I realize that you might not feel this way but her mother is part of “your” family. Her mother, part of “your” family, either enabled, wasn’t aware of or ignored some pretty big warning signs on the part of her husband - drug bust, suspected abuse of the daughter etc. I’m just saying that your niece may need time to work through what she feels towards her mother/your side of the family. I’d urge you to re-read Heart of Dorkness’ post since I think there is a lot of good information in there.
I think you’re a bit focused on the end result and saying that your sister wasn’t to blame for any of it since she didn’t do any of it. However, I find it hard to believe that your niece’s father suddenly started acting that way. He might have been very good at hiding drugs etc and your sister may genuinely not known any about it. However, she could have deliberately turned a blind eye or did know and not do anything. You don’t know what happened. Your niece’s opinion may not match yours or your sister’s and she needs time to figure it out.
When I first skimmed this post I seriously did a double-take thinking that one of my own aunts had posted this about me. I can tell, from a more detailed reading, that it’s not… but there are a whopper-load of similarities between your niece’s story and my own. I was sexually abused by my father, though I haven’t cut off my entire maternal family–just most of them (everyone but my mom and sister, basically, and I only included them because I could only bear to tell them about it–and swore them to secrecy–and they have been supportive). I have cut off nearly every other family member, though, to spare myself the pain of potential disbelief and/or minimalizing of my grief.
If I may say–as nicely as possible–you HAVE TO get this through your head: there is nothing you can do or say that will make her want to contact you. She may never come back. That is up to her. You are making this about you, and it’s not anything to do with you. YOU are being the selfish one. If she’s a victim of molestation/incest by her father, and hasn’t finished counseling yet, her life is still fundamentally fucked up. It may always be, even when she “finishes” counseling. She probably at least unconsciously, and maybe even consciously, blames her mother (who may have been complicit but more likely was just blind to) what happened. These are issues that cannot be worked through with family guilt-tripping her into hanging out with them. So stop it.
Perhaps part of the reason your whole family has been cut off is because whoever found out about the abuse couldn’t keep their mouth shut. The thing is, in my case, my family doesn’t even know why I’ve gone incommunicado. I will likely never tell them, because I can’t handle the risk of being disbelieved. And it’s very likely I would be. Maybe that’s a fear that is driving your niece to keep to herself. There is SO MUCH going on in her mind right now. You literally cannot understand it unless it has happened to you. Try to be sympathetic instead of … what’s the word… domineering.
**TL;DR **Here are your options: You can 1) gracefully give her space and hope she comes back one day, or 2) you can try gracelessly to suck her back, and fail forever. Choose wisely.
Of course she feels differently. He’s her father. I’m sure she doesn’t have a definition of “our family” that means “only the whitebread, Christian raised frugal people who I see over the summer”.
This is phrased really really weirdly. If what you’re tring to imply is that your niece was abused by her father, then you need to be very clear that the inappropriate conduct was completely and utterly on her father’s part. If her mother or anone else has ever expressed any thought that she might be partially to blame for that, then I think cutting off ties is pretty understandable.
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What I call “our” family grew up in the the whitebread, rural midwest, Christian-raised (as far as that went), who were pretty frugal with money. My niece’s father grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with lots of money and servants and spent money like it was water. While married, they split their time between Bangladesh (3/4 of the time) and the U.S (basically the summers). There was little to no interconnectedness between the two families — there was almost no opportunity for that.
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It sounds like your niece doesn’t actually know your side of the family all that well. Her main connection is through her mother (who as others have said, she may percieve as having been complicit in her abuse). It also sounds like you don’t know her very well. You say you can’t understand why someone would cut themselves off from their family, but if they hardly know that family and the parts they do know have brought them pain, what reason is there not to?
Ultimately your niece is an adult and you can’t compel her to do anything. Listen to what rachelellogram is saying about how difficult things are for your niece right now. Give her some space and if she does contact you, be as supportive as you can.
Thanks for your input, it’s insightful. But I need to correct you in a few areas where you adding bits to the story that are not in evidence.
Close. Not about me, but definitely about my sister. Who has gone from having a family with financial security, to a woman who was cheated on by her husband, who had a son die as a teenager and who had to had to re-enter the workforce just to eat at an age where anyone else should be close to retiring. Although lots of people are casting her as accessory, it would be a huge mistake to see her as someone who isn’t suffering greatly. Her connection with her daughter as the last remaining thing she has and it is being withheld from her.
There is nothing to stop. The only thing ANY OF us are doing are respecting her terms.
If someone did talk, they didn’t talk to me, my siblings or my parents. We’re all in the dark.
What have I done to her to merit being called domineering?
But you are making it about you. YOU can’t abide the thought of your sister being in pain so YOU want to force her daughter to get back in touch with her.
And you may be paying lip service to the idea of respecting her terms, you’re clearly not because instead of accepting what she’s said, and what others saying about her needing to work through it on her own terms, you’re still hellbound on MAKING her get back in touch with her mother, because YOU think her mother had no part in what happened to her.
And that’s as well as maybe, your sister may not have held her down and abused her. But she may also have done NOTHING when your niece was being abused, which can be just as damaging to someone who’s violated in that way.
