For the first 4 years of our estrangement, when we continued to love just 15 doors away, I used to get waves of hopelessness and despair.
I struggled to sleep, to leave the house for fear of seeing them. I felt as if I'd suddenly for no discernible reason, been cast down a long, cold, damp and unforgiving tunnel which if there was a light at the end of, I couldn't see.
Now, 20 months since we moved to begin a new chapter in our lives, those waves have all but disappeared and been replaced with waves of extraordinary peace and happiness.
I am sorry Dawn. In a way your painful experiences at the hands of your in laws have defined you, but perhaps not in the way that you think.
You are not the person they have defined you as, no more than we are the people our ES and his wife have defined us as being.
Your experiences, the way you have handled them and to a certain extent come through them is what defines you just as our experiences and our handling of them define us.
You have tried to stand against injustice, as have we but there's only so much you can do. It takes courage to stand against injustice so let that be one aspect of your relationship with your in laws that defines you. It's good, it's positive and it's true.