So- I’ve lurked here and first time poster. It’s long, apologies.
I recently wrote my mother a lengthy but carefully considered letter outlining serious concerns about her longstanding financial mismanagement, hoarding, lack of planning, and reliance on her adult children to repeatedly manage crises. I explained the significant emotional and practical toll this has taken on us and asked her to engage in a sustainable financial plan with appropriate safeguards, so we could protect her future security and preserve our relationship. I did not mention any legal action, although certainly I have discussed the option of making a financial guardianship application with my sister. I am a social worker and I am very aware of what this entails.
For context, my mother has not worked since she was about 25 due to illness and receives the DSP, although we have often questioned privately whether all of her reported limitations are genuine for many reasons. Regardless, she is a very unwell person in many ways, has no social or family connection an aside from me and my sister . Over her lifetime she has inherited more than $1 million++ from her wealthy parents, who are now deceased, and has largely spent it on purchases from places such as Temu and eBay, as well as other bizarre or unnecessary items. They had actually put a trust condition on her inheritance that also aimed to preserve investments for us as grandchildren (aware of her behaviour) However, unfortunately, as my sister and I were very enmeshed and parentified children (esp at this stage in our very early adulthood) and she convinced us this was totally unjust and we assisted to support having the trust removed and my mum received this money in full. What a mistake. She burned through it rapidly and we each received only 20k- which as naive kids in debt who had never been given anything seemed amazing at the time- I paid off my credit card debt.
She is extremely disorganised and can be grandiose, hysterical, aggressive, or avoidant when anyone questions her decisions. She also has a pattern of decompensating during periods of stress and threatening suicide or wish “to be found dead in her bed”. This was a regular expression of hers while myself and my husband worked to remove her hoard and clean her filthy home.
My sibling and I have spent much of our lives rescuing her, paying for house insurance (which she felt uneccessary) and crisis expenses, and dealing with the consequences of her decisions. We have received little to no financial or practical support from either parent while growing up, (father also very neglectful) and our childhoods involved significant abuse and neglect. My mother actually left us as kids when I was four years old, we lived with my father and his very abusive ride until I was about 13. Despite this, we have continued trying to support our mother through adulthood and had assumed that we would keep doing so indefinitely.
Rather than acknowledge any of my concerns or suggest any alternative when receiving my letter, she responded with an aggressive message asserting her legal rights, refusing any financial oversight, and declaring the matter of her capacity/competency permanently closed. She then demanded immediate repayment of a family loan, the return of her car, and the return of her house key, and threatened legal action.
She also said that she had contacted a legal advocate, who told her that we had no grounds to make a guardianship application as family members. That advice is largely toothless, because advice is only as good as the information provided by the person seeking it. We have extensive evidence, and documentation of the impact of her lifelong conduct that coukd be presented and would definitely be taken very seriously. We also have substantial evidence of our repeated attempts to engage her in meaningful protective planning and discussion. It is deeply upsetting that a request for conversation and acknowledgement was met with threats from her, but that response is unfortunately consistent with the broader pattern.
The loan is money I have which I have intended to hold in the medium term to help preserve it for her future. She has no other superannuation, savings, or capacity to earn an income. I have no intention of spending the money for myself. The only reason she even had these funds to loan me (I needed as I bought a new house this year and while my partner and I are in good professions we are playing some catch up), is becaus last year I took 3 weeks off work to rescue her from destitution and arranged for her hoarded, deteriorating, debt-ridden property to be cleaned up, managed, and sold to downsize into a place that was feasible for her to maintain. I have been trying to ensure that the remaining money she has due to the downsize windfall is protected to support her as she ages.
The issue with the car and keys is not complicated in the way she is presenting it. Her car was at our home because we were storing it safely for her while she is unable to drive it. We have our own cars and had no reason to use hers or take control of it. We kept a key to her house so we could access when necessary for safety checks and practical management. That access has genuinely been necessary at times, including recently when she broke her leg. Her demand for the immediate return of the car and keys feels as though she is portraying ordinary arrangements made for her safety as if we had stolen or withheld her property.
She has now positioned me as the sole problem, despite these being longstanding concerns shared by other family members (my sister and husband). It feels like another cycle of blame, intimidation, and punishment for attempting to establish reasonable boundaries. I am struggling with how cruel her response feels, particularly after years of trying to help her and protect her from the consequences of her own decisions.
I genuinely feel that I am finally ready to close the door and go no contact. At this point, continuing to engage seems likely to expose me only to more abuse and manipulation. I feel guilty that this may leave my sister to manage the situation alone, especially because I do not think she is currently able to maintain the boundaries I have tried to establish. I also feel sad that my children may lose contact with their grandmother. They have only one emotionally safe grandparent left, and it is painful to think of them having even less family support.
I would really appreciate validation that stepping away is reasonable, particularly after years of trying to help and protect her. I would also appreciate support with explaining this to my children. They are five and seven years old, and I am struggling to explain why we will no longer be seeing Grandma without burdening them with adult details, making them feel responsible, or encouraging them to take sides.
How have others explained estrangement or no contact with a grandparent to young children? What wording helped? How did you respond if the children asked whether Grandma was angry, whether they had done something wrong, or whether they would see her again?
If you got through this! Thankyou

Has anyone taken any of her courses and found them helpful? I'm contemplating joining one but since they are on the pricier side I'd like to get some feedback first. For those who don't know her; she's a Canadian therapist that specialises in how to heal from emotionally immature parents.

