I think you make a good point about forgiveness. It's made me think about something that I'm going to try to expain...when you DH cheated and you forgave him, I'm going to guess he had stopped having the affair. That is, he wasn't still seeing her and you were continuing to forgive him for his infidelity day after day. Or in the case of Luise, you divorced which ended the act of infidelity, and you forgave him for the past incidences. Once we ceased contact with my ILs, I was able to being to forgive them for the things they'd done. That's why I don't even really think about the fact that I was pushed down anymore. I've released that. The ones that I've had more trouble releasing are the ones that are, in some ways, still going on. Their constant desire to be a third wheel in our relationship. I hear about it from well meaning relatives (who have dialed it back after being told that DH and I don't want to discuss unhappy topics during happy times). MIL and FIL are still trying to get information on us and get relatives to pass on "advice" for them. So I can't really forgive them for something they haven't stopped doing and for something they show no remorse for doing. All I can do is back away to minimize the effect their actions have on me. If we reopen the relationship, even if we put everything from the past in the past, I worry my ILs have an almost pathological need to direct our lives. Which will just lead to new things to have to do the forgiveness dance for, and more times of deciding if I go along with their "advice" and move my spice cabinet, take my dog to x groomer, whatever or do what I'd prefer to do and listen to their arguing when I explain to them why we're not or when they see that we haven't done what they "suggested".
Part of me feels like there is a solution out there because we now live pretty far from them, so how much can they really attach themselves to us. But another part of me worries that the answer will still be "a lot". And I don't know if it's crueler not to try or to try and end up right back where we started but with them and my DD having had some type of relationship. In an ideal world, when we said to them that we needed to have a little space, they would have graciously given that to us, and we would all still be in contact. But in reality, when we said that, they reacted by claiming that we didn't love them and trying to attach themselves to us even more. I guess if this was an easy fix, I wouldn't be on message board trying to find a solution,