My husband has been on a self-imposed "no contact" with his father almost since the very day he turned 18 (which was over 30 years ago.) The difference between his family and mine is that his family backs him up. Nobody ELSE will have anything to do with his father either. And when incidents from his childhood come up in the conversation, nobody belittles it, tells him it didn't happen or that it wasn't that bad, nothing like that.

I've long been criticized by family for "holding on to it" and not "putting it behind me." Well, how could I, when I continued to be confronted with it? How can I "forgive" something that supposedly didn't happen or wasn't that bad? Telling me to "get over it" acknowledges that there is something to "get over."

And if it's so "normal" then there is no reason for me to "keep my mouth shut" about it, is there?

Maybe now that I'm never going to talk to any of them again, I finally CAN put it behind me.