Man's family invites him home for Christmas after disowning him eight years ago. UPDATED

"My family wants me to join them for Christmas after disowning me over 8 years ago"

Here's the original post:

After being disowned 8 years ago, my family has invited me, my wife (27F) and daughter (1F) for Christmas. After getting conflicting advice from my friends, one of my buddies told me to post my dilemma here to see what random internet strangers would say.

I (25M) am the youngest of four kids between my mom(52F) and dad (54M). My siblings are (fake names) Micheal (31M), Sara (28F), and my twin brother Casey (25M).

For context, growing up I was the black sheep of the family and I knew that from a very young age. See, my family is full of athletes. My dad was a star basketball player for a D2 school; my mom played volleyball. Micheal played soccer. Sara played softball, and Casey was the star running back for the football team.

I was never really interested in any of those physical sports, but rather I was interested in archery, which my family called a "wimpy" sport. My parents were always invested in my siblings and rarely ever attended my events to the point where I basically had to beg for them to come to my tournaments.

Between the ages of 14-16, I had taken part in about 20 tournaments while my parents only showed up to one. I was never neglected by them, but they were never emotionally there for me as they were for my siblings, and as a teenager I resented that. Whenever I tried to bring this up to them, they would always call me an attention seeker.

But however, this is not why I was disowned from my family. When I was 15, I began dating Amy (now 25F) who was in the same grade as me at the time. After about 6-7 months of dating I introduced her to my folks and my siblings and they really liked her. I know I was young, but I could see myself having a future with her.

Almost 2 years later, one of Amy's ex-friends told me that she had been cheating on me for a couple of months. At the time I didn't know who the guy was, but after confronting her, she told me that it was my twin brother. She basically told me that while at first she loved me, the love she had for my brother "surpasses" that.

Later that day, when I confronted Casey at home, I was so enraged that I sucker-punched him and knocked him out. I admit that I should have not gotten violent, but years of resentment towards him and the rest of the family just burst open.

In exchange for my family not pressing charges on me as I could have been tried as an adult in court, I was sent to live with my paternal aunt (48F) who at this point was estranged from the family and lived in another city about 2 hours away. From then on, I have not had any contact with them.

At first it was tough, but later on, with support from my aunt, and her husband (48M) I moved on from wanting a relationship with them.

I transferred to a different high school and attended a university in my Aunt's city and graduated as an electrical engineer. I later met my wife and got married to her.

I at the time of my wedding thought about inviting them, but went against it because I did not want any sort of drama at my wedding. From that point me and my wife bought a house an hour away from my Aunt and were blessed with a daughter a year ago.

About a week ago, I received a Facebook message from my mother and father wanting to reconnect over Christmas at their house. I told them that I would consider it as I possibly have other plans, but would give them a clear answer soon. Later on, both Micheal and Sara sent me friend requests, which felt weird to me.

My wife has told me that if I decided to go, she and my daughter would spend Christmas at my FILs house as she does not have to deal with unwanted stress as she is 2 months pregnant and I agree with her.

My question to those reading this is that should I go and try to reconcile with my family or should I not. I am very conflicted on what to do. On one hand, they perhaps feel bad about what they did to me and want to apologize for what they did but on the other hand perhaps if I go there, they will try to make me apologize to Casey which I do not want to.

Any advice would be helpful.

TLDR: family that disowned me after gf cheats with my brother and I knocked him out. They reach out after 8 years of NC to invite me and my wife to Christmas. Need advice on whether to go and what to expect.

A few weeks later, he shared this update:

Hi there guys, it's been a rough two weeks but thank you all for your advice and support. Two days after Christmas, my wife suffered a miscarriage. Due to complications surrounding the operation, my wife was forced to stay for two more days. Honestly, I have been trying to stay strong for my wife and my daughter but honestly, I am struggling right now.

On to the update: Most of you that commented on the same day I posted told me to not spend Christmas with them because of the significance of that holiday. I agree and decided I would spend the rest of the holidays with my wife. They never made time for me so why should I make time for them.

When I texted them this, I assumed they would try to argue with me but rather they said they respected my opinion and could not wait to see me after the holidays.

I began to do some digging into my family to try to figure out why they have reached out:

Micheal is a corporate lawyer who works for a major company in my hometown. By looking through his Facebook page, he has two daughters and was married to his wife in 2016. Sara appears to be married to a doctor, (she herself 8 years ago was studying to be a nurse) and they have a son together. I have a friend who lives in my hometown and has parents who are friends with my parents.

When I asked her about Sara, she told me that Sara had divorced her first husband (the one she was dating 8 years ago) after he had committed mail fraud. Casey got married to Amy right after high school and together they have two kids together.

I could not exactly figure out what he or his wife does for a living through Facebook, but judging that they bought a big house last year in the midst of a pandemic tells me they are not really struggling. My dad seems to be going through a midlife crisis and my mother is really into the wellness community.

I then began to list the reasons of why they wanted to possibly reach out to me now:

1. Money- unlikely because 8 years ago, my parents combined salary was higher than my wife and my salary. And given that my siblings are not struggling financially makes me think money is not the reason.

2. Organ donation- could be the case but seems unlikely but a redditor said that it could be that Casey given he is my twin would be my most likely match and I think it's unlikely because he was tagged in a facebook post skiing just a week before Christmas.

3. Regarding my daughter- They could possibly be reaching out to me to have a relation to my daughter but I honestly am not sure. My daughter is not the first grandduaghter for my parents, so I do not know why they want to meet her. They most likely found out my daughter existed because my wife's facebook account was public (she has since privated her account).

