If you went NC with a parent did you ever regret it?

No.

I've been NC with a parent for 35yrs . I grieve for the parent I should have had not the one I got . Sometimes you just have to let toxic people go for your own wellbeing . No regrets here .

I am glad you found a path through but I was the opposite having a relationship really hurt me. They brought me to breakdown. That damaged my relationships with my husband and children. I was not a person to my father, my needs, me being a person with emotions was completely off his radar and my mother would follow him off a cliff. My father is likely undiagnosed ND with extreme self focus, lack of any empathy, he could be very cold and cruel. He made every excuse for my paedophile/rapist brother. He is also deeply misogynistic as is my mother. I don’t agree that forgiveness is a path for every relationship.

Be that as it may, there comes a point where you have to say enough now. You don't owe your parents a free pass to abuse you. Sometimes you just have to let them go if they're having a negative affect on your life.

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Lack of forgiveness hurts you. I felt physical pain when I stopped talking to my mother. I've forgiven her and moved on. Its easier to talk. Parents are just people too with trauma, brokenness, wounds etc.

I could have written this exact post, OP. Though the parent I’m NC with (my mum) married someone who committed a serious crime (CSA). It wasn’t so much the sexual abuse and the minimisation of what happened, but it was the reaction to my reaction. I was a bad person. I was being ridiculous. I was being attention seeking and ungrateful by making a fuss. Eventually my mum started spreading lies about Dh and I to explain why we were no longer close to make people think it was us who did horrible things to them to cause the relationship breakdown.

It’s not something in a million years that I ever could have seen coming. Before this we’d always been so close. But the pull of a toxic relationship with a manipulative man was too much. I would have thought you were bonkers 4 years ago to ever suggest something like this could have ever happened in my life.

We’ve been LC since this all happened 4 years ago, but completely NC for nearly 2 years. Do I still feel a lot of pain and trauma from it all? Yes. Do I wish it never happened? Yes. Do I ever regret the decision to go NC? Not for a second.

It’s sad that my mum brought so much chaos to her and our lives, that she put her grandchildren at risk to a known paedophile, that I went through everything I did to extricate us from that chaos. But my life is so much better now that our relationship is over. It was literally killing me. I developed a chronic illness from the stress. There is absolutely nothing she could ever do or say that would make me doubt that choice now. I was finally able to exhale for the first time in years.

I absolutely get this. It is definitely a last resort.

I’ve been NC with both my parents since
the first lockdown. I started to have major
flashbacks of childhood trauma, it was easy to stop contact.

i don’t regret it, i wish I’d done it sooner.

i am Sometimes sad that I don’t have decent parents but I don’t miss the ones I had.

NC with my mother for many years (5ish initially, then low contact for a few, NC for probably another 5, then saw her a week or so before she died)

I don't really regret it, occasionally I think I would like to have had an adult relationship with her, but I recognise deep down that she wouldn't have behaved the way I'd have liked her to - would've remained manipulative and verbally abusive.
Had more contact with my father after she'd died.

I regretted it a lot and had a lot of stress and anxiety. It ate me up everyday hours on end for months. I was depressed but never clinically diagnosed.

I read a lot about forgiveness without an apology and re-connected. They were willing to re-connect too (if you cut someone out are they open to coming back, it goes both ways).

They’re better with me these days too. They may not have apologised but their behaviour improved.

I’m opposite to many posters who say it was the best thing and no regrets. I wasn’t able to put it out of my mind, it was driving me out of my mind, ruining other aspects of my life.

That’s just my experience.

Me. I do regret it but also not. It’s hard. It was my Dad and when he died I went into quite a deep trauma for about a year. Awful dreams.

Sometimes I wish I could have had more compassion or tolerance or understanding, but then his behaviour was deeply painful. I think I understand it now and what caused it, but I didn’t then so his behaviour was incomprehensible to me and deeply, deeply distressing and felt immensely cruel.

i know my going no contact caused him deep pain.

No answers really. It ruptured things with the rest of my family too and I still find that difficult.

Its not an easy path to take, but then neither was the alternative.

I'd have to disagree strongly with that tbh. Depends on the crime obviously but nobody gets a free pass with me.

If they were convicted of a crime then they did their time. We don't all need to jump on the bandwagon and condemn. Lord knows I've done wrong. I'd be devastated if my family turned against me for whatever way I'd let society down. We don't really have a right to judge anyone.

I was in a similar position 7 years ago. TW for abuse but my bro abused family members including me. My parents manipulated me to stay silent, I absolutely adored them so when it all came out years later their subsequent behaviour broke me. It took me years to recover from what my family did. I felt every feeling imaginable. I would never trust them ever again, they are quite narcissistic though so in their eyes I’m the problem, it was so difficult at the time but I grieved a lot and I have moved on.

I was VLC with my DM for 7 yrs, would have been NC if it hadn't have been for logistics of a sibling that lived with her. I had no regrets, she passed a couple of years ago and I made a point of visiting the hospital at the end and being involved with the funeral etc. I never forgave her but it bought her peace that I was there, there is nothing more I could have done, I didnt want to regret not showing up. Her family have since reminded me why I chose to go LC (their behaviours are very similar) and they're headed into NC territory as well.

MIL was n/c with her father due to abuse as a child and when he died she seemed devastated and put it all over fb and pays tribute to him every birthday and Father's Day.
I think she regrets it based on that but then maybe that's her way of dealing with it.

Perhaps they deserve to feel like a pariah? Being elderly doesn't absolve anyone of their past sins.

I believe that unforgiveness towards parents blocks blessings and doesn't allow healing in your life. If parent has committed a crime, perhaps they feel like a pariah. I don't think I'd want to turn my back on an elderly parent when they feel rejected and vulnerable.

I think it depends on the person tbh when it comes to LC v NC. I couldn't do LC, I'm really black and white. It was easier to just cut him out completely. But as I say, maybe everyone 's not like that.

I am going to go against the grain here OP, and say that although NC can be the right option, it is really hard. I had a period of NC because my parents were constantly critical and selfish and in complete denial about how their actions in the past had affected me as a child. But I found it hard to not have that parental relationship, and I reinstated contact, but with clear boundaries and being very honest with them about what was not acceptable to me. I had a good relationship with them for the last 10 years of my mothers life, with one massive hiccup, but we were able to get through that, and I do feel my life has been better due to it.

My DM did something to me several years ago, everyone in my life said I should remove her from my life forever, I was incredibly hurt & for 5 years had no contact.

In the end I decided that the only way forward was to reconnect because everyone in the family was being harmed by the distance, I will never entirely trust her but I feel empathy for her I see her as sad & damaged.

It's hard when your parents who are supposed to support you & protect you make such awful decisions & fuck up to that degree. I am mid 50's & didn't want them to die without trying, I realised I had to live with myself & my decisions.

What she did created separation with other members of the family, which I think she quite likes but I don't get involved in the games.

It's your decision what you do, you have options it's not one thing or another though it might be somewhere in the middle. Is your parent making any effort with you to reconcile?

It's hard to judge without knowing what the crime was. Some crimes are heinous, others are meh.
If you miss your parent, and they didn't set out to hurt you, then I would try to forgive. Doesn't mean you always have to be in their company.

No regrets here. I wish I'd done it sooner. I got 15 years of NC peace before they died: I could have had 30.