TW: possible emotional, verbal and financial abuse

Subject line: "I miss you"

Body: "If there is anything I can do to help you feel like communicating with me. please let me know."

I have not and will not answer. Because for decades, I was trying so hard to communicate. I consumed so many books about gentle and compassionate conflict resolution. I got riled up, calmed down, re-approached, made no progress, got riled up again and calmed down again... Over and over again, for years, with no sign that she was interested in understanding me.

Instead, she would:

flat-out deny saying things she said just minutes before

insist that I was crazy and she didn't have to listen to me because I'm "not seeking treatment" (note: I was in therapy, but not taking the specific drug she's sure I need)

Promise to go to therapy herself, to get me to agree to do what she wanted, only to later claim that she didn't need to

Claim that despite having been abused by her parents and by my dad earlier in their marriage, that I was the one who gave her ptsd (which she doesn't need therapy for)

Walk away from me the moment I bring up a conversation she doesn't want to have, saying "i can tell you're about to start yelling at me" no matter how calmly I began the conversation

Call me "stupid" for taking her seriously when she threatened to kick me out of the house

Try to BRIBE ME WITH MONEY to stop hanging out with my friends who told me she was abusive

Insist that every time she got upset over something I did, I must have done it on purpose specifically to hurt her

Accuse me of starting fights with her on purpose because I enjoy it when these fights consistently left me distraught and nonfunctional for days

Deliberately violate my privacy in my own home, after telling me for years "you can make the rules when you have your own home" if I ever complained about how I was treated in hers

This list is far from complete.

When I stopped trying to have any kind of relationship with her, she started with these occasional emails saying to "let her know" what she can do to "help".

I will not answer because I have already tried so many times to tell her this, and it has never gotten through to her before and I have absolutely no reason to believe she wouldn't deny it again.

I withdrew from her not to draw my own boundary, but to respect hers. She made it very clear over my teens and twenties that she could not tolerate the way I express my emotions, nor accommodate my needs during times of stress. Even as a child, the rule was "if you need to cry, you can do it in your room. Nobody wants to hear that."

As I struggled to learn to manage my anger and frustration growing up, she made another thing very clear: "only you can control your behavior, so I refuse to believe your actions are motivated by anything but deliberate malice toward me". I learned that any negative feeling I express in her presence will be twisted into outright hatred for her.

She taught me that nobody should be "forced" to put up with me when I'm upset, resulting in a lifelong pathological inability to receive help or support.

So, knowing that she will only be satisfied if I hide all my negative feelings from her and prioritize her needs when we're together, I gave up on having a close or meaningful relationship and instead have only seen or spoken with her when I knew I could keep everything under control and leave as soon as I start to drop my defenses. It just so happens that in the past few years, I've dealt with so much stress that I couldn't do that even for brief visits or phone calls.

I want so badly to tell her "this is what YOU wanted, remember? You wanted me to take responsibility for how my feelings are affecting you. The only way I know how to keep these conflicts from happening is to make sure we're never in the same room when strong feelings are going to be felt. I'm following YOUR rules. Stop pretending this is my choice."

But it wouldn't do any good.