Family - and why it sucks

I grew up in what used to be known as a 'broken home.' My mom was a single mom, not a divorced mom who co-parented and received copious amounts of child support, but an actual single mom. My dad was nowhere around, and when he was, I mostly wished he'd go away again. I am the oldest of four children, and my mom had four sisters and a brother. We were, I thought, a really close, loving extended family. I loved my family. All of them. My cousins were all adorable and sweet and I was the babysitter extraordinaire. I was the favorite niece, the bestest granddaughter and the daughter that my mother counted on. And I loved it. I loved my family.

My aunt just reported my husband to the Department of Homeland Security for threatening to ... well, it's a long story. I still love my mother, a bunch of my cousins, most of my aunts, but mostly... I'm good without them. I'm hurt and angry and feel ashamed and betrayed.

I don't know why I loved them all so much for so long, if it was all for... this. If my aunt can do this - can accuse my husband and the father of my children of being a TERRORIST and everyone just thinks it's funny, then I've wasted a lot of time and effort into trying to push them all into this picture of a loving close family that I guess I needed to believe that they were. There's no loyalty. This is just being portrayed as one lunatic aunt and my own specific problem. Everyone is going to stay out of it - and I find myself more and more wanting to opt out of the whole mess. Pull everything in, talk to my mother and my sister and one of my cousins, and the rest of them can all go to hell.

I'm really so unbelievably angry, and I don't see it changing. I don't think I need to get past it, or I need to forgive and forget. I feel like if you want to have me and my children in your life, than there has to be a level of loyalty. This is not acceptable behavior on her part. And I'll be damned if I'm going to sit back and allow it to continue. As of right now, she's out of my family. Actually, as of about three months ago, she was out - but I was willing to let it just be me. Not anymore - you want to have her at family functions, then I, and my children, will not be attending. It's just that simple. And if that means that I only talk to two or three members of what I always thought was such a loving, close extended family - then so be it.