby by stalking us somehow.  You aren't a part of our life, and one of the many reasons is y'all totally excluding me.  Really...that mindset will never work.

4.  We will protect our child from the harm y'all cause.  End of story.  Everything y'all have put us through and y'all think you deserve to know our baby?  Not a chance.  We will never put our baby in danger of going through what we have been through.

5.  Unless y'all completely recognize what y'all have done and do, right your wrongs, and totally change, we want nothing to do with y'all.  And honestly, y'all have done so much that we don't even know if a reunion is ever possible.  The cut off was never meant to be permanent, but everything y'all have done since is making it that way.  This is a direct result of y'alls actions.

I feel like I have a lot more I wanted to add to the list, but it gets exhausting.  Those are the main ones.  Maybe I'll write more again someday.

Emotional Blackmail and The Narcissistic Family

I've known about Narcissism in individuals for who knows how long, but I've never seen it described as a family unit.  I ran across this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Narcissistic-Family-Diagnosis-Treatment/dp/0787908703/?keywords=janet+g.+woititz&qid=1350315369&ref=sr_1_45&ie=UTF8&sr=8-45

The Narcissistic Family by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman.  I think I might order it.  Reading the reviews really caught my eye because those people sound like they came from a family like my husband's family.  They'll even say something like, "People thought we had a great family, but I always felt like something was off; those people didn't know what it was like on the inside; I could never pinpoint what felt wrong, but now I know."  Sounds like my in-laws!  Making the family seem "perfect" and you aren't allowed to feel anything negative or go against what they want.  That is my in-laws!  I could go on and on about how the reviews are like my husband's family, but I don't have the energy now.  Anyway, reading those was good for me to see that people go through similar situations, so the book probably would be beneficial.  Maybe it can help others too.

And here is another book:

http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Blackmail-People-Obligation-Manipulate/dp/0060928972/?qid=1328547145&s=books&ref=sr_1_sc_1&ie=UTF8&sr=1-1-spell

Emotional Blackmail by Susan Forward.  I'll probably order this one too!  I don't think I've heard of emotional blackmail before - at least not in that term.  I've heard of the techniques, but I have never had a name or label for it.  Oh man, I can't tell you how uncanny that is to my in-laws!  I read more about it online, and daaaaang, that is them!  My mother-in-law is more of the sufferer type, and my father-in-law is both the sufferer type and the punisher type.  Unfortunately, my husband's siblings are crafty at implementing emotional blackmail too, especially the youngest!  Seriously, even I have heard things like this over and over said to my husband:

"Do you love our family or not?"
"After everything we've done for you."
"We must be failures as parents."
"If you loved me/us, then you would do this."
"You must not care about us at all."
"How can you be so cold and heartless?"

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, but there are many many more.  I always knew those kinds of statements were extremely manipulative; I guess that's how I labeled it.  But emotional blackmail makes sense.  My husband heard these types of things his entire life.  He was always guilted into doing everything they wanted.  He eventually learned to just do what they wanted (or act like he did it even if he didn't) and pretend to be who they wanted or thought he was.  His mom was especially bad about making him feel like he was responsible for her emotions.  Don't do that to your kid!  And his dad....ha, there would be some you know what to pay if you didn't do or be what he wanted - or at least pretend to do and be what he wanted.  Many of the statements above were from his dad too, so he was a double emotional blackmailer.  Yikes! He was also really keen on the silent treatment or, in clinical terms, stonewalling. My husband said if they didn't conform to what their dad wanted or upset him in any way (usually no reason to even be upset - like my husband not pitching a good game - really?), then he would go days, even weeks, without interacting with you. Very manipulative and also emotional blackmail!

In reading about emotional blackmail, I ran across this quote:

"Then, 'what happens if the other person doesn't comply with the manipulation, but just goes on being pleasant and friendly... [is that] your manipulation steadily amplifies... there will be arguments, emotional pressures, even separations.' Thus 'when one person changes the signals by pulling out of the family system,' they may find others 'brand the victim, crazy, unforgiving or a family wrecker.'"

Well helllllooooo, that is definitely what happened to me because I didn't just do everything they wanted, and then my husband broke away and stopped doing everything they wanted, and now they call me all kinds of horrid things!  We are like the examples of that quote!

