Bad Manners and Brimstone

OP here. Thank you to the people who replied. The topic of family dicussion has moved on and the problem is no more.

I only ended up listening at length to the two relatives who had already started in on me before I wrote the original post.

The way I avoided being lectured by other relatives over the phone was by mentioning that two other relatives (whom I left unnamed) had fussed at me - before I mentioned Fred's experience. That set the tone for the remaining relatives to be sympathetic. After all, I was telling them I'd felt attacked, so it sort of set up an expectation that of course they'd be lecturing me.