I grew up the scapegoated child of severely mentally ill narcissists. I've spent a lot of time in therapy understanding that I was scapegoated, and learning how to start trusting my own judgments again. But, every now and then I find myself accidentally slipping back into this response. I'm still in touch with one family member, and she manages to trigger me right back into that role without effort.

I guess my question is: how long does it take? How many times of coming back to myself before I feel like I have integrated that they are the problem and not me? Because right now I go through these cycles of feeling stuck and having clarity, and even though the cycles get longer and less intense, I guess I had kind of hoped that understanding that I am not the problem would stop me feeling that way ever again.

I'm not surrounded by friends. I'm not surrounded by family. I most certainly don't have any money and I'm not drowning in gifts either. But I'm happy. I don't know why I'm happy but I am. It's weird, right?

I haven’t spoken to my dad in over a year, and it’s been about three months since I last spoke to my mom.
There must have been a sudden drop in temperature in Beijing last night. Before going to bed, I made a point of checking every window, making sure they were all shut so the cold wind wouldn’t sneak in like it did last time. But I still woke up shivering, again and again, throughout the night.
I wrapped my thin summer comforter tightly around myself, curled up in bed, and had a dream.
In the dream, I’d bought some plants and left them on the balcony. I asked my parents to water them for me, and then, almost as an afterthought, I said, “I think it’s time to switch to the Big Bread.”
Big Bread is what I call my thick, soft, fluffy winter comforter.
I felt so safe saying those words. I knew they would remember. I knew that by the time I came home, they would have changed the comforter for me.

和爸爸断开联系已经一年多，和妈妈断联三个月左右。昨夜应该是北京大降温，我特意在睡前检查关上了每扇窗户，防止像上次那样让冷风溜进屋，但还是在夜里睡觉时一次次被冻醒。
我将夏天用的薄被紧紧的裹住自己的身体，蜷缩在床上做了一个梦。
梦中我买了一些植物，放在阳台上拜托他们帮我浇水，然后顺嘴说了一句：“我想把被子换成大面包了。”大面包是我给冬天专用的那床厚实松软的被子起的名字。我说这句话的时候是那么安心，我知道他们一定会记住，等梦中的我回来时帮我换上。

About a week ago, I posted this: Been on the Fence About Having My Dad in My Life for Almost a Decade, Am I Overreacting?

Well, I'm doing it. After almost 10 years of being on the fence, and a year of being relatively low contact, I'm going no contact with my father.

I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing, but the distress he causes me is unsustainable. And this day has been coming for a long time. Last weekend I wiped my old Facebook in a panic (after he liked a post I made) and created a new one under a different name (the surname I intend to switch to legally). There have been a lot of conversations, with my counsellor, my girlfriend, and now my brother. The last conversation was the most thorough. We spoke for quite a few hours today, about what our childhood was like, how such has impacted us, what I'm doing and why, and how he's likely to be impacted (my brother, that is). It was a very very good conversation. I may not know exactly what I'm doing, but I know I've got a brother that supports me 100%, just as I support him 100%. That helps me to feel a little less terrified.

​

I'm 38, and I think I'm finally understanding why it has been so difficult for me to fully detach from my family of origin. It's not just the emotional damage from growing up with my father. It's the realization that my grandmother and father have been preparing me and my brother for a role we never agreed to take on, and that my grandmother may be pushing for reconciliation now because she wants to make sure I'm still willing to fulfill that role after she's gone.

My father has been emotionally harmful to me for as long as I can remember. His behavior has repeatedly been hostile, hurtful, and, at times, genuinely terrifying. I've forgiven him countless times over the years, hoping things would change. They never do. The same patterns repeat, and I'm expected to forgive him again and move on. Eventually, I've come to realize that I cannot keep putting myself through this cycle.

My grandmother, who is 96, has spent much of her life taking care of my father and shielding him from the consequences of his behavior. He has been enabled for so long that he has never had to develop the level of independence and accountability most adults are expected to have. She has consistently protected him, made excuses for him, and minimized the harm he has caused me and others.

But what I'm only now fully appreciating is that this dynamic extends far beyond our relationship today.

Since my brother and I were teenagers, we have been told that we would be responsible for our father after our grandmother dies. We were never asked if we wanted this responsibility. It was simply presented as an inevitable part of our future. We were even designated as trustees of a trust containing a small sum of money intended to support him because he is considered too irresponsible to manage it himself.