If I were you, I would send this to her in a birthday card, in care of her therapist, along with a note to her therapist along the lines of what Heart of Dorkness said about maybe she “feels her mom didn’t support her or protect her appropriately. She may think you know of and agree with or condone her mom’s actions, and are basically siding against her. Or she may think you don’t know, and she doesn’t want to force you to choose sides between her and her mom. She may even think you or other family knew about the situation and failed to support or protect her. On the other hand, she may think you know nothing except that “something happened”, and she’s horribly ashamed that you know this about her, and can’t bring herself to face you.”
I believe you love your sister and your niece. The problem is that you don’t know what part (if any at all) your sister had in this situation. If your niece’s therapist safely shares your card with her, she will know your door is open and the therapist will know that you suspect what went on and that you are wanting to help, support and protect your niece above all.
Did you hear from your niece herself that she does not want you to contact her?
If you didn’t hear it from her, I think you are allow one very low-keyed contact - happy birthday, miss you. I think a postcard would be best - no deep dread before opening a letter, or email, if she really doesn’t want to hear from you.
If there is any chance you have been deceived as to her wishes, you might consider asking her to confirm them.
Nope. The last email I sent was replied to in a warm and friendly manner. It was only later that my sister asked us to stop communicating. I don’t recall whether or not she included excepts or the entirety of a forwarded message from my niece.
That said, I’m leery of risking any contact (especially given some of the more passionate replies in this thread).
I’d love to contact the therapist but I don’t there’s any way to do that. We don’t know who the therapist is and I don’t see how we could find out without getting it from my niece, which feels like a bad move.
The sentiment in SecretaryofEvil’s really does encapsulate what I want her to know. But we’re blocked from communicating that under her terms, which seems like an impediment to healing.
There is nothing wrong with simply sending a postcard or a card that says NOTHING except “Thinking of you on your birthday”. Then the ball is in her court as to whether she wants to communicate with you as part of her family or not.
But her healing needs to be undertaken at HER pace. Just because YOU feel uncomfortable with the way she’s chosing do do this does not make it wrong or an impediment. Sometimes it takes years to come to terms with the damage done - real or perceived - by her family’s actions or their lack thereof.
Seirra, I was told in no uncertain terms to refrain from contacting her.
I’m getting some conflicting messages from you. Just a few minutes ago you were accusing me of “paying lip service to the idea of respecting her terms,” without actually doing it. I don’t see how I wouldn’t be disrespecting her terms to send her an email.
Side note: We can’t send her actual mail because she won’t share her mailing address.
No, there’s no conflicting message in wishing someone a good day on their birthday. Notice I said you should say NOTHING beyond “Happy birthday”
No “I wish we could see you”, no “Your mom misses you”, no “Why won’t you talk to us?”. Simply “Here’s an acknowledgement of your birthday”, then allowing her to make her own decisions from there.
But if you don’t have a mailing address for her, there’s your answer.
I think you’re missing the point that she doesn’t want to hear from us for ANY reason.
The last email I sent (I maybe email her between once or twice a year up until that point) was an amicable one WITHOUT any urging to spend time with the family because at that time, I didn’t know she had cut us off. It was only after that email that I was told to stop contacting her. And since hearing that, I have abided by her wishes, regardless of the fact that I don’t know we have been cast out.
She may not have been, but your niece may believe it to be the case. It could also be that your niece believed that your sister should have been paying attention to what she thought were big warning signs.
I think people think your niece may feel her mother was complicit, true or not. It’s pretty easy for a small child to think abuse is obvious, and assume that others are willfully ignoring it. It’s also normal for a child to think a parent should protect them, and not easily accept “she did the best she could”. It may not be rational, but there it is.
Aren’t you at ALL mad at your sister? Frustrated at the fact that you will presumably have a significantly reduced quality of life in your own retirement because you will be helping to support her? No resentment at all about all the crap you are having to go through to help her patch her life together? It may not be her fault, but I bet you are at least at times irritated that her needs suddenly have to take precedence over whatever was going on in your life?
Imagine how mad she is. Her whole life was first about her father’s abuse and her mother’s incompetence to deal with it. Now that everything has come to a head, her mother’s needs come first: her mother’s need to hear that it wasn’t really that bad, that the daughter isn’t really that messed up, that it wasn’t the mother’s fault, that it’s all going to be ok. From what you’ve said here, your sister sounds like an emotional burden–a person who always needs guidance and support. If she can be an emotional burden on you, imagine what she’s like to her daughter.
You are mad at your niece for being selfish. Let her be fucking selfish. Her whole life she existed to satisfy her father’s needs for whatever he wanted and her mother’s need for comfort and reassurance.
So it’s your sister who asked you not to communicate with her daughter? And she sent you part or all of her daughter’s message making that clear? Now you’ve raised the stakes from simply alienating your niece to alienating your sister as well, by going behind her back.
This is something your niece and her mother need to work out first, on their own terms. Your role here should be to support your sister, not to try and come up with the magic solution that fixes everything.
Even ignoring the sexual abuse, this is a messed up situation. The father is involved in a drug bust (is he dealing or just using?), has an affair with a much younger woman, the parents are separated etc. It’s hard to believe that your sister didn’t realize that something was wrong at least with the marriage prior to this. How does the father earn his income?
