Family can be highly overrated sometimes.
Stick to your decision.

Anonymous wrote:I'm with you. Life is too short to have nasty, toxic, selfish people in our lives. Sometimes you make allowances based on the person or circumstances, but other times you need to let go. I've felt so much lighter and freer since removing a toxic family member from my life. I was her punching bag. Now I have much more positive energy for my life, friends, family, and community.

+1 Your brother should mind his own business.

I'm with you OP, although I would suggest the further step of forgiving your aunt and letting go of your bad feelings towards her, for your own well-being. That definitely means you don't need to hang out with her because she sounds terrible.

Anonymous wrote:I'm with you. Life is too short to have nasty, toxic, selfish people in our lives. Sometimes you make allowances based on the person or circumstances, but other times you need to let go. I've felt so much lighter and freer since removing a toxic family member from my life. I was her punching bag. Now I have much more positive energy for my life, friends, family, and community.

+100

OP Here. Thanks everyone. So sorry to hear I'm not alone. No, the rift isn't affecting anyone. There is a family reunion every other year, but we don't go anyway as it is always held when our kids are in school and it's too far away to go for the weekend (we're the only ones with young school age kids). I am going to let it go.

I think it depends on whether this rift between you & the aunt is effecting the rest of the family. For example - would the aunt normally be invited to Christmas and now she's not because you have unresolved beef with her and are forcing your siblings to choose between you & the aunt? If it's a situation like that, then I think the considerate thing to do would be to get on decent enough terms that you can at least be in the same room together once or twice a year. You don't have to chat or keep in touch, but just don't make it awkward for everyone else and ruin Christmas.

If the rift between you two doesn't effect anyone else, then no need to bother I guess. My brother and aunt had a horrifically dramatic falling out and even though my aunt was the more wrong one in the situation, I don't appreciate the way my brother had to end the relationship in such a dramatic way that now there can never be a joint holiday celebration again. There were other ways he could have cut her out of his life without creating such a huge ripple effect and ruining things for the rest of us. It was selfish; it's like he just poured oil on the fire and didn't care who he took down with him.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm with you. Life is too short to have nasty, toxic, selfish people in our lives. Sometimes you make allowances based on the person or circumstances, but other times you need to let go. I've felt so much lighter and freer since removing a toxic family member from my life. I was her punching bag. Now I have much more positive energy for my life, friends, family, and community.

+1

I had to do this for my brother. Parents kept telling me to "give him the benefit of the doubt," but I've done that enough, for too long. I won the lottery with most of my awesome family members. But sometimes for your own sake, you have to cut out (or minimize) those harmful and toxic to you. Letting my brother go brought me so much relief.

+1000 I could have written the above, word for word, in a fugue state. Having let go of my brother has freed me to stop trying to "fix" the relationship with my parents also. It is what it is. It also makes me appreciate good relationships so much more.

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like you have made a well-reasoned decision re this person, a decision that works for you emotionally and intellectually, a decision that respects your feelings for your father, and one that does no harm to your immediate family in any way.

If your brother doesn't like your choices that is his opinion but not your problem. He is free to have a relationship with this aunt.

He needs to respect your choice to not be in contact as fully as you respect his choice to maintain a relationship with her.

I agree. If you don't miss your aunt and she hasn't reached out to you either, there's no reason to reconcile. Your brother, of course, is free to act differently.

OP it sounds like you have made a well-reasoned decision re this person, a decision that works for you emotionally and intellectually, a decision that respects your feelings for your father, and one that does no harm to your immediate family in any way.

If your brother doesn't like your choices that is his opinion but not your problem. He is free to have a relationship with this aunt.

He needs to respect your choice to not be in contact as fully as you respect his choice to maintain a relationship with her.

Anonymous wrote:I'm with you. Life is too short to have nasty, toxic, selfish people in our lives. Sometimes you make allowances based on the person or circumstances, but other times you need to let go. I've felt so much lighter and freer since removing a toxic family member from my life. I was her punching bag. Now I have much more positive energy for my life, friends, family, and community.

+1

I had to do this for my brother. Parents kept telling me to "give him the benefit of the doubt," but I've done that enough, for too long. I won the lottery with most of my awesome family members. But sometimes for your own sake, you have to cut out (or minimize) those harmful and toxic to you. Letting my brother go brought me so much relief.

I have completely ditched an aunt for pretty similar reasons. Ditched her when I was single - my husband and children don't factor into it at all for whatever that's worth. She's toxic and I cant' stand being in her presence. There is a chance we might be moving into her city, and it won't matter one iota to me. I won't see her then either. Consequences of horrible behavior. (I don't think she's exactly pining away to see me either to be fair! I let it rip!)

I'm with you. Life is too short to have nasty, toxic, selfish people in our lives. Sometimes you make allowances based on the person or circumstances, but other times you need to let go. I've felt so much lighter and freer since removing a toxic family member from my life. I was her punching bag. Now I have much more positive energy for my life, friends, family, and community.

I have a wonderful loving immediate family and I do not feel the need to keep the peace with every single person in the family. My super sweet sentimental (and younger, not sure if that is relevant, but perhaps it is) brother is "heartbroken" that I do not speak with my aunt, and thinks that I should be the bigger person and bury the hatchet. I personally feel like some relationships are not worth pursuing, and being around said aunt causes me stress and makes me miserable, so why bother?

My aunt is not alone, so I am not turning my back on someone in need.

My kids have great and loving grandparents, cousins, and aunts and uncles, so they are not missing out.

Why can't some relationships just be forgotten? My brother thinks it is one of the few links we have to our father's side of the family (our father is no longer living), but I don't feel it is necessary to maintain a relationship with them. Further, they aren't making any effort. My aunt is a truly selfish woman. Even as a kid I didn't like her, and the final straw was when she said truly mean things about my dying father. She also did not attend his funeral, which was fine with me, but the reason she told me -- the day after he died -- that she was not going to attend was simply cruel.

I am happy that this woman is out of my life. My brother is single, and perhaps that is why we look at things differently, but I just don't want this person in my life and I feel no obligation to do so. Am I wrong?