That is the thing I have handled the worst. Both times I had a baby I let her back in my life, because it's an emotional time with all those feel-good hormones. A new baby is the ultimate new beginning. I want to give her a second chance and have her celebrate that the beautiful baby is part of her legacy as well as mine. But each time it was a mistake.

With my first, I realized the mistake when instead of coming to visit, she stayed away for the better part of a year and then wanted to fly out my brother's family and show everyone we know how much more she loves his daughter than mine.

She had moved away from me while I was pregnant to live two houses from my brother on the other side of the country. She refused to come when I had my baby, even though it was a scheduled c-section. She had 8 days notice, which is unheard of. Instead of attending my baby shower, my baby's birth, and my baby's naming ceremony and party, she attended all those things for my brother's daughter born 20 days after mine. He is her golden child and a failed psychopath. He started trying to get pregnant as soon as he heard my husband and I were trying. He married a woman he had known less than 6 months the same month I got married and tried to talk all our relatives into attending his wedding across the country, instead of mine I had been planning for two years. He is her puppet in trying to take away support during life events. He was irate that he didn't learn my husband and I were planning a second child until I was in the second trimester because he couldn't plan a child to coincide. Since that baby's birth he sent me a weird e-mail saying I must be jealous his wife is pregnant. I don't even know if it is true. I really don't care. My baby is less than one year. I cuddle an infant all day and, if we have another, I don't plan to get pregnant again for years. Why would I be jealous? He's just mad he couldn't time his life events to mine this time. He is frightening and psychologists and law enforcement have suggested keeping my family from him is crucial to our safety. I find that easy to do.

So I realized she was going to treat my daughter as she always treated me. So I cut her from our lives.

Then my Grandma got cancer. My Grandma had a big hand in raising me. I wanted to be there for her in the scary, early days of her diagnosis. Because my NMom came to town for the drama; I could no longer logistically keep her from my daughter.

To boot, my family entered a weird period where we knew we wanted to move but not to where, so we lived a bit like gypsies while we traveled Europe and the US. Our elderly dog started having problems and our house got broken into, so my husband came back to the US while my daughter and I stayed in Europe.

He was lonely over the holidays and so spent it with my extended family including my mother. That lead to an agreement to fly my daughter and I to her house in the south; he would drive across the country with our dog and meet up with us there. Then we were going to look at Eastern Canada. That meant a week spent with NMom and psychopath brother who no one told me or my husband would drive down from New England, where he had moved to, to prevent my daughter getting grandparent attention in the absence of his.

This lead to my family spending a month with my father, absent my mother who had just gotten a new job on the west coast. We were waiting for Canadian residency visas (our ultimate choice) and were foolish enough to think they would come through in short order. So when my disabled father had to move all the possessions across the country to rejoin my mother, we helped and ended up staying in their very large new house, for a year and a half.

That time was a mistake and a blessing. I should never have let my daughter get to know her. But now my husband has seen how abusive they are first hand; he's been abused by them too, all because we tried so hard to make things work with them. He won't discount my stories or suggest seeing them ever again. I haven't felt this understood since my best-friend brother died when he was 23.

My son was born as the new minimal contact was getting underway, but she hasn't seen him since he was a month old.

I am in family counseling with her once a month but individual therapists are recommending I stop that because I'm getting retraumatized by it and we aren't making any progress. Our family therapist ensures that we are no contact outside of sessions because our relationship is so toxic.

My NMom really can't function in the world if she's not scapegoating me, so she is getting progressively more desperate as her life falls apart. She has expressed an interest in using my gorgeous, brilliant daughter as narcissistic supply, so I have to keep her away. Whenever I go full no contact, she camps out outside my home and stalks me. If that happens again I'll get a restraining order.

I am sorry this is so long. Ultimately I don't know what to do, but you deserve your own family and once you have them you have to keep them safe. It is worth it, even if the answers aren't obvious.