Just found these books intriguing and interesting, and very much applicable.

Oh, no you will not use our baby in your lies of manipulation and control!

If there is one thing that will make my husband and me madder than you can imagine, it will be in some way hurting our baby or using our baby or taking advantage of our baby or...you get the picture. Anything that can be considered negative and involves our baby somehow.

You know, it's bad enough that they've abused my husband his whole life and then they started abusing me too when we got married. It's also bad enough that they also attack my family. Or how about lying about it all and manipulating everyone around them so that they believe their stupid facade.

Well how low can they stoop? How about lying and involving our 2 month old baby?! This isn't a joke...it really happened.

Remember a couple of years ago, they lied saying they got a phone call from my husband and he left a gargled message saying he was sick? They actually called our bishop and lied to him claiming that happened!

Wellll this past week, our bishop calls my husband and says their bishop called him, claiming my in-laws "heard the baby was sick and they were so worried and concerned and wanted to make sure the baby's okay."

Oh, heeeeck no! Look, we are well aware they lie, but who uses a 2 month old, sweet, innocent, little baby in their lies to try to manipulate and control?! Siiiick people, that's who! And anyone who is smart knows they wouldn't hear anything about our baby. They don't even know our baby's name! They are seriously trying to lie about our baby to be manipulative and controlling and just plain crazy!

So, let me get this straight. You think the way to have your son in your life is to verbally beat his wife to the ground, and then to make up a lie concerning his baby? Oh yeah, makes perfect sense to me - the 2 people who mean more to him than anyone else.

Oh, and let's not forget that their bishop decided this was a good time to "explain" the situation to our bishop. Our bishop already knows about the situation, but I guess it is important for their bishop to bash my parents and me as well, and put all of the blame on my parents and me too.

Oh, and um...apparently they want to take us to court for grandparents rights. Ha...let them. They have no rights in our state. They have never met our baby and we intend to keep it that way to protect our child. Why would we put our baby in a dangerous situation with people who are abusive - physically and emotionally to my husband and emotionally to me. No way! Considering they have no relationship with our baby, they won't get any rights. That is our choice since we have a good marriage and relationship with one another. Even if something happened to us, don't they realize a judge would give our baby to the grandparents our baby knows over the ones our baby doesn't know?

Oh...and I guess this is how they think we'll let them back into our lives? By continuing to deny everything they've done, make up lies, beat us down, be abusive, stalk and harass us, and if that's not enough (even though I haven't listed everything)...let's take them to court to try to get grandparents rights. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. They are so delusional!

Grandchildren

We recently welcomed our first child. We are in heaven with this baby! We also moved about 6 months ago. We were really hoping that my in-laws wouldn't find us. We took all of the precautions we could - being unlisted, going under the radar, even forwarding our mail to a PO Box. However, they still found us! How do they do that? A PI? I don't know. It honestly freaks me out a little bit. I feel like we are being watched or something. Well, when I was pregnant, they never hinted that they knew anything, so we figured they didn't know. I was actually excited because I figured all of our discreetness paid off. But within a couple of weeks of having the baby, they knew. This is also when they found us and sent stuff in the mail to us. I don't understand. And they are playing the victim of not knowing this grandchild of their's. Ugh, it is so frustrating! I mean honestly, how can you say I don't exist and I'm not family and expect to have anything to do with our child? How can you treat my husband and me the way you have and expect to have anything to do with our child? Um, no. Not only is that just off thinking, but we will never expose our child to people that have made us feel the way they have. We want our child safe from their mistreatment. All they have done to us - there is no way we would put our child in that kind of danger. Just because they have the same blood doesn't make them family. Family doesn't do the things they have done. It's like this quote from Cougar Town:
"The people we love need to know we’re always on their side. You don’t get a free pass just because you share the same blood. Being part of a family is something you’ve gotta earn; otherwise, the heck with ya."

I just wish I knew how they always find us everywhere we go. They almost immediately know when and where we move. How? It is scary. If they show up at our door, we're not opening it; we're just calling the cops because they are scary and we have to protect our child from them. I always thought I wouldn't care that much if they found out we had a baby; kind of like an, "Oh well" sort of thing. But now that I know they know, all I care about is keeping our baby safe from them.