My boundary with SD64 sinc I learned she'd been renting out the condo we bought for "poor" SD to live in is that I'm done.  No visits, no calls, no texts.  I have softened in one respect which is that with DH88 in declining health, I've allowed 2 visits and will speak with her on one topic, his health.

The situation is complicated by the fact she now lives with her daughter, C, who cleans for me weekly.  C knows my boundary and respects it.  However, about a month ago, she begged .me to let SD visit when she came since SD was so teary about DH and I allowed it   She came again last week.  However, I'm planning to stretch out C's cleaning days, eventually phasing out.  I just don't want the connection.  I'll need to stay in touch until the condo sells with the last issue being disposition if her furniture.  There's upset because when DD packed up, she "curated" SD's belongings but SD had 3 months to move stuff and of course, did little or nothing.

I expect Fathers Day to bring some kind of contact, hopefully just a call to DH.  When DH passes, that will be the last time I see her but it will probably be a doozy with the full emotional display.  I plan to enlist somebody to keep her away from me 
 

Yes my boundaries have held, since they are mine, not DH's.  In 2022, SD31 called me all sorts of horrible names including w****r and freeloader, many others and I decided I was done.  She hasn't been here since and neither have I spoken to her, DH sees her elsewhere.  The ban doesn't extend to her sister, but in practice her sister, SD29, doesn't come here since SD31 is not welcome.  

It's a very hard lesson when we relax boundaries. It's also a hard lesson when we relax them because of hope that someone has changed. I hadn't seen or spoken with SD for 7 wonderful years when she decided she wanted to "make amends," so she came to visit, apologize for her past behavior, and "explain" what was going on with her. By the time she left, my senses knew she was planning on getting married, although nothing had been said. I knew she would be asking DH for money for the wedding. I knew that was the purpose of the trip (disgusting). 

Luckily, DH didn't budge much when it came to that. He said to me, "I can be the father when she needs money but not for anything else." He contributed a small (in regard to wedding costs) amount and stood strong. I think they decided to punish him for that. 

As if the torture of us at the wedding wasn't enough for me to say "the end," I relaxed my boundaries when SD got pregnant. They invited me to the shower (they knew I was too far away to attend), but, out of what I thought was decency, I sent baby gifts. Shortly after the shower, tons of photos of the shower were posted on social media. A few were different angles of "all" the gifts, unwrapped, together. Guess whose gifts were missing from the photos? There had been a long history of that passive aggressive, nasty BS. I was done (I had also been deleted from all the wedding photos).

The idiots kept sending me baby shower invites as SD kept pumping out babies. I ignored them. 

When DH had his health scare a few years ago, I felt obligated to have the skids here. It was pure hell and made the situation so much worse. 

So, I am the poster child in a way for relaxed boundaries and what happens to you. lol. But it feels so good to be done with it all once and for all. It's been 2.5 years. Finally. The end. 

Meera wrote:

MorningMia wrote:

It's a very hard lesson when we relax boundaries. It's also a hard lesson when we relax them because of hope that someone has changed. I hadn't seen or spoken with SD for 7 wonderful years when she decided she wanted to "make amends," so she came to visit, apologize for her past behavior, and "explain" what was going on with her. By the time she left, my senses knew she was planning on getting married, although nothing had been said. I knew she would be asking DH for money for the wedding. I knew that was the purpose of the trip (disgusting). 

Luckily, DH didn't budge much when it came to that. He said to me, "I can be the father when she needs money but not for anything else." He contributed a small (in regard to wedding costs) amount and stood strong. I think they decided to punish him for that. 

As if the torture of us at the wedding wasn't enough for me to say "the end," I relaxed my boundaries when SD got pregnant. They invited me to the shower (they knew I was too far away to attend), but, out of what I thought was decency, I sent baby gifts. Shortly after the shower, tons of photos of the shower were posted on social media. A few were different angles of "all" the gifts, unwrapped, together. Guess whose gifts were missing from the photos? There had been a long history of that passive aggressive, nasty BS. I was done (I had also been deleted from all the wedding photos).

The idiots kept sending me baby shower invites as SD kept pumping out babies. I ignored them. 

When DH had his health scare a few years ago, I felt obligated to have the skids here. It was pure hell and made the situation so much worse. 

So, I am the poster child in a way for relaxed boundaries and what happens to you. lol. But it feels so good to be done with it all once and for all. It's been 2.5 years. Finally. The end. 

I am curious, if you could go back and do it all over again, what would you have done differently? Would you have skipped the wedding? Not sent the gifts? Not invited them when your DH had a health scare? Let me learn from your wisdom. :D

The Diablas were insufferable brats as teenagers, understandable & forgivable, the teen years are well-known to be a difficult age, especially for girls, but now they are approaching 30 and they are just as big a pain as always.
I have no desire to waste a single second of my life on them. 
 

In hindsight, I would have been much more upfront with the skids (although I did tell SD several years ago that if someone doesn't like me [her], there's nothing I can do about that and I wasn't going to wring my hands over it). I would have spoken out during her "fishing" expedition (pre-wedding) and said something like, "I bet you're engaged or getting engaged, right? Is that why you're here?" 

I hate to say this because, looking back, I think we did the decent thing, but when DH wanted to leave the wedding event before the ceremony, I probably shouldn't have talked him into staying. I worried it would feed into the narrative of us being "the bad guys." But so what? That narrative was alive and well already. The way we were treated, she would have deserved her father leaving.  

It wasn't so much an invite during the health crisis. It was "a situation" and the skids wanted to be here for his surgery (understandably). The joke was that SS would stay longer to "help out." I had advised him to get an Airbnb near the hospital and he didn't do it. It just kind of played out that they were here under the guise of "helping." In hindsight, I never would have allowed them in the house. DH doesn't even want me calling them if something happens again. 

I broke off complete contact with both of them a few months later. The final final straw for me was that, in the midst of all their over-the-top mommy praising on social media, neither mentioned their father's health issues, what he had just been through, or the time they spent with him. You'd think they were the products of virgin births. I was just (finally) done at that point. 

Sometimes I look back and wish I had been an a-hole; they think I am, anyway. Why not? 
But I do feel secure that I (and they) know I have it in me to be one. I had a couple episodes when they were last here (when DH was sick), and I scared them. I laugh to myself thinking about what they told their mother. Muahhaha.  

It's just not worth it to be nice to unkind people. It really isn't.