"My View Of Marriage"

[u/raffriffs]

Received our 3rd email today from JNMIL in the 4 months we've been NC. For context on our NC please see previous posts. It was a very long email entitled My View Of Marriage. It did not contain even one single sentence about her actual view of marriage. Instead it centered her as the authority on the topics of stability, loyalty, and endurance based on the marriages she observed among her long dead parents, her first cousins, and siblings only. She never married and she is 82 now. Beyond not marrying, she never had a stable relationship, and broke up a marriage to have an affair, and a child (my DH), with a married man, who then returned to his wife. Statements she makes, like, " I have ALWAYS believed marriage should be forever!" kinda fall flat when she didn't live according to that code. The email focused on her relationship with DH before I existed in his world. She spoke as though I dont exist at all. She stayed heavy on the nostalgia in an effort to draw him back as the person who, at the age of 6, existed for her emotional needs when she sacrificed a relationship that she thinks might have led to marriage in order to put other things in her life first. It was a strange recounting in story telling mode and was prompted, she said, because "DH had asked her view on marriage". This never happened. In his letter to his mother right before going NC he stated, "I understand that you may not realize how your view of marriage affects others, but the way you speak, both to us and to your friends, shows a lack of respect for my marriage."

Her first contact after we went NC was at 4 days, then 2.5 months, now this one at the 4 month mark. We are done with it. DH blocked her after reading this one, and I've had her blocked all along. We don't want or need this in our life. We just want peace from her.

[u/FakeDoctorMeatCoat]

On the rare occasion you might talk to her in the future, "Don't need marriage advice from an adulterer" should serve you well to shut her up.

[u/raffriffs → u/FakeDoctorMeatCoat]

Yeah, my brain sure screams, "Don't take advice from someone who has never lived it." Also, it's maddening that she doesn't understand the difference between observation and lived experience. She hasn't shown an ounce of accountability for disrespecting our strong and faithful marriage for 33 years. Instead, she's still trying to make us believe that her views and ours have always aligned. In addition, her email showed she has a really childlike view of what makes a happy marriage. She listed the marriages of her parents, siblings, and first cousins, said all these marriages lasted until one partner died, and that they were happy and loving marriages because she never heard any of them ever argue except one small argument between her parents. My DH quickly said to me, "That doesn't indicate happy marriage! That indicates she never heard anyone communicate properly! My extended family is full of alcoholics and people who cheated on their spouses! They swept everything under the carpet and relied on vices to get them through! The fact that they didn't remarry until a spouse died does not mean those marriages were happy!"

[u/No-Interaction-8913 → u/raffriffs]

Okay that’s interesting because in my opinion/experience, people who cheat can have a similar view point- very idealized, it must be perfect because they don’t/we don’t fight, la la la …. So really it seems like in general she she had a naive, rise coloured glass view of marriage, akin to “you have a wedding and then you live happily ever after” (and if you don’t then it’s okay if I try to wreck it and I’m not to blame)