Think about that for a moment. We were teenagers, and the adults in our family were already planning for us to take over the role our grandmother has played in our father's life. No one asked what we wanted. No one considered whether we would even have a healthy relationship with him as adults. It was just assumed that because we are his children, we would eventually take care of him.

Neither my brother nor I intend to accept this responsibility.

Now I'm beginning to wonder whether this is why my grandmother has become so insistent that I forgive my father and repair our relationship. When I explain why I've distanced myself, she tells me how much he loves me, how heartbroken he is, and how I should sit down with him and reconcile. The focus is always on his feelings and on restoring the relationship, not on acknowledging what he has done or why I no longer feel safe continuing the same cycle.

I cannot know for certain what is motivating her, but I have started to wonder whether she needs to believe that our relationship is repaired before she dies so that she can feel confident I will eventually step into the role she has planned for me.

And honestly, that realization makes me angry.

It feels as though my future has been mapped out around my father's needs since I was a teenager. First, I was expected to tolerate his behavior and forgive him. Now, I'm apparently expected to inherit responsibility for him, regardless of how he has treated me or what I want for my own life.

I have my own family and children. I have spent years trying to make sense of my childhood and establish healthier boundaries. I am actively trying to break these patterns so my daughters never feel obligated to tolerate harmful behavior simply because someone is family.

Yet I still feel tethered to the people who have caused me so much pain.

My grandmother has also been saying for approximately ten years that she could die any day. I understand that she is 96 and that her time is limited. But the constant sense of urgency has become emotionally exhausting. It feels as though I am always supposed to call more, visit more, forgive more, and put my feelings aside because I might regret it when she's gone.

Recently, my father even sent me an email from my grandmother's email account with volatile words (because his email had been blocked for years for sending many volatile shitagrams over the years).When I tried to explain to her how hurtful it was that she allowed him to have access to me through her email to further terrorize me, she responded by encouraging forgiveness and reconciliation.

I feel angry that she cannot acknowledge the severity of his behavior. I feel angry that she continues to protect him while expecting me to absorb the consequences. And I feel angry that I was never given a choice about this future she and my father apparently envisioned for me.

Here is something I've been struggling to admit: sometimes I wish my grandmother would just die so this entire situation could finally end.

I don't want her to suffer. I want to be free from the guilt, the pressure, the expectations, and the feeling that I cannot fully move on with my life while she is still here. I want to stop feeling that I owe my father a relationship and that I owe my grandmother the reassurance that I will eventually take care of him.

I hate that I feel this way, but I think I'm exhausted by the idea that I will never truly be free unless something outside of me finally brings this family dynamic to an end.

Intellectually, I know I can establish boundaries now and I do believe I may have to extend NC to her now, at 96 years old. I know I can refuse the caretaker role. But emotionally, it feels like I am fighting against a lifetime of conditioning that tells me I am responsible for keeping everyone else comfortable, even at my own expense.

I am also grieving the family I wish I had. I wish my grandmother had protected me when I was younger. I wish my father could take accountability for his behavior. I wish I could have a grandmother-granddaughter relationship that wasn't so intertwined with my father and his needs.

I don't know if my grandmother will ever acknowledge any of this. I don't know if my father will ever change. And I am beginning to accept that I may never receive the acknowledgment or accountability I've wanted for so long.

What I do know is that neither my brother nor I wants to spend the rest of our lives managing our father. We did not agree to this, and we will not accept it simply because our family decided it was our future.

I'm trying to give myself permission to choose my own life, even if that means disappointing people who have spent decades expecting something different from me.

For those who have dealt with an elderly relative who continually pressures you to reconcile with an abusive or emotionally harmful parent, how did you navigate that relationship without sacrificing your own well-being?

I feel like my only option left is to cut her off now too.

I don't want revenge. I don't want to punish anyone. I just want to stop feeling as though my life belongs to my family of origin.

I want to be free to live my own life, raise my children differently, and finally stop carrying responsibilities that were never mine to begin with. I want peace.

I had an emotionally and physically abusive father. He was an alcoholic. He spent money we didn’t have on beer and computer games. When I was little, I thought we were really close because we would have these really in-depth conversations about his family and all of the things that he has been through in his life. We talked about his grandpa that molested his three daughters and beat the shit out of him. We talked about how his mom never lifted a finger to take care of him so he was homeless starting at age 16. We talked about all the drug addicts and alcoholics on his side of the family. He even told me one time that he knows he does a lot of the same things that were done to him to us, but that he was trying to break that cycle. I was eight having these conversations. And he did not break that cycle.

My mom had some emotionally abusive tendencies as well. She was also just very emotionally unavailable. I can’t remember ever being hugged by my mother or kissed by my mother. She would also blame my dad‘s actions on our behavior.

