Relatives coming out of the woodwork – What to do?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Some background: My maternal grandparents – principally Grandfather - objected to my Mother and Father marrying. They cut off contact with Mother after the wedding, and she’s been the black sheep ever since. (After Grandfather died – I was 19 – she got back into contact with her mother and siblings.)

Things are more complicated with the paternal side. Thomas, my paternal grandfather, was not crazy about the marriage either, but it was a step up for his only son and the first member of the family to go to college. When my parents divorced, there was a lot of insanity. My brother and I were in state custody briefly and them we were given to our parental grandparents. To Thomas, we were an unwelcome drain on his resources, but he was obligated to take us in. An uncle – Father’s brother-in-law – sexually abused me when I was a teenager. The shame of this drove me to a suicide attempt. I was told that I had “embarrassed” the family and could never come home. (The grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all live in the same neighborhood in a small Louisiana town.)

Over the years, I have pieced my life together without any assistance from the family. Now, news has spread that I’m pregnant and relatives want to get into contact with me. For now, they go through intermediaries. My mother gives me messages from her family and my brother tells me about the paternal side. I’m scared that one day they will just give out my contact information – even though they know I do not want to be contacted directly. (Frankly, I’d feel safer if no one on Father’s side knew where I was.)

Is there a good way to address this?

2

Burn the woodwork. Stop the infestation at the root.

3

As an expecting parent, you have 100% of the upper hand and you will for some time. Babies in families are like saying you have free gold bars laying around your house.

How you “handle this” is to do whatever your instinct tells you to do. The only people you need to worry about are yourself and your new nuclear family including the child.

Having a child gives you both more responsibility but also more authority then you have ever had before. You worry about yourself and your child and that is it. There is a slight chance that you think a relative that you hate would still work out well for the child so you should take that into account. Otherwise, these people are the equivalent of street beggars. You don’t know their motives and you don’t have to give anything to them. I have a similar rough family situatiion and I have always handled it exactly as described and it has worked out well. Younger people tend to be accustommed to older relatives dictating how things will be. The second you have a child, that role flipflops to you and you need to use it in the best way you can for both you and your child.

4

Shag put it very well.

5

Tell your mom and bro that if anyone wants your contact info, they are to instead ask the inquisitor for their contact info, which they will be happy to pass on to you. You are then welcome to use their address, etc if you so desire-if you desire a ceremonial burning, so be it.

6

Good advice. Actually, this process should be followed regardless of good or bad blood. Just let your friendly family know that your contact info is not for public knowledge and you do not want it given out.

7

That’s not bad, but I say she nuke them from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.

If you were a child, and they wanted nothing to do with you, why would you feel any obligation towards their desire to coo over your new baby?

Them: “Oh, we hated your mom and dad getting married, and always treated you like a red-headed step-child, but can we see the new baby and pretend nothing unpleasant ever happened?”

You: “Sod off.”

8

That’s the vibe I’m getting. There has been a lot of “let bygones be bygones” from my mother and a lot of pressure to “forgive and forget” from my brother. My instincts say to keep these people as far away from me and my loved ones as possible, and that’s what I’m going to do. Its difficult since I’m the only one on the outside here.

9

Don’t look at as being “on the outside”. You are on the inside - of your family, with your baby. Often a new baby will heal breaches in a family - if that is what all involved want. Your relatives sound as if they want to waltz back into your life as if nothing ever happened - and it also sounds like you’re not falling for it.

Then don’t.

Tell your mother and brother that under no circumstances are they to give out contact information on you. I sincerely hope they wouldn’t do it anyway because “they know what is best”. Some people are like that.

If they do, and one of these relatives calls you - keep it short and unwelcoming. You don’t have to hang up (unless you want to) - just ask them why they want to contact the “embarassment” after all this time?

Good luck. And tell your mother and brother to please stop adding more stress to your life while you’re pregnant. With the job issues you’re dealing with you don’t need anything else on your plate right now.

10

First, are you sure that you have no interest at all in making contact with any members of your family?

