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Summary
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After leaving an abusive marriage, a reader feels betrayed by a formerly close sister-in-law and repeatedly reads hurtful blog posts. They ask how to grieve the friendship, find closure, and build new connections.
The response recognizes the courage involved in leaving abuse and frames the lost friendship as another relationship that needs grieving.
It encourages reducing exposure to the former sister-in-law’s blog and considering therapy for validation and support, rather than repeatedly seeking explanations from material that deepens the hurt.
Question
Reader · Identity withheldI ended a five-year marriage with an abusive husband. I should have left many years earlier but in my culture you just don’t leave a marriage like that. I was so young and afraid of ruining my family’s good name.
\nMy ex-husband always put himself first even above the two innocent babies we lost. After the second miscarriage, brokenhearted and alone, I decided I couldn’t stay any longer.
\nI didn’t have family nearby and during those five years I never made any real friends except for my sister-in-law.
\nWhen I left her brother something changed between us. We had been very close and I was there for her through so much. I was her rock, the one she cried to after breakups, betrayals and family troubles. I thought she would understand why I had to leave her brother and know I wasn’t leaving her.
\nIt seems blood is thicker than water. At first, she called to check on me but then I started hearing things only she could have known. I later found out she was calling to dig up dirt on me and telling her mother who painted me in a bad light.
To this day my ex-husband’s family insists that I left him for another man. I know I shouldn’t care about what they say or why they no longer care about me, but I do.
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I find myself addicted to reading my sister-in-law’s blog even though it hurts every time. She writes about how she can’t rely on so-called friends and that only “real” family matters. She calls her other sister-in-law “my best sister-in-law ever.” It breaks my heart to read these things yet I keep going back.
\nAfter torturing myself like this, I wonder why she doesn’t care about me anymore. Why does she want to hurt me?
\nShe saw what her brother did to me and hated him for it. Now she hates me because I had the strength to leave him. Is it really my fault that he now lives a life filled with drugs, alcohol, and partying? I tried to save him. I gave it my all for five years hoping for a better life but I couldn’t keep going.
\nWhat hurts me the most is not what I went through with him, but what happened with my sister-in-law.
\nHow can I let go? How can I find closure and move on with my life? How can I make new friends and heal?
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Answer
Ann LandersYou’re hurting so much. I wish I could give you something that might take away your pain, but that isn’t possible. Only you can take away your pain. And only by making some decisions about how you will talk to yourself, and how you will manage the information that you are looking at.
\nYou were strong enough to leave an abusive man. That is a very good thing, and a rare thing. Many women (and men!) suffer for years and cannot manage to break free of abuse. So pat yourself on the back for doing something brave and necessary for your well being.
\nYou haven’t left the man enough, however. You are still attached to his family, and in particular to your former sister-in-law. The thing with the sister is particularly painful because you gave so much to her and she is disowning that connection, probably out of loyalty to her brother and the idea of family she carries in her head.
It’s as though you deposited a lot of money in the bank and then the bank just said they had never heard of you and kept your money.
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Her brother may be a loser and a drug addict, but he is still her brother, so she’ll stick with him, and stick it to you. Not the right thing to do when he’s such a turd, but that is just what most people end up doing. It doesn’t say good things about her character, and that is about as much as you can say.
\nYou need to leave not only your former husband, but also your former sister-in-law. You need to grieve all the losses you have sustained here, in whatever way will work for you to do it, and you need to move on.
Before you can move on, you will need to stop looking at your former sister-in-law’s blog. I know you feel compelled to continue to look at the stuff she is writing, but continuing to view that stuff is making you crazy, and so you have to stop in order to protect yourself.
\nGrieving is hard work for anyone. It takes some time however you go about it. It can be facilitated by a therapist, however, and I think in the case you are describing it might be a very good think for you to visit with a therapist a few times.
\nYou don’t seem to have people in your life who can validate and support you (you don’t describe such people anyway). A therapist can give you that support, because he or she will be able to approach your story from an outside perspective, recognize the courage you’ve already manifested, and help guide you towards a better, less painful future.
Subject matter expert
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Relationships and marriage counseling
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