I too have gone extremely limited contact with several FOO members in my life. I have six bros and a sister. My sister was the scapegoat, but the role may have changes to me - or maybe I was scapegoated as well.
I maintain some relationships separately with a few of my siblings when they respect my boundaries. I feel like I'm crawling through barbed wire being around other individuals who boundary stomp everything I've requested. I have a 6 month old daughter that my mother and father have yet to meet - they've had offers galore to meet her, with reasonable boundaries - I even asked if we could go to their home and have "personal" time with just the two of them. My mother said that would work and then I never heard back. The only communication was a mass e-mail to all of my siblings about her 50th anniversary. I did not want my 1st introduction of daughter to grandma and grandpa to be in a large gathering where I'm around people that have been emotionally abusive to my wife and myself. Also, I didn't feel I was actually invited -- If I was, my mother would have met my daughter many months before that.
I only have contact with my sister, 3 of my brothers, and my sister's adult daughter (early 20s and married). A few of these individuals seem quite uncomfortable with my boundaries, but I've grown sick and tired of the abuse. Unfortunately, I can't think of any other way to protect me, my wife, and ESPECIALLY my child from abuse. If I don't hear people acknowledging the behaviors that are abusive and convincing my wife and I that they won't repeat those behaviors with our daughter, I have no interest in her being around them. I want my daughter to have a better childhood than I did.
My childhood wasn't all bad necessarily, but I'm getting really strange resistance to me simply wanting to weed out the nasty toxic stuff and keep the good, loving, and caring stuff. Like weeding out a garden.
Calling me lazy and stubborn for example -- those are weeds to destroy.
Calling my wife names -- destroy.
Having a hierarchy (my mother actually stated this)-- destroy.
Treating my niece like "less than" because of their issues with my sister (child of scapegoat is also scapegoat, right?) - until this is acknowledged, since when would my child be treated differently? IE, they need to make peace with my wife and I before we would ever trust that our child would be treated with love, respect, etc.
Mine is long too. Some family dynamics are extremely confusing. Right now, I'm stepping away to clean up my life the way I want it for me without their judgment looming over; I may let people in if I figure out some way to protect my family in the presence of these individuals -- but, I have yet to find something I think would work - I really can't stop them from mistreating my wife and I. My child is extremely young, and I'd rather she grows up not having to struggle with her sense of self-worth due to how mommy and daddy are treated.
I got sober myself, and my father still drinks. At their 50th there was tons of drinking going on -- a bro got mad at me and tried to get me to go, saying that he and his wife wouldn't drink and we could hang with them. That we could spend time with the people who loved and supported us. He wasn't aware that my parents had refused to meet our daughter (in a covert, passive aggressive way by not responding to emails, etc). I didn't get into it with him, just said that we had strained relationships and would not be going.
I'm not sure if my decisions are "right", cause I have a lot of nagging guilt, but I'm working on it. I'm open to negotiation, but there has been zero communication with several individuals, so I just work to drop the rope and focus on my own family.
My two cents. Thanks for reading.