I understand that you have very valid reasons to not have any contact with large portions of your family, but extended family can also be a source of support and help if you fall into problems raising your upcoming kid.

My nuclear family underwent a nasty schism from the maternal side about 15 years ago over the division of the family farm. Granted, not even on the order of magnitude of sexual abuse that you suffered, but it kept me from knowing half of my extended family for nearly two decades of my life. Three years ago my maternal grandmother died and we traveled out to the middle of Nowhere, Southern Illinois and I was called upon to be a pall-bearer for a grandmother that I had only the scantest recollections of to place her next to her husband in the graveyard of their lifelong tiny-white Methodist church.

The event impacted me in a way that I never even imagined possible at the outset. I discovered several cousins that I found to be unexpectedly fascinating and friendly people. The most unusual experience of all was the manner in which people simply accepted me without consideration for how popular I was in school, what I looked like, or the fact that I had messed-up by leaving my dress-shoes in a hotel room in St. Louis and I attended my grandmother’s funeral in a suit with bright-white Adidas Superstars. It’s difficult to explain what it was like when a man that I had met three minutes earlier put his arm around me and introduced me to his real-estate partner as, “this is my nephew.”

What can I say but, “that’s family.”

I’m not insisting that you reestablish contact with the people that shielded a sexual predator and further harmed you in the process, but just as you’ve grown up to be an interesting and successful person in your own right, some of your cousins or other extended relatives in Louisiana might have done the same, and it might be worth investing a few phone-calls, letters, e-mails, or baby photos in those relationships.

I know that the standard answer on The Dope for any question relating to family (even mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters) is cut off all contact, file for a restraining order, and consider thermonuclear weapons, but for 98% of this world, immediate and extended family fill a particular role of support and socialization that I’m not sure anything else can perfectly fulfill.

Best of luck with whatever strategy you pursue.

11

It’s not you on the outside, it’s them still thinking you’re not worth treating like an adult. Your instincts do you credit.

Here’s a idea, when one of these “relatives” actually says something along the lines of this:

“I’m regretting the way I treated you and your family. Thinking about the pain I caused you in my ignorance and hurtful ways has saddened me. Please accept my apologies and if you can ever find it in your heart to forgive me and want to talk I’m at your convenience, but I’ll understand if you choose to not contact me.”

Then you can let them see the baby if you choose, but don’t hold your breath waiting.

In my own life I was amazed why my (ex)wife’s parents would ask “what time do you want us show up on Christmas?” I’d want to answer “Never.” But I’d usually say “Don’t bother, we’re going to be out of town.” or “We’ve got a full house with visitors, but thanks for remembering us.”

This was after finding out all the abuse they gave her, the beatings, the insanity, the vile, hurtful things done to her by a couple of diseased maniacs, and now they want to come over and have eggnog as if nothing had happened. Screw that.

12

I was also the only one on the outside for a looooooong time, Mousie. Do not give in to them. Hold fast.

When the time comes, when you have healed enough, you can slowly choose to let those you want into your life. That’s what I did. Sometimes it even works out for the best…in the past years my aunt has come to the same conclusions I did about certain members of my family, and knows it’s not just teen angst on my part. Now her and I get along better than ever.

Do not give in. Remember the biggest thing: You were abused. It is your duty to keep your little baby away from all that. You don’t want her to have to bear a single second of what you did. Every time you begin to doubt yourself or think “Maybe it might be OK” or “Maybe Mom is right” remind yourself of the baby.

Tell your mother and brother to stop all of this nonsense. Like Shag says, you hold all the cards with the baby.

Also, Mousie, it may be that you have to cut off contact with your mother for a while also. I sincerely hope this is not the case…but you have to be prepared. if they won’t back down then you can’t either.

Mousie, please feel free to e-mail me at elenia25@gmail.com. I’d be glad to talk more. I’ve lived some of what you’re going through, though by no means all.

