I'm so glad this was helpful, Jasmin. I've certainly been down that road often enough - with my parents - my brother - with a few ex-husbands - with a couple of my kids who are incredibly abusive...

So I am well familiar with the road of wanting to give them another chance - especially my two eldest daughters, who witnessed the way my parents treated me so it was no surprise that they grew up doing the same thing (although sadly, they also treat others the same way).

It's been so so so hard to not want to reconnect with them; the bond we had when they were little was so incredibly strong.

But ... I gave them so many chances over a lot of years and they betrayed my trust every single time. "Kiss and make up" doesn't work with people who have their own wounds and self-esteem issues that are the reason they treat others so terribly - unless they've had lots of healing, and unless they're willing to say, "Here are the ways in which I was horrible to you and here's why, and I've been healing all of that, and I'm so, so sorry..."

It's easy to hope that during a long separation, they've missed us enough that they're willing to treat us well, or they've "learned something," but it's not about that. They need a LOT of therapy and the guts to admit the ways in which they were abusive and hateful.

This is the reason most abusers to not change, or that the few who do can't maintain it. It's because they have to admit and live with the terrible things they've done (the psychologist I was seeing decades ago told me the stats on this. He was the one who told me, 'guess what, you've been abused your whole life').

We're the ones who have to be strong enough to admit and fully acknowledge that awful side of those people. We have to realise that they aren't "nice people who get like this sometimes." They are BOTH Jekyll AND Hyde. And we can't have the nice Dr Jekyll without the vile Mr. Hyde. No matter who much we might wish we could simply have everything be lovely and if we're nice to them we'll always get Dr J, they are one and the same and we'll always end up with Mr Hyde again at some point.

It's sad. Such a waste of potential relationship and experiences of love between family members. But we are only responsible for ourselves and sometimes we have no choice but to accept an ugly truth about a person we're supposed to love and trust deeply.

Sending you lots of love 💜💜💜