As a 30 year-old female and oldest daughter, I understand how the cycle works and I will say that what we got was maybe not as bad as what my dad got, but it wasn’t good by any means. However, my mother had the best parents. She has four sibling who are all very close. She had a family that was there for her. Anything they wanted to do; sports, band, cheerleading… my grandparents helped them do it. They coached the teams. They drove them everywhere. She also grew up knowing both sides of her family (I don’t know my dad’s). No family is perfect and we do have the fuck ups on my mom side of the family too. But I don’t think we talk enough about the cycle starters.

For years now, I have been trying to figure out how my mother ended up being the mother that she was even when she had the best example of parents she could’ve possibly had. My grandparents are also the best example of marriage she could’ve possibly had and still, I ended up with her as my mother. And she stayed with a narcissistic evil man (until she did go through with a divorce and now she’s saying she’s going back). I don’t know where these things come from. And I guess I wanna know.

I’ve heard a lot of people throw around the phrase “breaking generational curses“… we talk about breaking the cycles, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about where the cycle started. Somehow, myself, and my three siblings turned out all right. I think even the least emotionally intelligent of the four of us has more emotional intelligence and integrity in their pinky finger than my parents do in both of their bodies combined. I think she could have started a cycle. And honestly, she may have and we just don’t know it yet. Not to mention my dad’s part in continuing his family’s cycle.

Anyways. Just a thought I had.

Have been no contact for a very long time. The dumb cunt just dropped off like 6-7 boxes of useless garbage in my garage. I'm mid 40s and she wants me to have my 1st grade report card, and American girl doll? I think not. All of it went directly into the dumpster. Instead of rage emailing her to leave me the f alone, I'm just throwing it in the garbage and continuing no contact. I hate her.

I’m 38. I got laid off from my job in 2025, and a few months ago, I asked my mom if I could stay with her and her husband for two weeks before leaving the country. I don’t currently have my own apartment, and I thought it was a pretty reasonable request.
Instead, my mom and her husband kicked me out, and my mom sided with him. It really hurt because I always thought that if I genuinely needed help, I could count on my mom.

My mom is remarried, and I suspect she prioritizes her marriage over her relationship with me. Her husband and I have never really gotten along. We get into arguments over things he says, and I suspect he has narcissistic personality disorder. I sometimes wonder whether my mom even recognizes his behavior or understands the dynamics of their relationship.

The strange thing is that my mom acts nice when we interact normally. But her actions when I needed help made me question how she really feels about me. I feel like, over the years, her husband may have influenced how she sees me, making her believe I’m a burden who asks too much of them. The reality is that I’ve been extremely independent my entire life. I paid for my own college and have always supported myself. I’m not some 38-year-old living in their basement refusing to get a job.

I’ve lost a lot of trust and respect for my mom because of this. I don’t understand how a parent can watch their own child struggle and not be willing to offer even two weeks of help, especially when that child is preparing to leave the country anyway.
Now I’m questioning my extended family, too. My relatives are generally nice to my face, but I sometimes wonder whether they judge me or talk about me behind my back. Maybe they have a completely different perception of me than I realize.
I recently messaged a cousin I haven’t seen in a while to ask whether she’d ever felt that our family was toxic and whether her parents had been supportive of her. I briefly explained what happened with my mom, but she hasn’t responded.

She’s the only cousin around my age I can really relate to. My other cousin passed away two years ago, so I don’t have another person in the family to talk to about this stuff. My dad isn’t someone I can rely on either, so I feel pretty alone when it comes to family support.

Now I’m wondering whether my cousin doesn’t want to get involved, whether she has a good relationship with her parents and doesn’t want to jeopardize it, or whether that side of the family has a negative opinion of me. Maybe they all think I’m a screw-up. I honestly don’t know.

I realize I could be overthinking her silence, but this whole experience has made me look at my family differently. My mom’s actions have made me question whether the relationship I thought I had with her was ever what I believed it was.

I’m approaching 40, and I guess I expected family relationships to look different by now. I also think there’s a generational difference in how my parents view helping adult children and the cost of living today. My mom doesn’t seem to understand how expensive rent and everyday life have become.
I wasn’t asking to move into their basement indefinitely or live off them while I looked for another job. I asked for two weeks of accommodation while I prepared to move abroad. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable request between a parent and an adult child, especially when the child has been independent for most of their life.

I know parents aren’t obligated to provide housing for their adult children, but I thought there would be more compassion and willingness to help when I was going through a difficult transition.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Where a parent acts nice on the surface, but when you genuinely need them, their actions make you question whether they really care about you? Did it change how you viewed the rest of your family? And how did you deal with losing trust in a parent you always thought would be there for you?

My father had a job where he literally helped people all day (Paramedic and Firefighter). Despite having this job, he had no sympathy or remorse for people. Maybe he did when he started and lost it over time, regardless he didn’t care for people much. To neighbors and friends he was seen as a great man that everyone loved. He also was charismatic, surfed, had a laidback image.

