Nm/Nf Parents and their Droids

[sfalken]

so.. my question is, how do you deal with N's 'droids' after you go NC?

On Friday, my wife and I were on the way to our gate to catch our flight to Orlando for a couple day break, when my phone buzzed. (Silly me I had forgotten to turn off my email for the vacation) It was an email from my Nm/Nf's 'droid'. This is a person who, as a child, she and I were friends, (and the girl my mother tried to push me to be with back then - to my displeasure). But over the years, as I have decreased in my parents eyes, and our relationship has gone sour, they have increased their relationship with her and her husband and children to where they have become my/our replacements. My parents have all but lost contact to this person's parents (their own peers) and she and her husband took sides against my wife and children and I over the last years in the conflicts with my Nm/Nf.

Her email ( I never hear from her normally), was a 'reminder' that my parent's anniversary was the next day, and that I should not forget it. Smart alec at best. She was completely condescending me and talking to me like a child. She sounds just like my parents. I simply replied, "you only know what youve been told, please stay out of my family's business - I will not discuss it with you now or ever. Leave it alone".

Her response? In shortened form, she tried to twist my couple of sentences into an example of me being 'rude' and 'angry' and saying something about rage in there too. She said that she DOES have the right to violate my boundaries because she 'earned' it, and that she herself helped my parents to write all of their hurtful and angry letters to me - and thus she knows 'everything'. (they try to shame me all the time by claiming that I wrote threatening or angry letters - but my wife and I just scratch our heads to that one) She ended it with a challenge - that I would probably not write back to her - and told me about how I am missing out on two 'wonderful' people in not having a relationship to my parents.

I feel like that guy on the show anger management. If I wasnt upset in the beginning, these people, in addition to my parents, are just the most upsetting people and I dont see how anyone would not feel that way. I'm so sick of them, and their droids.

How dare she say that she knows everything. She has not survived 37 years of embattled hardships with my parents - and shes only seen the 'nicey nice' side of them.

It feels like 'super voicelessness' not being able to respond. Everything I say or do is twisted and made to make me look like a monster - and there is no escape from that reality, my wife and I have been smeared from here to Timbuktu and I have no ability to speak up or clarify. So frustrating.

I'm so anxious about my kids christmas program in a couple weeks. Not just because my parents will likely make a showing, and sit in the little church too, but their friends, the people I discuss above will be there, and she (or her husband for that matter) have no problem with sticking their finger in my face and making a scene. I suck at those situations and and normally would not subject myself to them, since I do not have a voice where they are concerned.

I just hate all of this. I wish my FOO parents would just disappear, and their friends would as well.

[lighter]

SFalken:

If I responded to her at all it would some very short polite blip:  "Pease don't worry on my account, and have a happy holiday."

Then I'd block her e-mails.

Lighter

[Hopalong]

Dear X,
I recognize that getting involved with my family drama has
meaning for you, and as an adult that is your choice.

I have a choice also, about the boundaries I find necessary
to maintain around my private life. I would like to tell you plainly
now that I do not welcome your intervention or your advice.

Whether or not you are able to understand what my experience has
been, I respectfully decline to receive your communications again,
and request that you do not contact me in future.

Thank you.

Sfalken

[lighter]

Ummmm, ya.

What Hops said: )

Lighter

[JustKathy]

She sounds just like my parents.

She might sound like your parents because she's reading from a script that they wrote. My Co-sister is the one in my family who my NM uses as her 'droid.' Anytime I receive an email from her that relates to my parents, it's not in HER voice, it's in NM's voice. In fact, I could swear that NM is writing the emails herself. I think in these cases, the N tells the 'droid' exactly what to say, and the person believes it, and does as they're told without getting both sides of the story.

IMO, there is only one way to deal with these types of emails. DO NOT REPLY. This is what your N parents are hoping for. Since you're NC, and they know that THEY can't engage you, they're using someone else to do the job for them. Do not engage the messenger. Ignore them. Let your Ns heads explode and enjoy having the last laugh.

Kathy

[Twoapenny]

Hi Sfalken,

For me, ignoring them (and those around them), refusing to be drawn into conversation and cutting people out completely gave me back my voice - and stopped me hearing theirs.

They feed off other people.  Whatever you say or do will be the wrong thing.  There is nothing in the world that you can say that will be accepted reasonably and respectfully.  You exist to meet their needs - nothing else.  Say what you need to to other people - people who will listen and understand.  Block email addresses, phone numbers (or change them if that's easier).  Don't feel obliged to answer people.  There's no law that says you must, no practical point for you - it's those invisible strings that they are still tugging on, ever so slightly and ever so subtly.  Cut the strings and they can't tug on them anymore.

Hope you had a good break regardless!

[Hopalong]

aha.

yes yes

Ditto Kathy and Tupp.

