Dear Children,
 
I have been thinking about this issue for a long time and have decided to write it out.
 
There is an alignment in our broken family that is toxic.
 
I have been fully extruded by the Divorced Husband/Oldest Daughter alignment.   Divorced Husband knows my family history and knows that I am powerless and won’t fight extrusion. Between his passive-aggression and Oldest Daughter's eight years of constant spitefulness, there is no fighting this. The children want to be with each other. They need each other. They need family.
 
There is no meeting of all the children that occurs at my house because all celebration occurs at Divorced Husband’s with Oldest Daughter's  collusion. Oldest Daughter ignores any invitation that I provide, and names her father’s as the place for the children to meet. She holds the power here and will only show up for her father, thus time at my house cannot host the complete family. The times that there have been celebrations at my house have been artifacts for her convenience or for appearances.
 
I had started to try to change this and try to also have family celebrations, but I realize that there is no real fighting this situation. The two collude and Youngest Daughter hides, Middle Daughter is easily manipulated, and Only Son is a scapegoat if he tries to include me. And he remains torn, for he wants a family experience but he also wants me. He loves me enough to care about my extrusion. He is also wise enough to see it. Youngest Daughter is pained, and disappears.
 
Only Son needs family more than he needs me. I am old and will most likely die in the next 10 to 15 years. Only Son has a long life ahead of him and needs to be and stay connected with his sisters. The only way this will happen is if he is able not to be seen as having alliances with me that are detrimental to him.
 
Therefore I will never intrude upon the four-child and Divorced Husband family dynamic again. It is more important for the four children to stay connected than it ever would be for me to join them. So I will embrace the extrusion and never expect or initiate anything that could be seen as a place of power-wrangling.   Divorced Husband and Oldest Daughter will have their family and the good part is the others will have family too. This is better than tearing things apart demanding my needs be met.
 
I expect Divorced Husband will move to near Oldest Daughter (out of state) fairly soon. If he is smart he will sell his house and use proceeds to help Oldest Daughter with a down payment on a house with an apartment for him.   Youngest Daughter will of course go with him. Middle Daughter lives out of the country and mostly focuses on Oldest Daughter who is, frankly, manipulative and toxic.  Only Son will need to go too. I will probably at that point, sell my house and set Only Son up in a little place in that area, if he likes, that will have an apartment to pay his expenses.   I will find a new place to live, probably with friends. My job will be to be out of the picture.
 
I will look at other areas to live, at least part of the year so I will be out of the picture. I will fill my life with other people so I will keep my neediness for family (which actually had been a theme in my life- one with which I didn’t succeed, obviously) at bay. I will, from now on, use the Oldest Daughter Wedding Defense: (She invited me to her wedding to fill the mother-hole her in-laws were expecting) agreeing to whatever anyone wants and admiring all options while tactfully backing away. I will fight no more.
 
Done.