As a kid I’d sometimes hint to friends that my dad was not nice and they couldn’t believe me cause my dad was so nice and had this image of being a badass with a heart of gold. He appeared to most as a laidback guy that listened to Bob Marley songs that surfed and put out fires. Just wondering if your parents appeared as great people or if everyone thought they sucked.

I’m pretty much low-to-no contact with most of my extended family. I come from a huge family, and the drama has always been complicated, messy, and generational. At some point, I decided I wanted no part of it anymore. I distanced myself, and my life has been much quieter and more peaceful because of it.

Anyway, last year, I learned that my first cousin had confided in my mother that she was molested by our uncle when she was a teenager. This uncle is her mother's and my mother's brother. Instead of receiving sympathy or support, my cousin was immediately accused of making it up, imagining things, or exaggerating what happened. There were also the usual excuses, like, "Well, that was over 20 years ago. Why didn't she say something back then?"

What really bothered me was how my mother handled the whole thing, because it was almost identical to how she treated me when my father was physically abusing me, starting in my preteens. The abuse only stopped when I moved out to a city two hours away. (She still to this day fails to understand that I separated myself from the family to save myself. She thinksI "abandoned" her by moving out.) Throughout those years, my mother blamed me, never comforted me, and never wanted to talk about what was happening. Somehow, she always managed to make everything about herself. My father was a narcissistic, abusive, hot-tempered megalomaniac who needed to exert dominance and control whenever he could, but my mother was also incredibly emotionally immature, male-centered, and the type of woman who would defend a man at the expense of another woman, even her own daughter.

Now, my cousin has been on a warpath trying to reclaim properties belonging to her mother that her siblings had previously been "sharing." Naturally, the family has labeled her as unreasonable and accused her of overreacting. My cousin has also said she's willing to forgive our uncle if he agrees to pay for her weekly therapy sessions. She has insurance, but finding providers who offer the specific treatment she needs has been difficult, and the available options are either limited or prohibitively expensive. Said uncle by the way, is a millionaire.

I recognize that she's trying to navigate something incredibly painful while being dismissed by the very people who should have supported her.

What bothers me most is that, more than 20 years later, my mother hasn't changed. Seeing how she responded to my cousin brought back a lot of memories of how alone I felt growing up. It's one thing to know that your mother failed to protect you as a child. It's another to see her repeat that same behavior toward someone else decades later.

I've already kept my distance from my family for years, but this has made me want even less contact with my mother. I don't feel particularly guilty about it, either. I just find it sad that she had another opportunity to show some compassion, and once again, she chose to dismiss someone else's pain.

Am I wrong for wanting to distance myself from my mother even more over how she treated my cousin, especially given our own history?

I’m in my mid twenties and plan on moving out in the next few months, a year at most. My dad is thankfully no longer with us (physical abuser who chose drugs over his family no matter how many people intervened to help him), so it’s my mom, my sisters, and I.

I made the mistake of coming out as trans at 13, and I’ve been regretting that decision for more than a decade because no one respects my identity or shows any sympathy for me. When I finally started transitioning my mom started making comments about my body that frankly might count as sexual harassment. I told my therapist the things she said and her jaw dropped.

Even ignoring that, tho. I’ve never gotten any sympathy for anything. As a kid my family watched me develop a tooth infection that was so bad I couldn’t eat or sleep for 4 days, and told me to stop whining and that it was all in my head.

I got injured at work a few months back and ended up out of work for a month and a half. I was absolutely tortured for it at home. I was called lazy told I was “fine” and to just go back to work immediately. I told my mom the doctor said if I went back too early I would develop chronic pain and she just did not care. She literally said “so what? So do I.”

That conversation just opened my eyes. I’ve tried to get her to care about my pain in the past and now I realize what a waste of time that was. I don’t really think she or anyone else in my family is actually going to change and I just don’t want to carry that kind of negativity into my late 20s and 30s.

Anyone else deal with a family that just dgaf about your pain?

I am low contact with both my parents, I would say mostly because of my mom (lots of emotional and mental abuse, narcissistic behavior), but I have a lot of complicated feelings about his enabling of her behavior. Additionally, I don't really feel emotionally safe or close to either of them. My dad has a chronic illness and has been in and out of the hospital for like 9 years. He has definitely had a marked decline in the last year. I have so much anxiety even thinking about going there or calling him (which I have done, but the conversation felt so awkward and I felt so much panic in my body before I called), but I also feel some guilt that I don't ""care more"". He was undoubtedly the best parent I had despite the issues (enabling abuse, misogyny/homophobia which is why i'm not out to my family, parentification). I do genuinely believe he loves me, but just not the way I need and I have trouble seeing past the negatives to feel the positives. He has apologized for some things that he felt he did wrong as a parent, which I appreciated but it still doesn't feel like enough. I do feel badly that I am hurting him by not going to see him, or really even reaching out to him regularly even when he isn't in the hospital. He likely will not live another year honestly.