No reply is the best reply and BLOCK EMAILS, IMs, etc so you won't even receive them.
Delete your Trash folders without opening them.

If something unsolicited comes in the mail, don't open it, return to sender.

Much better.

Hops

[sfalken]

Thank you all for your posts. It is so helpful to have the encouragement and perspectives here. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed, as I'm sure we all are.

Last night my wife and I had our weekly dinner with my two oldest children. While they were over (13 & 9) my son told me that my Nm&Nf took them and their mother, and her new husband out to dinner last week Thursday. My heart sank, because I know that they are just sleazing their way around my ex, and rubbing her latest husbands leg. They said that my father, (anyone who has read his note(s) to me here knows his references to his own army 'heroism') had a great deal to discuss with her husband, as he is active in the military - Navy.

What disgusts me here, is that I know how they are. Anyone they perceive to be in a higher or more prestigious position than they are, (he, an officer, with more than a couple degrees) they will slime their way around and try to impress them. Undoubtedly, this is exactly what I predicted months ago when I asked them to cool it with my ex, and now I understand the cool wind from her lately. They are talking again, and assuredly, their smear campaign against my wife and I has reached my ex and her husband, whom we have worked SO hard to establish and keep a good relationship with for the kids sake. Ugh. How frustrating.

If I did not have children, sometimes I think I would want to move to my wife's hometown in Germany and start over, and make a fresh start where none of these people are - but, its just not in the cards.

[lighter]

Well, your job is to treat your ex and her husband the way you want them to treat you.

You can't control your parents or the way your ex and her husband treat you.

The kids are what's important here.

Not your discomfort at having your parents run covert ops in their home.

Not your inability to control everyone involved.

The kids.

They won't be 9 and 13 forever. 

The youngest will grow up before you know it.

Model solid parenting.

Show them how to rise above, and take care of themselvse, by taking care of yourself (mind, body, spirit.)

Find some way to accept this situation, and change your expectations, so you can live in the moment again. 

Right now you're doing a lot of worrying about things you can't control, and that's sucking the joy out of your life.

So they're sucking up. 

You can't do anything about that, except ignore it and have a joy filled dinner with your kids the next time you share that meal (instead of focusing on what your parents are up to, kwim?)

Lighter

[Hopalong]

Yes.

Dittoes.

You can't control it and the only possible change you can make is in your obsession and reactivity and inner life and spiritual balance and sense of purpose and maturity and philosophy and long view and big-picture fatherhood and rejection of pettiness.....

Therapy.

Meditation.

Exercise.

Laughter, you have to find things to laugh about.

Hops

[sKePTiKal]

SF:

I understand that you desperately want to defend yourself and your honor; justice. I also understand that all these communications have only one intention: to provoke your anger - get you to defend yourself and act rashly - so that this can be used against you; make you look foolish, or arrogant or whatever it is the parents have decided you are.

Do me a favor, OK? Don't get sucked into this. No matter what outrage they commit - anywhere, any time, or with any person - you can only control you and people will only judge you based on your behavior... no matter the slurs, implications, or sly manipulative attempts to curry favor and support in the war against you and your reputation. Reasonable decent people will be able to tell the difference between you and suss out what the parents are up to. You can trust in that. People who are swayed by the slur campaign... have their own agenda, and it's nothing to do with you; neither are they reasonable nor should you care about their opinion of you.

Have a plan for the christmas play. A worst case scenario plan and rehearse your lines and what you will do. Then, release the anxiety about it and trust yourself. It may not go down the way you fear. If it does you're already prepared for it. And you just might find that "this time" - it's the parents who are making themselves look rediculous, inappropriate, absurd - and you might even find that the reasonable people around you will stand up for you. You've done absolutely nothing to feel embarrassed or ashamed of.

It will be uncomfortable - best case scenario. But it will be OK.

[BonesMS]

SF,

May I share an experience that might be helpful for your situation?

Last month, I attended my high school reunion.  As one of the coordinators, I learned early on that one individual, my Ex, who is an N, would be attending.  I imagined PLENTY of worst-case scenarios when I went to the Reunion and rehearsed, in my mind, what I would do if he did thus-and-such.  As it turned out, I found a way to occupy myself by being the DJ.  No matter how many times he "buzzed" around me, trying in vain to get my attention, I focused on the task at hand with playing various songs that other classmates requested.  When he tried to become more obvious in his bid for my attention, by asking me a question that I knew he knew the answer to, I simply gave him a polite, cool, reply and turned my attention back to DJ-ing.  (It was SO HARD keeping a straight face as I watched him fidget and get flustered at the lack of attention!!!   )  Understanding what his game was about made it easier for me to deal with him and I was able to enjoy my evening IMMENSELY in spite of him!!!!!

I hope this is helpful.

Bones