It went well. Auntie made an effort to understand why I feel the way I feel and that’s a big deal. Her comments started out with, “I can’t see how occasional contact would possibly be a problem” and ended with, “Ok I can understand how lying like that is a problem.” That’s kind of a little tiny bit HUGE!! Dude. Strangely enough it is the constant lying (by my mom and sister) that she can really wrap her head around rather than the abuse. It was interesting to try to explain cycles of abuse to her. Once I was done I think she understood. At the very least she said she was willing to support me when I finished saying, “I don’t think they are bad people. I don’t think they engage in this behavior for malicious reasons. I think they were both abused so much for so long that they don’t understand how fucked up this behavior is and they are unwilling to admit they are abusers so they can never change.” She was very sad. I told her I am sad too. But I have to do this for my daughter. When I made the decision to have children I did it in full knowledge that I had to protect my children and ensure that they have a better than average shot at ending up happy, healthy people and that requires that I put up very strict boundaries around situations that will hurt them. She tried to say, “But if Shanna only sees them occasionally it won’t be as bad as it was for you.” I repeated what she said. I asked her how she feels about the fact that she can say, “as bad as it was for you” about my childhood. I asked her if she really feels Shanna deserves to be exposed to *any* bad.

It went very very well.