Has anyone been in this situation ever felt regret after your lc/nc parent passed? I am not sure if I genuinely will feel regret for not being a more involved daughter at the end of his life or if this is the voice of my mother who has consistently said I will (she has stopped that recently, thankfully). Just really looking to hear others experience as I feel so conflicted.

My dad and I haven’t been in contact for almost two years after we have had a big falling out three years ago and failed to work it out. We live on different continents. Three years ago was the last time I saw him face to face. Since our falling out he has stopped interacting with my kids, who are 10 and under, entirely as well.

The falling out wasn’t great but I can say with confidence that it wasn’t me. I didn’t yell. I wasn’t rude. He kept pushing boundaries and I gently but firmly held my boundaries. I imagine a lot of people here will understand what that dynamic is like. We have had a troubled family history. As an adult, I have tried to foster a good surface level relationship with him but the visit was just awful. All I stopped doing was allowing him to make every conversation about him, to say nasty things about my other parent who is no longer living and I stopped him instantly whenever he’d get handsy with the kids and didn’t listen to their boundaries.

Once he was back home, communication was unpleasant and he even fully ignored us when we went through a severe weather emergency. He stopped responding to photos and stories shared about my kids in a family group chat. We spoke on the phone several times and it blew up. He made up an entirely new narrative that somehow meant I was the awful person. I tried to talk with him about it but he was set on making me the villain in the story.

In the conversations he has yelled at me, attacked my person, compared me with my abusive mother. I have not raised my voice at him and haven’t retaliated. I haven’t let him bait me into being openly angry with him.

He stopped talking to me altogether a couple of years ago. Doesn’t wish the kids a happy birthday. Nothing but complete silence.

I have messaged him at least 4 times to let him know I’d be happy to agree to disagree and try and move on. Nothing. Nothing at all.

In the past week I gathered the courage to send him a final email, asking him to reconsider what he is doing and to join me in trying to be a better family while we still can. He is not far off 80 so God knows how much time we have left.

Again. Absolute silence. I tried to message him elsewhere to check that he has received the message but it appears he has blocked me everywhere. I even sent the email again from another address that he doesn’t have in case he blocked my emails as well.

If you have read this far, thank you. I don’t know why I still try but I guess everybody just wants loving parents. I hate having a living parent who actively chooses to abandon me. That hurts on such a fundamental level.

If you’re still here and you have been through something similar - any words of wisdom?

Hello! I hope this is the right subreddit. I haven't left yet, but ever since I was 14, it was my only real goal in life to be able to. I am in my early 20s now, and I feel that I took too long. For over the past 3 years, my parents have slowly mellowed out. They are not at all the people they used to be in my youth. They have genuinely changed, but we will never talk about the things that happened when I was younger. I don't seek an apology from or reconciliation with them either now. However, because they have changed so much and they seem to be genuinely good people now, I suddenly feel intense guilt that I will be causing pain and suffering to these good people. They're not anymore the people who hurt me so deeply in my past. I know that leaving was never revenge or an attempt to hurt them because I knew they wouldn't care for me if I did, and it was purely for myself, but suddenly it feels like a decision that would hurt them, and I can't shake the guilt at all. I know that just because they are better now doesn't mean that it didn't hurt back then, but I just feel like an awful person knowing they might be sad about it now. I spent so long not caring about the consequences of leaving and fully believing they would honestly be relieved, but I feel so burdened by it now that they actually seem to care for me or will miss me. Has anyone else felt this way?

Did all of the processing years ago, I don't even feel particularly relieved. It happened back in September and I don't know what I expected but I feel neither catharsis nor worrying numbness.

She was as much sinned against as sinning and I wouldn't say I hated her, but a relationship was entirely untenable. When I ended the relationship almost a decade ago, I said that I would be happy to restart a relationship if she showed me evidence of six months of some kind of treatment (communicated through my sister, with my sister's acceptance); I didn't need her to be doing well or even be different in affect, I just wanted any evidence of effort, and I never got it. Ending the relationship was a lifechanging relief.

In the last ten years she tracked my address down in a foreign country and bombarded me with correspondence to the point I had to blacklist her sending address; she even travelled to try and force a meeting once, but by total coincidence I was out of the country at the time. I hope this of all places will understand when I say I'm not really convinced this was evidence of sincere pain and love but more a need to reassert a version of her life that flattered her ego: the version where she had a great relationship with her child. I don't really know what she felt for me, really. Other people who love me have loved me very differently.

I've been most emotionally affected by a close friend of hers who is like an aunt to me; when we became estranged I accepted that she would probably be lost to me, accepted appearing the villain etc. I sincerely didn't want my mum to lose her friends and I never said anything against her to them, I won't now either, but this friend independently sought me out. She said, at one point: "I want you to let me argue in favour of reconciliation once and then I'll never do it again," and she kept her word; I'm extremely grateful for that to the point that it makes me cry just thinking about it.

