To wonder what kind of partner would accept me being estranged from my family?

The reality is that sometimes it really is the best thing to go non contact. There are not very many who make that choice without a lot of thought and soul searching (there are some, as a way of punishing their parents for voting differently, or having different beliefs or because they are just incredibly entitled, but they're not the majority). And I am glad you made the right decision for you, though I know it leaves a forever wound.

A lot of people are honestly just a bit thick, and totally incapable of applying theory of mind to anything - you only have to see the screamy posts from people who made up their mind based on their own situation and feelings and seem incapable of critical thought on this site to know that.

But you seem intelligent and decent and self reflective, so I would think you will pick someone who is intelligent and decent and self reflective.

Any man who got to know you at all and was not willing to at least give you the benefit of the doubt and hold his tongue and his judgement would be doing you a big favour by letting you know he's not worth it.

As for other people, get used to lying. Just say your parents are dead and you are an only child. Simple. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with telling everyone that story. It's nobody's business but yours.

Haha yes that’s true , or someone who doesn’t like big chaotic families ie me .

I'm 51. I've been nc with my surviving parent for nearly 14 years and that will never change.

I have, of course, met people who have tried to 'fix' it; those who have suggested I would be happier if I 'let bygones be bygones'. I assume there are those who have wondered if I were the problem but no one has ever voiced it.

Fortunately for me, I suppose, my only sibling also went nc at the same time so that gives some validity to the 'she was the problem' narrative.

If I'm perfectly honest, though, I'd say the greatest problem I've experienced is that, 14 years on, her voice is still the loudest in my head and I've never found a way to silence it. I'm incredibly sensitive to criticism and perceived criticism from others and feel it where it might not be intended. In short, the damage caused before I went nc has been a bigger problem for me in relationships than the fact I am nc with her.

Over the years, ive developed a brief narrative to explain it very superficially. Whenever I've detailed any smal amount of what I went through with her, the overriding response is that I'm a strong person to have mentally survived it. I haven't really but I am alspmaware it could have been so much worse.

Well done for protecting yourself.

Like PPs I never realised how genuinely awful people could be until I met DH's family.

It is surprising and he might be curious but it is definitely not a show stopper.

Any decent person will understand when you explain it. Most people are fortunate enough not to have first-hand experience of extremely toxic families, so they might assume making up is the best thing to do. Again, no decent person will think you're in the wrong, but they might not understand at first.

Tbh I think a lot of people would be relieved that they didn’t have to deal with in-laws.

I am NC with my family, though I wasn’t when I met Dh (unfortunately, he had to go through the horror of becoming estranged, I bet he wishes now that I had been when I met him!). The right person will understand and support you. Also, there are huge numbers of people who are NC with their family. I mean, you may meet someone with a wonderful family and loving relationships with both parents and that’s great. But there’s every chance that you’ll meet someone who has a similar story to yours and very much respects your strength in making that decision.

As an example, Dh’s dad was an alcoholic and died from alcoholism a few years before we met. When he told me very early in our relationship, I didn’t think, oh god, red flag! I thought, wow, how incredibly strong he has been to get through all of that, and I was right. He’s a sensible, strong, lovely person, even though his parents had issues that were outside of his control. I admire him for how he handled it all and that was actually something I found attractive in him.

So what kind of man? Someone with a genuine caring heart, who wants a decent relationship, so be a woman who can give one ...

there are varieties of ways to present your birth connections to a man. Slowly, slowly, not making grand hateful statements about them - my husband saw it himself after they would call in our London studio flat and I would literally shake with sobs afterwards - this won his heart towards me even more

I am EU, came here as aupair. Was nc with the birth family, the amount of abuse they would try to cause on the phone was astonishing. Jealous I am abroad, wanting credit, why I date an English and not birth country's man....calling names, vilifying....I stopped complete contact.

