Originally Posted by
tromboneliness 
Look at it this way: You're trying to avoid contact with your immediate family as it is. So if they get all into a state of high dudgeon because of something your friend (who shouldn't be blabbing on you, but that's not under your control), and they end up not wanting to contact you, well, so what? You want them out of your life anyway, so it's a win-win!
(Substitute "extended family" for "immediate family," and you've got my situation. I really don't give a you-know-what what they think of me -- and if they don't call, that's fine -- I don't want to hear from them anyway.)
T
The friend wasn't blabbing, I don't think. She showed up at my son's graduation party which clued my mother in that she and I were friends, and my mother started asking the woman question after question.
I didn't want the exteded family out of my life. There's nothing wrong with them. Although of course, I'm slowly changing my view to think that if they believe all they hear about me from my mother and siblings, then I have no use for people who blindly believe gossip. Of course, another part of me is still saying, Can I really blame them for believing it? I lived here only briefly before going to college and then moved away again for many years (because of my father) before moving back, so they never really had a chance to know me very personally, whereas they have spent 30-40 years listening to my mother's (strange twists on and untrue) stories about me.