My mum was not exactly complicit in child sexual abuse; I will actually never know for sure how much she knew about what was happening to me, but she was a fabulist who needed to pretend things were fine, and at a certain point that became unbearable to me. She wanted to pretend we were a gayboy version of the Gilmore Girls, in essence, and we weren't.

She was an alcoholic who at eight years old had me cleaning her up for truant officer visits; she was on the other hand also herself abused by my abuser. She weaponised threats of suicide quite often; she did so as a genuinely mentally ill woman. She was charismatic and very sad and obsessed with appearing impressive to others in ways that were maddeningly minor - as a teenager I became very used to saying "that's not how I remember it" and looking like a pedantic dickhead in company.

I feel immense sadness about her life, which I think was blighted by misogyny; I think (genuinely without resentment) that she would have been an infinitely happier woman if she hadn't had children, and I'm sincerely sorry she didn't get that life. She is an object lesson to me to live the life I want. I think she was probably a lovely patient to have and a right laugh to her nurses; my sister (who attended the funeral) says that the eulogy mentioned her strong impact on her friends, which I think is likely very true. I think people can be extraordinarily different people in different contexts, etc.

For all this though, I'm not really upset, thoughtful at most. She was terminally ill for a long time and I accepted whatever cruelty I was committing in not deathbed reconciling a long time ago. I worry a little about being so sociopathically at peace with all this, really.

30M UK. Always had family issues (very bad arguments, double standards, causing extremely poor mental health for me, etc) with them since I was a teenager. I was/am the black sheep.

Parents:

We have always had issues. We are very different people, I find them boring, controlling and stressful to be around. They are unable to admit fault and they created/maintained a family dynamic where my sister's emotions are the priority.

E.g. On the rare occasion when the 4 of us have a disagreement where I am 100% in the right, it still took a long time for me to argue my case & for them to see what my sister was wrong... But as soon as she started crying, all of my logic & reason was ignored, and I was in the wrong again because I'd upset her...

Their default initial stance is to disagree with mine. They can be incredibly incompetent but insist on taking a "project manager" role whenever they're around me. So they start by asking questions about my life (work, social, personal, etc) until they find something that I haven't done yet, and then they use it as an opportunity to "encourage" (aka berate) me. There is no polite way to ask them to stop, they keep going, and will do it again next time.

Multiple times I've accepted their help, and ask them to do something a specific way. They agree, but when I come back to see/we talk later, I found out it wasn't done the way I asked... They decide "ah it doesn't matter" and don't do the things I've asked them to do (that they agreed to...). And many times this means that I have to undo then repeat their work... All while they insist they did nothing wrong.

They can also have no self awareness, and embarrass/emasculate me in public.

I've had sleeping issues for a long time, and whenever I would go home I would ask to sleep in. They might agree, but then I would often wake up to one of them outside my bedroom door (them being on the way to the bathroom) and they'd be yelling to the other one who is downstairs...

Every time I see my parents we argue really badly. They are incredibly stubborn, have little respect for my opinions/requests/etc. They impose all kinds of double standards on our relationship, and if I call them out they insist that they're just "trying to help", and brush aside any legitimate concerns.

To be fair to them, they are willing/keen to help me out with various things, and I would be wrong not to acknowledge the effort they put into that. But it often ends up feeling that they put all their points into "helping son with chores" and none/very little into "understanding him/respecting boundaries/not being controlling" etc.

Sister:

Things went up and down over the years. At times I'd be closer to my sister, at other times we'd drift apart. The last 5 years it got bad. Several really bad arguments. We had a few attempts are reconciling, but they didn't go well.

At one point 2-3years ago, I was messaging her trying to sort something out, and I was expecting that we would be looking to continue our discussions into the issues- we'd last discussed several incidents where I knew I was more in the wrong. During those face to face discussions, I gave details of my side for nuance/context but I made sure to acknowledge I was more in the wrong and apologise properly. So later when I was messaging her I was expecting to pick up the conversation again and get into some things that I felt she should acknowledge wrongdoing & apologise for.

During that messaging (still 2-3years ago) she made it clear that she didn't want to discuss the issues any more and wanted to try to put it behind us and start again, clean slate. I said I wasn't happy to do that as we have tried that before (IMO) and it hasn't worked, because if she/my parents don't acknowledge/understand what they do that is wrong, what stops them from doing it in the future...?

I said pretty much exactly that to her. She doubled down and said she was tired of the discussions, and that she doesn't see how assigning blame is helpful. I said that's convenient because she doesn't mind doing that when I'm in the wrong... I felt like she just wants to avoid the next topics because deep down she knows she's more in the wrong.

She tripled down, and I lost all energy to engage. I sent a few messages summarising my side, and then blocked her.

2-3ish years later (recently), she reached out and let me know she was pregnant. I was happy initially, but had mixed feelings. Part of me assumed that she would be open to those discussions again, if she was reaching out I assumed that she would want me to potentially be in her child's life, and last time we'd spoken I'd made it clear that I wanted to discuss those old issues that we hadn't managed to yet (ever).