My husband comes from a normal English middle average income family. His dad died of cancer and the mother almost collapsed before accidentally and luckily meeting another husband and putting all her emotional needs on him. So thanks to God this mum understood what having a nice partner means. She also wanted grandkids and her both sons were late 30s when I appeared on the scene. So I already had a friend in her.

my husband was lonely, lonely, lonely....I mean, lonely. A nice caring man, perhaps a bit shy, average income, a bit too intellectual for some women, not sure. He said English women or even Russian women he dated wanted money money money. I said: no worried, we are taking you as you are.

We are very compatible and have absolutely the same musical, cultural and religious tastes.

Well, hope that can give you inspiration

be honestly from the start, anything that is made to make u uncomfortable, have to explain yourself more or offers to
discuss how to get u back together get rid of!!
I didn’t speak to my mum and sister when I met my husband. We did reconcile down the line and they get on really good with him but 24 years later he uunderstands why I was apart from them at the time and never ever questioned it back in the day.

It s not so odd to go nc with all family members, perhaps because they're all still connected and in each other's lives. It's easier to go nc or low contact with all of them so you don't have to keep defending or explaining your position about going nc with specific ones. It's unfortunate but less stressful that way.

No, it's not.

I am saying I interpret the OP saying "I am estranged from my family" to mean several family members who are siblings or parents.

I certainly read it as plural - several members of the family.

I've no doubt there are many good reasons to go NC with adult children.

But I think going NC with several / all of your children is more unusual.

Your assumption is judgemental. There are people who choise to have no contact with their adult children with good reason too.

Been married over 10 years. Was estranged for around a year when I met my husband. He was very understanding as were his parents and they are my family now.

My husband met my father early on actually due to a death in the family and he very much understood why I was estranged from those 2 very brief meetings, probably just the first actually. He also supported me through legal estrangement at the time which was very stressful.

My boyfriend and his family prior did not approve as did a few people I met. But when you have the right people who know you, they will understand and support you.

I'd be worried about a partner who was no contact.m, and worry he would be odd/ difficult I hope I'd give him a chance to explain it though, and listen, and hopefully understand. I'm assuming the reason is traumatic.

100%. It’s frustrating to read some of the comments who I’m glad are lucky enough to never have experienced a family so toxic that you end up isolated. It can easily happen actually without you being at fault. Eg with me, I was essentially ostracised for cultural reasons around marriage/independence. I wanted to go to uni and live alone - was desperate to leave in fact as I had a dangerous mentally ill brother at home who my parents refused to accept was ‘really’ that bad. My narcissistic mom told close cousins after I’d left that I was partly responsible for my brother being unwell?! So even though up till then I’d been the one to give my brother and sister up to a thousand each for various things as I was working FT and helped my mom get her disability benefits and always be the one liaising with social workers, the doctor, his community nurse and one occasion the police - this is just who they were. To this day my mom is ‘upset’ I’ve done better in life single as she expected me to fail with no family support and go back home tail between my legs but I didn’t. In spite of them, I actually thrived. Due to the fact my brother is mentally unwell, I can’t quite go completely NC on my mom despite her treatment of me as she is getting old now and for my own conscious I check in just to make sure she’s okay as I know my brother wouldn’t even notice or care if she fell ill (they live together as he’s unemployed).

Thing is if you’ve not walked in the shoes of someone who’s experienced this, it’s easy to think it’s all very black and white but really it’s not and as PP have said, the right person will be emotionally intelligent enough to recognise this. I should add that I’ve never had this be an issue with any partner as due to my background, I’m fairly introverted and cautious in real life so prospective partners have no choice but to get to know me slowly anyway so this comes out quite slowly and organically anyway by which time they’ve had the opportunity to get to know the real you and not ‘judge’ you for being unlucky enough to be born onto a dysfunctional family and consequently alone.

Sometimes if you have a narcissist in the family, they can turn everyone against someone to basically isolate them, so they look like the problem instead of the narc. Read up on narcissism and smear campaigns, flying monkeys etc.

