The biggest gift I could give myself was learning to be empathetic with my S and accepting where my spouse currently is....
If I felt triggered by something I always tried to give myself the time and space to understand the why. If after 12hr or 24hr I still felt the need to respond I tried to use "I feel" statements. I feel upset when I hear thru the kids you don't like my relationship with X. It removes blame.
Before responding to something think 10 10 10... how does this help me or affect in the next 10min, 10 days, 10months/years. 90% of the time responding to something filtered thru the kids is so not worth your circus or your money, but I can completely see how you felt... it was real... it was frustrating and hurtful to hear your child make those statements. Try in the future just validating your child with I see OR of if your child is old enough with how does rhat make you feel?
These situations knock the wind out of you for sure... they cut, they sting...
Your goal is to work hard on not responding out of emotion.
Blocking and unblocking are signs of severe hurt coupled with emotional immaturity.
When you can look through your spouses lens and see how she might feel betrayed that her cousin is "siding" with you and that it's her family and not yours. You can appreciate your child's comment comes from place of her hurt and less so about controlling you directly.
The human brain is wired to fill empty spaces with negative thoughts. This was key to our primitive survival... we had to suspicious of what MAY be hidden in the bush even if we had no proof there was something dangerous there.
Overall, there is no lasting harm here in your situation. Just another lesson and another goal of not reacting out of emotion. It takes a lot if hard work and focus to get there.