As we have messaged a little since her news, she has once again made it clear that she does not want to discuss those things... Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. Given how clear it was from my last messages.

My mental health is very poor right now aside from family stuff. I can't work out if I should try to open the door to having a relationship with my sister, and/or parents, or whether I should call it quits. Any advice would be great, thanks.

TL;DR Currently LC with parents and sister. Found out I'm going to be an uncle. I haven't seen my sister for 2+ years, rarely see my parents.

I’m wondering if this difference affects how experience estrangement. I’ve been NC from my family for about 20 years, and while I very much missed the idea of having a supportive loving family, I didn’t miss the individuals in my family at all. Looking at some of the posts in this sub I get the idea that many people miss the individuals in their families, and that seems to make estrangement much more difficult for them.
I’m just asking so I can better understand people’s perspectives. Though most of us here are estranged, I don’t want to mistakenly think my experiences are more similar to other people’s than they really are.

Tomorrow is my mother's 75th birthday. I'm her only child, she's unmarried, and we have no other local family. I was always the person in the family who made birthdays special. I remember on her 70th I was thinking I would have to really make 75 special. Instead I'll be ignoring it. We're now in the longest stretch we've ever had of complete NC. I figure if she's fine with it every other day then she has to accept that includes these occasions. There at the end before I cut contact, my daughter and I were getting relegated to only being props for holidays anyway. I still feel sad about it though. I wish I had a mother who actually wanted to build a positive relationship and it's hard not to have that. Days like this remind me.

TW: mention of physical abuse and suicide attempt

I grew up in a very dysfunctional environment where my rageaholic dad was emotionally and physically abusive while my enabler mom watched. He was unpredictable in his outbursts and aggression, highly psychologically controlling, and was unable to tolerate normal kid behaviors and mess. As the youngest, I would get hit the most. Sometimes my mom would tell on me to him about behaviors knowing he would beat me and leave bruises on me as punishment that evening.

She stayed in the marriage until I was about to start HS, when my older sibling threatened to disown the entire family if she didn't divorce him.

From that point forward, I was very isolated and treated like a houseplant. My dad agreed to not have shared custody of me because he refused to admit that he needed mental health treatment. My sister moved out of state for college. My mom met my basic physical needs but she was emotionally unavailable and neglected to support my developmental needs like helping me get enough practice hours for a driving permit, teaching me to cook, etc. She actively discouraged me from getting a job in my last years of HS, saying I had my whole life to work. Due to this I was naive and inexperienced for the real world. My senior year of HS I attempted to overdose due to depression.

After HS she kicked me out of the house despite agreeing previously I could stay a couple years while I attended community college. She couldn't tolerate my depression.

My mom then moved three hours away to marry a man she met less than a year earlier on an online dating site. She said it was time to move on and focus on her own life. My mom and sister had a falling out regarding the man she chose to marry. Then my sister also moved away after getting married to someone she met on an online dating site.

So I was a new college graduate just trying to find my first professional job in a recession. My mom did not contact me, but she would answer if I called her to have her husband read the Bible and pray over the phone. I was very alone and socially inept as a young woman with undiagnosed ASD and trauma.

My mom would mainly contact me around the holidays to ask if I would visit her. It wasn't until I got married myself years later that she began calling more and trying to be close. She wanted to be an involved grandparent, yet she still did not make much effort to visit. When my first child was born with CF, a progressive lung disease, she tried to visit with walking pneumonia despite our warnings about the risks to our child's long term health. After a year of me demanding accountability for her behavior and her ghosting me in response, I finally went NC.

To this day, whenever I have reached out to discuss my childhood experiences, her failure to protect me from abuse, and how she jeopardized my child's health, she reverts back to a victim mentality. She says nobody is perfect and I need to take responsibility for my own life.

She is starting to have health issues as an elderly woman and I feel so guilty for not having a connection with her, but I can't stomach her total self absorption and emotional immaturity.

Has anyone found a way to acceptance? I keep hoping she'll finally offer a true morsel of acknowledgement and apology.

I spend a lot of time on this sub and a few others like it. From what I've seen, the large majority of people put up with years of abuse (sometimes without even realising) before deciding to NC.

For most people it seems like there's a 'final straw' moment that pushes then to go NC after tolerating unacceptable behaviour for so long.

For me, it was when new medication made me suicidal. My mother got jealous that she was no longer the most vulnerable person and so told me about having 'flashbacks' of the abuse I suffered as a toddler from my father.

A lot of this I never knew about and it was at that moment I realised she had enabled it all to happen and now was weaponising it against me out of jealousy. I knew that I wasn't safe with her then and certainly not now, so I ended up going NC.

Of course everyone's story is different, so what made you decide to go NC?

Was it an explicit event or just an accumulation of bad behaviour?