I think it’s a grey area tbh.

If a woman posted here that she’d started seeing a bloke and that he’d told her he was estranged from his family posters would be telling her to tread carefully until she knew more, and there absolutely are posters who would be saying that if he’s estranged from all of the family then it is likely him and not them.

And there absolutely are situations where this will be the case. Bear in mind that sometimes someone will tell you they’ve gone NC with their family when it’s the other way around.

And while there absolutely are good and valid reasons to cut off family, it’s naive to think that if someone cuts off their family they are always the one in the right and there is always a good reason.

You only have to look at MN to see the spurious reasons that people use for suggesting that someone goes NC with family.

MIL feeds the kids too many sweets/told off the three year old/doesn’t ever babysit and the list goes on.

And while many posters wouldn’t go there and will disagree on the threads in question, plenty of posters do, and would follow through.

So while it’s sad that it can be harder to gain acceptance there, it’s not that black and white. And neither does someone who doesn’t want to end up in the middle of what could be a toxic or damaging family dynamic make someone a bad person.

Bear in mind that many people who do go NC with family do also re-establish contact sometimes, and so if the reasons are sound, a prospective partner may not potentially want to become a part of that or potentially expose kids to it should the chance arise.

The right person will love and look after you and support your decision because if that

My dh has no contact with his birth family at all. He is a very very decent man, and it's clear that the matriarch of the family had such power over the rest of them that when he finally pulled away, the rest of them pulled together against him. I have learnt a lot about dysfunctional family dynamics, and turning against the one that gets away is quite standard.

My family of origin is more the bog standard slightly dysfunctional sort and there's been no going NC even though it hasn't always been easy. If someone goes NC, it's for good reason.

As someone who’s more or less had to do the same after being the family’s doormat most of my life, I’m really banking on exactly this.

This is one of those things where you really get to see what people are like. I have a friend who is universally beloved, goes out of her way to help people, people speak highly of, etc etc. I am estranged from a couple of my (druggie, criminal) siblings because they are abusive. My 'lovely' friend has made numerous comments to me since the estrangement about how she 'just doesnt understand it'. Its certainly put a massive wedge between us - because what she is really saying to me is that she is judging me negatively for my choices. It has really made me see her differently and see how judgmental she actually is.

I have no time for people who can only have empathy if they have the same experience themselves. If you meet someone who is a nice person, who you like and who treats people well then you accept that their choices happened for a reason. It might be hard to imagine being in that situation, but that is a you thing.

Estranged from mine for over 10years.
have had a couple of longish term relationships, one periodically prodded me with the old ‘you only have one mum/dad’ so I gave him a snap shot in detail, he never mentioned it again, others didn’t care a bit and although, I didn’t/dont need anybodies approval, they supported and agreed with my decision.
its so far down the line for me, I no longer need/want to talk about it, and am happy to challenge people who might pass judgy comments in a general discussion or my own circumstances. Also now I’m in my mid 40’s I couldn’t give 2 tits what another soul thinks about me or my story.

time helps so much for ‘us’ and with that time you get to quickly weed out those who don’t necessarily ‘fit’ in our lives or understand our rationale (not that it’s any concern to them)
the right life partner is there :) x

Hi op You should not be judge on this so many families are like this you need to put your feelings first. Only thing I would say is people who choose to do this you can’t be expected to know if they have died or are ill or when the funeral is. If you cut all ties then you basically are not entitled to be involved if the worst was to happen but if it makes your life easier I cannot see why a partner would care tbh some people just get shitty parents and they are not worthy of there child’s love. Toxicity is not something you have to deal with to please other people.

I’ve been estranged from my mum for years as she was extremely abusive when I was kid. We didn’t have a big family to begin with. I left my home town, travellled and eventually met someone whose family became like mine. I now have a 2 year old and finally feel like I have a family of my own. One day you’ll meet someone that will become your family