When is this hurtful crap going to end?

After being married for 4 years and running the whole gamut of rejection back when I got engaged and then married, and then actually reconciling with my parents after several years of hardly talking, I truly thought that the worst was over, and I was not going to have to deal with that hurtful crap anymore.  A couple of years ago a publisher contacted me about writing a memoir and I told them I don't think the story would be over until I had a kid so I wanted to wait until I was older, if ever.  And recently the thought crossed my mind that if I was to write a memoir some day I could now write about how me and my parents reconciled when I had a child, like 70 bajillion people predicted they would. As my husband put it, I had let my guard down.

But of course it never ends!  Every time I have a major life event I am super happy about, some family member has to act like a huge asshole and make me feel bad because they're an intolerant religious asshole who can't deal with the fact that I made different life decisions than they did. 

C is 10 weeks old tomorrow and we have finally gotten the baby announcements designed, printed, and sent to us.  I emailed my dad asking for my Aunt's and her (adult) children's addresses.  My dad said he didn't have them but I could email my aunt, and gave me her email address. I emailed asking for the addresses and this is the response I got. Keep in mind my cousins are all adults, ranging in age from 19-31, and 3 of them have kids of their own.  Growing up I was pretty close with them and probably saw them 4 or 5 times a year despite living 2 hours apart. This woman is my mom's sister and is yeshivish, one of the most religious families in my extended family.  I've heard she keeps a picture of me next to her shabbas candles and 'davens for me' every time she lights.

Hi Abandoing Eden

Thank G-d everyone is well.

I heard that you had a little girl.  I hope you and the baby are doing well.  Besides L, I don't think any of my children know that you are 'married' and had a baby. I would prefer that it remains that way.  I don't think anything is to be gained by their knowing.  I think it would be hurtful to some of them if they knew the life choices you've made for yourself.  I sincerely hope that you will respect my request.  I don't intend to be mean, but this is difficult.  

If you would like to call me for any reason, my phone  # [redacted]

Take care of yourself.

Aunt E

My first impulse was to write a nasty letter back about what an asshole she is being and how I wouldn't want my daughter to know her racist bigoted ass anyway (and she is a racist beyond even the jewish stuff- last time I talked to he she was throwing around the N word and saying Obama is a Muslim). Actually my first impulse was to tear up a little cause when the fuck is this bullshit going to end already, I've now been dealing with this shit for almost 7 years, and how could anyone, let alone a several people in the same family, be this hurtful to their family members?

But instead of writing back to her I forwarded the email to my dad with a note attached that said "Well this is the response I got from her...lovely "family centric" religion you got there....with this kind of love its' a wonder I didn't stay.  I'm not writing back to her for now cause the only appropriate response I can think of is "E you are a self righteous bitch and i hope you die in a fire"..-AE.  He didn't write back but wrote back to another email I sent him recently instead..he probably doesn't know what to say. 

(me and my dad are actually on much better terms these days, since I got pregnant really. I don't think this will insult him too much since he doesn't love E either).

It's funny, the last time I saw my cousin P, E's daughter (not L), I was telling her about how I recently got married to a non jewish man and was about to move south, and she was telling me that I had to promise to come back up north to go to her wedding.  I hear a couple of weeks ago that she got engaged and had been contemplating using her wedding as an excuse to go visit my parents/brother with C.  But now I'm thinking an invitation is probably not forthcoming.

I love how she said "married' in quotation marks.  What a fucking cuntloaf. The sad thing is that my daughter kinda looks like her a little. Hopefully she'll grow out of that.

Maybe I was naive to think I should send my family birth announcements like we're a normal family.  But things have been going really well with my parents, and until now most of my extended family has been much cooler  than I expected them to be about me marrying a non-jewish guy/having a kid, so I thought it would be nice to send them out since we're sending a bunch to B's family (his extended family is super into birth announcement and christmas cards with updated kid pictures, which I really like).

I didn't invite any of my extended family members to my wedding because I didn't want to deal with a wave of rejection. And after that, so many people were cool about it that I thought maybe I had made a mistake by rejecting everyone before I could be rejected by them and not inviting them to my wedding.  I actually have a bunch of family members I keep in touch with on a semi regular basis now, and I thought this would be the opportunity to reach out to a bunch of people I haven't talked to in a while and say hi and send along my good news, and give them the chance to be cool about it.

What the hell was I thinking.I can never let my guard down with my family.  Every major life event, one or more of them has shown up to shit all over it. I bet when I'm like 60 years old and going to my parents funeral there will be random relatives popping out of the woodwork to be assholes.