DH getting hurt from messages from ILs even though he has broken contact

[Anonymous]

For a variety of reasons (most of it being the mental impact his parents had on him and our family), DH decided to break contact from his parents almost two years ago. He blocked their numbers for calls but still allows texts and emails in case of emergencies. Recently, his parents have been trying to contact him more including sending various texts and getting other relatives involved to try to re-establish contact. DH has mostly ignored the texts from his parents; however, last week his aunt sent him a message basically trying to guilt trip him into contacting his parents again. He was going to respond politely but ignore the part about getting in contact with his parents. Due to the fact that I have been on travel for work (out of the country) for two weeks straight and DH has to take care of our two young kids, one who is special needs, on top of his full time job, he has not gotten around to responding. DH gets a nasty text today from his mom saying how his aunt called crying about the fact he hasn't responded and that the aunt doesn't deserve this treatment. In addition, his mom said she is disappointed in him. He is normally strong and just ignores these messages but today is his birthday so these messages really got to him. Is there a way to deal with this? Should he just continue to ignore or should he try to further break contact? DH recognizes that since we have not been associating with his parents, he feels his life has gotten so much easier and in his words, less toxic. However, these messages from his parents are getting excessive and is starting to bother him more.

[Anonymous]

He needs to politely ask the relatives that are relaying messages to stop.

[Anonymous]

His mom is presumably not a reliable narrator. She's telling him a story to manipulate his feelings. He can call his aunt if he wants, but he should keep in mind that his mother is basically playing him.

[Anonymous]

I'd just keep ignoring the messages from his mom. Like you said, the texts are for emergencies and this is not an emergency. I might text mom back saying just that.

I would send a polite text to auntie reminding her that the relationship with her (mom) is poor, as evidenced by her treatment of him after he didn't respond, so thanks for the kind words and thoughts but please refrain from involving yourself as it's painful to be reminded of what will never be due to things he cannot control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:His mom is presumably not a reliable narrator. She's telling him a story to manipulate his feelings. He can call his aunt if he wants, but he should keep in mind that his mother is basically playing him.

I agree with this and also the PP who said to gently tell your relatives to stop relaying messages. It is a subject they should not bring up. If they can't respect this, they are no better than his parents and contact should be cut off.

There's no easy way to maintain these barriers. If it were easy, there would be more people doing it.

[Anonymous]

My DH had a somewhat similar situation with his father and we set up an email filter to send any emails from his father to skip DH’s inbox and go to me. That way my DH felt better knowing he was not going to see any messages from his dad, I could ignore his dad’s standard craziness (much easier for me to do, emotionally speaking) and just tell DH if there was something he actually needed to know. I don’t know if you can do that with texts too but maybe worth a try?

[Anonymous]

Not every couple can do this, but can he just ignore anything they send, and let you read them and delete or summarize as appropriate?

I did this with my parents for a while - DH read them and moved all their messages to a folder I had to hunt down - so it would never be the top text in my phone. That way I could deal with them when I was ready.

[Anonymous]

I had to cut off my parents due to abuse. Other family members got involved in writing me letters, trying to serve as go betweens (all their choice). Eventually, I had to cut them off too because they had no respect for boundaries. Your husband needs to be strong, tell the other family members to cut out the crap or he's done with them too. And follow through. No more chances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DH had a somewhat similar situation with his father and we set up an email filter to send any emails from his father to skip DH’s inbox and go to me. That way my DH felt better knowing he was not going to see any messages from his dad, I could ignore his dad’s standard craziness (much easier for me to do, emotionally speaking) and just tell DH if there was something he actually needed to know. I don’t know if you can do that with texts too but maybe worth a try?

OP, if you can do this, and if you're OK with being the one to filter messages for your DH, this is a good idea. Be sure you and DH talk clearly about what constitutes an "emergency" and any other circumstances under which he might want you to let him see a text or e-mail. You don't want to filter and not show him something only to have him say later that he wishes you had shown him. If he truly only wants to know if one of his parents or aunts or uncles has died and that's all -- you and he just need to be clear on that.

I'm sorry he's being made to feel so horrible. It only confirms that he was right to cut them off. But that doesn't mean it's not painful for him.

[Anonymous]

When toxic people can't control you, they try to control how others see you. That's why his parents are including the aunt, etc.

Don't respond to any of it. I'm speaking from experience - it's extremely tough at times, but just keep the boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Yeah in the world of Dwil the aunt was a flying monkey sent out by the wicked witch of the west

[Anonymous]

Blackhole all communication. From all relatives that try to talk to you about the situation. Don’t explain. Don’t apologize.

[Anonymous]

OP here...thanks for the recommendations. I don't think it would be possible for me to act as a filter because they have ways of getting to me too. They actively tried to sabotage our relationship for many years because of some slight they perceived when we first met in college. Their animosity towards me carried on through most of our marriage and caused a lot of problems between DH and me. It wasn't until it was truly apparent to DH what they are doing not only to our relationship, to him personally, and then once we had kids to them that he decided he cannot deal with them any longer. As for his aunt, I have no idea which part of the message we got from DH's mom is true. This aunt is also known to cause trouble in her immediate family based on words from DH's cousins. We believe that side of the family all have some sort of personality disorder.

[Anonymous]

They might all be some kind of crazy. A lot of mental illnesses have genetic components. Abuse is cyclical, so it could just be that they’re all descended from abusers, so it’s normal for them to all behave this way whether mentally ill or not.

I know it’s difficult to completely cut off contact. He’s probably hoping they’ll come to their senses and send a text to let him know they’ve come to their senses and changed their ways. But really, if there’s an emergency, there are ways to contact him. There are other relatives who could make the call, or hospital staff can make the call in a true emergency. There’s really no reason to keep texts open to them.

Like I said, it’s easier said than done. I’ve cut my parents off. I haven’t blocked them though. Even though I know I can never trust them or let them back in, I keep waiting for that voicemail or text where they apologize. I know deep in my heart that it’ll never come, and I’ll never get closure or heal fully while I wait for that. I should go ahead and block them. But I’m not quite there yet. I think if they were sending abusive texts I’d get there pretty quickly though.

[Anonymous]

OP, your DH needs to set boundaries. You can't do that for him. He's old enough to say to his Aunt/Mother/Second Cousin from Biloxie/Whoever "Aunt Hilda, I'm not interested in discussing this situation and I'll thank you not to mention it again." No one can force you to be in contact and the notion that various relatives are calling/sending him nasty texts only carries as much fire power as he lets it. This really isn't your problem. It's his problem. You can't be his "filter" because you can't set boundaries for someone else.