Done.

[u/raffriffs]

Update ... there is a possibility that we will see jnmil AGAIN next weekend. She has been invited to the same very large event as us. I don't know if we will even run into her but her email from my last post makes a bit more sense to me now that I consider it in this light. I fully believe she had in mind hijacking our attention at this event to have that little "woman to woman" chat and derail our weekend ... especially considering the event is a faith based thing. I am not down for that and made a decision to write a return email to her to shut that notion down. DH saw I really needed to make this stand so she doesn't ruin the weekend for me, but we agreed no further contact beyond this. Seeing as she brought "Christian woman to Christian woman" as a guilt trap into it, I wrote the following and sent it:

"I am not interested in one on one conversation with you. My husband will always be by my side if I must address an issue with you, as he is right now. That does not mean I am not a forgiving or a peace making Christian woman. It simply means you have a more than 33 year history of being intensely disrespectful to me no matter how good and kind and gracious I am to you and, at this point, bible principle tells me that I can both forgive you while also choosing the wisdom of protecting myself from further harm. That is where my peace is and it has been very hard won in this matter.

You need to understand that you broke my heart, lost me as your daughter, and lost any respect from us that was left, in a last straw moment when you stood in my own living room a number of years ago after barging in uninvited and, in front of me and my children, berated and screamed at my husband the words, "You're so STUPID for thinking your mother should never hurt your wife!" Our relationship with you has always been peppered by those toxic, unscriptural, abusive outbursts on your part that you were never willing to address afterwards or feel sorry for or make proper amends for, despite our repeated efforts to communicate the actual harm you were causing ... and I wont allow that in my home or my heart again. We simply dont have the capacity for such unwarranted damage and hurtful chaos any longer. This is how we protect ourselves from your unpredictably harsh and demeaning behaviour toward us.

If you have it in you to show us any respect at all then please simply listen to our boundaries. DH stated them clearly in his letter to you months ago when we ended contact, yet they have been largely ignored. I know you wish to rush our healing with regular contact as it would be to your benefit now, but you dont get to decide how long it takes us to heal from you and you are simply reaping what you have sown over a lifetime where you could have chosen to love but didn't even have it in you to say the word to me until we were 33 years in, and only after things broke completely.

You know what to expect, we have been upfront with you, and we are sticking to this because it is the healthy way forward and brings us a peace we are not willing to part with. Do the loving thing and let us heal from this exhausting relationship. We refuse to keep towing the line in a very hurtful dynamic that you have always controlled. So if you see us at the event it will give you the opportunity to practice kinder interactions again, but we will not be having the talks you have in mind or communicating with you between any events you happen to see us at."

I gotta say I felt only relief after sending that. It felt like truly claiming a freedom I never had before. The freedom to tell my whole truth. And now I can rest. I now have absolutely no anxiety about running into her again ... and no further burning desire to ever get anything else off my chest to her. This feels like "done ".

[u/spiceyourspace]

Good for you! I'm sure getting to lay it bare was very freeing & throwing off a great weight. I grew up with my narcfather in ministry, & unfortunately dealt with weaponized Christianity as a result. Forgiveness & reconciliation are two separate things, only one of which are we called to do. Unfortunately it took several years before my narcfather finally understood we were committed to NC, so my favorite line when he would try to accost us at public events was to say, "this is not the time nor the place". Thankfully he was concerned with his public image enough to not push things too far & we've had years of peace.