13

I have really nothing to contribute to this thread except to thank you for the thread title. The thought of tiny mouse relatives scampering out of the woodwork has made me laugh after a very trying day. Thanks!

14

A family that enables sexual assault and then blames the survivor? Wants access to the baby? To paraphrase a character from South Park: They can die. They can go to Hell and die.

Those feelings and instincts about not contacting the family? They’re a combination of wisdom self-preservation and parental defense. Obey those feelings. Sometimes, family is a good thing, sometimes families are blood-borne curses, burdens and traps. I’m sorry, but you’ve got the latter.

Get therapy about the incest if needed, but don’t let guilt or an outdated, third-party illusion of “family happiness and obligations” suck you in.

Blow those bridges, and air-strike any bridges that these creeps attempt to build.

15

And by “blowing those bridges…” I meant that one of your people, perhaps you, perhaps your spouse, should directly communicate a Do Not Contact Us - Ever to the assorted and sundry “family members.”

16

I think people here are being unduly harsh - what about all the relatives of Mousie’s own generation who are undoubtedly innocent? I think Annie’s suggestion is very good.

17

Grazie, Quartz.

Who are the people who want to contact you? Are they people who previously treated you poorly, or reasonable people unfortunately related to the previous? If you have any interest in meeting with anyone, there’s no reason they have to know your address/phone. You can meet them out in the world somewhere if you want to see them. One thing I would worry about is if you meet with Seems Perfectly Nice Cousin Norma, and give her your phone #, then she gives it to someone also Perfectly Nice, then it gets back to the assholes in the family and then you are left with the woodwork burning and nuclear assaults to get them gone.

You are well within your rights and obligations to your kinfolk to say to and of any of them, “My life is not better from knowing you. Be gone”.

18

I don’t think you have any rush to decide what you will do - and perhaps it would be better to put this decision off until your baby arrives. From what I hear pregnancy is a very emotional time, and your feelings may chance significantly once the little mouse arrives. Focus your energies now on staying well, and enjoying this exciting time with your hubby - and don’t worry about any of this until later on. The suggestion to have a ‘do not contact’ is good - and if you tell your Mother and brother that you will see how you feel in a few months, they may give you some breathing space.

19

My two cents. I believe this is your first child, so until the mousling is here, you really don’t know how you are going to feel. Let me give you an insight I had.

Family will become freakishly important to you, you will mend fences you didn’t even know still had posts. So I wouldn’t go all nuclear just yet. There is another side. You will (hopefully) be consumed with an unbearable feeling of doing “right” by your child. You will want to surround her with all of the good things in this world and none of the bad. A family that black sheeps folks for DECADES that includes their offspring is a pretty sick way to be a family. For a few more years YOU get to decide what kind of people you want your child exposed to, what family means to you and what you expect of family members. It may be very likely that you don’t want to have anything to do with the offenders for no other reason than you don’t want to expose your child to that sort of mentality.

And the really cool thing? You don’t have to. You see, soon you are gonna be issued a Card. It is a card like no other. It doesn’t charge interest, there is no balance ever due, no membership fees, except one. It’s the Mommy Card. And you Win. You will win because you are the Mommy. And that’s a trump card. It does not matter what any one else (except CPF) thinks, You Are The Mommy, That’s Why.

It’s an awesome thing. My daughter is 18 months old and I’ve had to whip it out a few times, I don’t like to wave it around, but by god, it is there in my pocket. Don’t fuck with my child. Don’t fuck with me in ways that fuck with my child.

You will be this childs defense in this world. You. Not Them. I would bet you $5 once that kid is here, all those things that are worrying you now will go out the window, or the answer will be so clear you can’t fathom what you were worrying about.

If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t no body happy and that includes the baby. Would you be able to mentally handle dealing with these types of people? It’s your job to take good care of yourself mentally and physically so that you can take better care of your mousling.

I can’t wait for you to tell us what it is like for you becoming a mother. I love seeing what becoming a parent does to people, mostly because I love what it did to me and my husband.

20

Sand, seal and stain.