I have never gotten the impression, expressed or implied, that shunning was an CONSCIENCE OPTIONAL thing. My relatives DO however, pick and choose the degree and the time and the occasion that they DO shun. They write their own rules. My mother in law and I are both DAd. My husband and his sister, and her husband and their five kids...are all JWs. My sister in law talks to me and treats me cordially when I am around her. She doesnt seek me out, but when I am there (she is moving into my house with my almost ex) she always talks "normally" to me. However, she has told her mother in writing that she wants nothing to do with her and doesnt want her around her children.
So...then came my daughters graduation party his last June. All the JWs came into town the night before, and they all explicitly NONINVITED my mother in law and I to dinner that night...and there was no mistake about us NOT being invited. The next DAY however, at the PARTY with all the nonJWs in the area watching them, they were cordial and friendly and mingling and talking to BOTH of us. My non JW sister, to whom I have over the years tried to explain this whole shunning thing, watched both the SHUNNING the night before and the obvious hypocrisy at the party with great disdain. So whatever they were trying to "show the world" about their nonshunning policy, failed.
Right after that party, they went right back to shunning my mother in law.
Optional? Hell no.