I then contacted my Aunt (the estranged one who took me in) informing her about the situation and she explained to me why they were reaching out to me after all this time. To understand this situation, you need to understand why my aunt was estranged. My paternal grandpa (79M) and grandma(76F) had 4 children.

My dad was the second oldest and my aunt was the third. My aunt after college came out to her parents as bisexual and began dating her girlfriend. My grandparents immediately disowned her and refused to have any contact with her. However, about four years ago, my grandpa began to reach out

About a month ago, my grandpa had been asking about me and what I was doing in life and whether I was married or had kids. My Aunt responded by calling my grandpa out for wanting to know about me after he supported Casey for what he did. That is when the whole situation changes.

My grandpa told my aunt that because I had cheated on Amy with one of her close friends, I deserved to be estranged. My grandpa is a religious nut, so he looks down on cheating. He had been told by my family that after the friend who I allegedly cheated with confessed to Amy, she went to Casey and Sara for support and comfort.

And when I found out about this, I confronted and attacked Casey and Sara. While Sara was the one who tried to break me and Casey apart, I did not lay a finger on her and I did not "attack" Casey.

When my aunt was telling me this, my jaw dropped. I could not believe that they hated me so much that they were willing to make up a terrible lie about me and spread it around. My aunt later told grandpa the full truth on what truly happened and my aunt told me he was shocked because he always thought Casey was a good kid. My grandpa then asked my aunt for my number which she declined to give.

I figured out why my parents and siblings wanted to get into touch with me. It turns out my grandpa had told my parents and my siblings that if they did not apologize for what they did to me and have me over for the family Christmas dinner, they would be cut off from his will (for context, he is a multi millionaire).

So that is why they reached out to me, not to apologize about how they all wronged me in the past, but rather because if they did not, they would not get anything from grandpa. What a bunch of greedy people.

After hearing about this from my aunt, I decided to block all of them. Why should I respond to them. At this point all of them are dead to me. I have a wife to support after what she went through and a family that respects me in my in-laws.

However, this does not end here as three days after New Years Eve, I recieved a call from an unknown number on my work phone. I am used to getting calls from unknown numbers because of my career, and when I picked up I heard my grandfather's voice. He most likely got my number from my company website .

The first thing he did was apologize for not trying to get into contact with me for the past eight years. He told me he was sorry that he could not be there for important events such as my graduation, my wedding and the birth of my daughter. I was not really close to him before, so him cutting me off did not bother me.

Later in the call, he told me he was so disgusted with the rest of my family that he is cutting them off his will and adding me to it. I honestly do not know how to feel about that as the money would be helpful, but at the same time I do not want him to use this as a way to force a relationship between me and my daughter.

We talked for about half an hour. The way the call went made me think that perhaps I could build a good relationship with my grandpa but then he told me something that got me really pissed. He told me that he was disappointed in that my daughter had not taken the family name.

For context: After I got married to my wife, the issue of what last name to use as a couple came up. For some legal reasons I was unable to change my last name to my wife's last name but we decided as a couple that all of our future children would have her last name.

I at this point unloaded on my grandpa calling him many hurtful things and told him to never contact me ever again. The audacity of this man to say that after what I went through is something. I will not let him use the money I recieve in the will to control me. Even if I recieve the money, I will donate it to a local charity but he is a man of false promises so this is unlikely.

These past few weeks have been really tough for me and I hope to make it to the other side. My wife has privated her Facebook account and her in laws have done the same. What they do to try to contact me is beyond me. Hell, they would probably hire a private detective to try to find me. I believe they do not know where I live, but you never know.

I have thought of a get a restraing order, but given that there are lawyers within the family means getting a RO will be hard. I did not really get any time to answer any questions given in my last post before it was deleted for some reason. Thank you all for your advice and I wish you all the best in this new year.

What do you think of this situation and how he handled it?

This is what top commenters had to say:

cesayvonne said:

I’m so so sorry for your loss OP. I can’t begin to imagine the pain you and your wife must be experiencing right now. Your family is just absolutely chock full of some of the worst aholes I’ve ever heard of and the audacity of them is unmatched.

They do not deserve any more of your energy. Screw them all. I really hope they don’t pursue you any more and you can focus on your family at home. Thank you for taking the time to update us and I will hold your family in the light.

Wreckweum said:

I wish you a better 2022, and I sympathize with you and your wife. Focus on you and her for as long as you both need to heal, and try to put to rest ( as best you can) the actions of your birth family, as they are no longer a thread in the ball of yarn of your life, not if you don't want them to be.

Family is what you make it, you never have to bow down to the people whom brought you in to this world just because they did.. and as much as it goes against the grain of everything we try to tell our children, you do not need to forgive, you do not need to forget, you can just bury them and move on.

Time is precious to us, no need to waste any on people who are you as a $, and not as a person. Your grandfather was trying, in his own way, to reconnect...

But as you saw, most likely from the way he's been treated due to his wealth, it was always going to I be on his terms... I'm glad you nipped that in the bud.. I hope you two well, you seem to have quite the level head on you, good luck!

[deleted] said:

I’m grateful you dug into their reasons. They don’t deserve your time or attention. I do think you were a little harsh to your grandpa, but you have a lot of pain and trauma, so it is what it is.

RoryJSK said:

FYI your grandfather is also a POS.

1 ) Your family’s penchant to disowning people stems from him, as progenitor.

2 ) He likely wants to use you as leverage against the other family members, for god knows what reason.

Don’t become a pawn in his games and don’t let him use his money as a bargaining chip to manipulate your life or affect your children. He is not a decent person. Remember he disowned your aunt.